Coming up, a lot of NFL draft stuff, a lot of women's college basketball, and a lot of WrestleMania in WWE next. We're also brought to you by the Ringer podcast network, where I just put up a new rewatchables. It is rock bottom month. We did shot caller, me and Chris Ryan. I unveiled my prison movie mini pyramid. Put it online, too, if you want to check it out on Twitter. But my favorite prison movies ever. I feel like with prison movies, prison life has to be an essential part of a prison movie because there's been prison movies. Oh, that's in prison. It's a prison movie. Like, the rock is not a prison movie to me. I know it's in a prison, but it's not a prison life movie. I need prison life in my prison movies. So anyway, we did shock hour. Not sure what's gonna happen next week, but it will be another rock bottom one. So you can watch this on YouTube.com billsimmons. You can watch all the rewatchable stuff. You can watch all the stuff we are doing on this podcast as well. It's been a really fun ringer month. A lot of basketball going on, a lot of football, a lot of pop culture.

That means we had to adminic him. So we're going to talk about the draft. We're going to talk about the crazy women's college basketball month we're having. We're going to talk about what the hell is going on with the Patriots. Some possibilities for who the worst NFL team is. Motherhood. Fatherhood. A whole bunch of things. Yeah. And then it's like, is that enough of a podcast? No, actually, it's not. Brought in Araani and David Shoemaker, and we're gonna deep dive WrestleMania 40, which is coming this weekend, Saturday and Sunday. So this is a big, meaty, juicy podcast. Let's get to it. First, our friends from Pearl jam. All right. Our friend Mina Kymes is here. It's been a while. Last time you were here, you did not have a child. Now you have a child. The Patriots did not have a top three pick. Women's college basketball was not more popular than men's college basketball. I'm trying to think what else is there? And you, you quit the Nets.

I didn't. It's hard to follow the Nets right now. It's tough.

I didn't. The Nets were like, you dated them and it was like, this is going great. I really think we're going to have something. And then now you're like, you've blocked the calls.

I'm lying low. In five years, when we're back up, I'll jump back five years. I'm giving it five years. Yeah.

Let's start with NFL draft because this is, I'm just upset. We're going to talk about a bunch of stuff. I want to hit women's college hoops. I want to hit the Patriots. But let's start with the draft because we're all in this draft mode and it's an especially fun draft. I'm not just saying that because my team has the third pick, but there's really good arguments out of this. What's your favorite argument? I know you're dived into it. You're talking about NFL Live. You're talking about in your podcast. What's your favorite argument of all the arguments so far?

Ooh, um. I think Daniels versus May is pretty fun because I see both sides and I think that's my favorite kind of argument, is one where I think you can make a reasonable argument for either player, probably less sexy in a way, but whether or not the Cardinals and the Chargers and the Patriots should trade down is probably going to dominate, at least for on my end at NFL Live and what I do on my podcast between now and the draft.

So I just want to say this as a psa because I keep hearing it and it drives me crazy and it's like one of my all time sports pet peeves. It's like the Patriots are going to trade down for three first round picks. No, trading now for two first round picks because they're giving up their first round pick to move back. Let's say they do the Minnesota trade and they get eleven and 23 next year's first. Great. Oh, my God, they got three first round picks. No, they didn't. They moved back from three to eleven. So basically they got the 23rd pick and Minnesota's pick next year and maybe they're going to be like a middle of the road 15th team in the league. So you're basically moving back eight spots to get the 23rd pick this year, 15 pick next year. That's a bad trade, Mina. I need way more than that. I just want them to take Drake May. Just take Drake May.

Is that where you want? Okay, we haven't done this, so. Okay, so you're, you're on. Maybe.

Do you want to hear all my reasons?

I want to hear all your reasons.

Well, as you know, I come in off the top rope never watching any college football and then just learning on the fly. I like that he's from a sports family where he's the little brother and all the other brothers were really good athletes and his dad was a good athlete. And I do think there's a little brother thing where you're just like, you're trying to catch up to the older brothers and they're kicking your ass and they're throwing you against the sofa. They're just beating you up and you're just like, someday I'm going to be. And now he's this six 4230 guy. I love all the culture stuff. I love how leader, like, all of those pieces that he just checks all of those boxes and then if you're going to ding them on stuff, it's like, yeah, it's better two years ago than it was last year. There's some inaccuracy stuff with him. Kid's 21. Daniels is two years older than him, was in college for five fucking years, put a half a decade of college football and got to play with who's going to be the best left tackle next year, next year's draft and two top ten receivers.

I would hope he was really good. Last year was 23. So to me, it's like, I just, there's no right answer. But to me, May is like a safer upside bet. So where do you stand?

I agree with what a lot of you said, and I'll get into it, but before I get into, I guess, how I view may, I do want to ask, like, not to be football therapist here.

Yeah.

But after watching Mac Jones to a lesser degree, Brady near the end, do you, do you feel like you really, really want a quarterback with traits? Just listening to you talk about like, you've watched Josh Allen destroy your team. You've seen Justin Herbert here in Lamar Jackson, and you haven't had access to that. So Drake May's arm, the athletic ability, which, you know, Daniels has to, is that, like, would you say it's extra tantalizing to you because your franchise has been deprived of it?

Fair question. I like how you're thinking. Um, so here's the big thing with me, okay? I. We've gone through this so many years with so many guys that you almost have to look at the downside before you have to look at the upside. And the downside for me with May just isn't as bad as the downside with Daniels. And I think, by the way, if the Pats picked Daniels, I would talk myself into it in like, two days. I'd be like, oh, my God, this is the most exciting patriot we've had ever but, man, I like that he's big already. May 229, already six four. And I just, the more I watch football and we watch football every Sunday. We watch it on Thursdays. We watch it on Mondays. Now we're going to be watching it some Saturdays. I'm sure it's going to be on Wednesday and Christmas. But I want a quarterback who's either just an incredible athlete but also a little durable, or I want the sturdier, like durable, not like you're just going to get dinged up the moment you get hit. And that's like, I look at Josh Allen and he's like this physical specimen and it's like, could Drake may be in that physical specimen camp?

Daniels is on the oh, my God, you're such an unbelievable athlete camp. But man, two, he's 210. So how much is he actually going to weigh? He weighed 210 in his pro day. Like, what's the actual number going to be when the season starts? 02:05 that seems crazy to me.

Yeah. And his running style is a little bit unnerving because he's so upright when he runs and fearless. Fearless. And that's going to have to change. I will say one thing I do love about Daniels and his rushing ability is when you watch LC's offense, and that's the other thing. It's so different from USC and UNC in terms of the playmakers. Obviously, we talk a lot about neighbors and Brian Thomas junior, but, like, I don't think enough is talked about how great the LSU offensive line was again compared to these other quarterbacks. Yeah, but when you watch him on tape, it's, it is. I don't think. I think he's actually pretty dissimilar from Lamar in a lot of ways, but you see the similar effect on defenses where like, it's like the linebackers are kind of pulled on a string by him, the defensive ends are afraid to crash down because of his, his rushing ability and his willingness to run. That said, may, I think, is kind of underrated as a runner. First, the thing I love about him is he is not looking to run. He is scrambling to throw. He's always keeping his eyes downfield.

He makes some insane plays outside of structure, which is probably the thing I like best about him that are very Josh Allen esque. And his receivers let him down a lot with drops, but he's looking to throw. He's looking to attack downfield. I think that's super tantalizing, and I think that coupled with the athleticism, it's not hard to look at, you know, like the Allens, the Herberts of the world and see that in him. I don't know if he's going to reach that. Those are two quarterbacks, by the way. I was wrong about headed into the draft, so maybe I'm a little bit burned by that too, or at least afraid of missing out on that. But he definitely has probably. I don't know if he has the highest upside in class with Kayla Williams, but I do think I see the case for him having a higher ceiling than Jay Daniels.

Our guy Benny souls, Ben Solak, that shields nickname for him. He was saying he that he described Drake may as a big game hunter when he goes back and if you gave him the choice of just complete that easy twelve yarder or there's that guy with two guys right on him, but he's 40 yards downfield and the perfect throw, you might be able to hit him. He's just going to choose the crazy pass because that's how he's wired. He want, he, he always wants the big play, which I kind of like. But when people keep comparing him, like some people are like he's like Justin Herbert and then other people are like he's like Josh Allen. And I hear that I'm like, both of those sound great.

I would take either. I think he is kind of like Justin Herbert's arm and body with Josh young Josh Allen Brain, which is to say he sometimes gets the zoomies a little bit. You know, you remember the infamous, you know, he's ladder into a full back or whatever and yeah.

Left handed touchdown pass he did.

But I think both of those things do sound great and I think like I don't know why everybody's so down on him lately. I actually been like a little bit befuddled. I was talking to Phil Yates about this. It does feel like some of it was last season. There was definitely regression and his circumstances were not great at UNC. I don't think that can be stressed enough. You saw some occasional bad decisions, some bouts of inaccuracy. But to. So I feel like now at this point I'm hearing speculation and I'm sure a lot of it is total b's that JJ McCarthy might go bullet before him and or oh, he's going to drop in the draft. That blows my mind because like you, I feel like the tools are so tantalizing.

They talked on the Ringer NFL draft show, which is excellent this week. They talked about how do you, how do you assess age when you talk about quarterbacks specifically, how big of a factor or small of a factor should it be? But if you think about it just from a common sense standpoint, Jaden Daniels, who was not, I don't think he was a first round pick. If he had come out a year ago, right. And then he stays for the fifth year and his stock goes up. Now, this also happened in Burrow. So some people would say, well, Burrow came and he was awesome and it just took more time. But it's like, all right, well, Jada Daniels played the whole time. Borough kind of got screwed at OSU, he transferred. Maybe he should have been playing all along. But I look at May and it's the way I would look at this. Like if the Patriots brought me into their war room and the first question I would ask is like, are you picking between Daniels and me and May? Let's say May stays in college for two more years. What's he going to look like as a five year senior at whatever?

Let's say he transfers to Ohio State and he becomes a fifth year senior. Like he's going to be better than he is now. It's just common sense. So you have somebody that it's already a discussion. He's two years younger. It's almost, I think he's two and a half years younger than Pennix. So it's like, what are we doing? Like this is the worst he's going to be and it's only going to go up, Zachary.

And it's not about just time. It is funny, right? With the draft, we're like, oh, 23. Amazing. 24, you might as well go retire, right, geezer. But I do think it does, it is, to your point, more important when we evaluate quarterbacks because of the likelihood that they have reached their ceiling or for a player like May that he's far from it. And I think it. But it goes beyond just years. Situation matters a lot. So if we're asking the question, if you're the new England Patriots or I guess the Washington commanders are the team with the actual decision here, and you're saying, okay, do we think that may has a higher ceiling? Do we think Daniels has a higher floor? You're not just looking at Daniel's age and the fact that he's played a lot of football, you're also considering the fact that he's played a lot of football in perfect environments like at LSU. Again, I cannot stress enough, like how unbelievable. And Pennix, same, I would say McCarthy, Bo Nicks, all four of those quarterbacks were in amazing situations. But just to focus on Daniels, like, again, it's a great situation, great pick calling.

I think, you know, you had coaching continuity. Compare that to Drake may where the weapons are not good, you had, you know, you lose talent, the offensive line is terrible, you're changing your offensive coordinator and you couple that with the age and that definitely factors into the floor ceiling calculus.

I think it has to. It's weird because it's become more of a discussion in basketball, and I think in basketball there's even less of an answer. The one thing we've learned is like, if you're a team like the Lakers and you want to try to be competitive on a short window with somebody like LeBron and you have this 18th pick, like they took some 19 year old point guard who's not going to play this year, and it's like if you do that again, maybe you take Hawkes because he's at least like a role player right away and he's more of a finished product. When you're talking about franchise qbs, it's so funny that we have more and more information every year. We have more and more data about what works, what doesn't work, and yet we still have no idea what we're talking about in any context. And it's still a coin flip. So it's almost like, I look at Daniel, it's like he might be awesome, but then he could also take some hit and get hurt. And you're like, well, I told you he was going to be a bust. And it becomes down in the coin flip of Kenny, stay healthy.

I just watching some of those clips, you know, they have those YouTube clips now where you can just watch every snap from a game. The hits he takes are like horrifying.

Yeah.

Like if he was your son in the stands, you would be having a stroke every time he scrambled. You'd be like, oh, no, no, just go down. Just slide, slide.

Yeah, I would say I think he got better at it. It really started off with the worst possible with the FSU game where he hurdles into the wall and I think that was probably his worst game, too. And then you see him get better at it. I do think he can get better at it in the NFL, but I worry about it, especially given the two teams that he would be most likely to land on. Two teams with a lot of question marks. Washington, you have good skill players. I think that offensive line is a huge question mark. They added some veterans. It's still not, I'd say, below average. And then in New England, I mean this. We can talk about this like I think really have. Well, let me ask you this, because I think I told you this.

What are we doing? Is a good question.

Do you agree with me? Whoever New England takes at three, they probably shouldn't play at first.

I would not play them. Yeah. Okay. They have no left tackle. They have no real receivers that I would say are even above average. Kendrick Bourne's probably the best one. Coming off a torn ACL surgery. Yeah, coming off a torn ACL surgery. Just point that out. I like Douglas. Yeah, but, yeah, Douglas. Okay.

I like them as twos and threes, you know?

Yeah. I would say if you're just going skill weapons crossed with offensive line and you're ranking all the teams, they're 31st or 32nd. It's just a fact. So you're going to put a 20. Let's say they take Drake. May, here's our 21 year old QB. Good luck, man. Kendrick Bourne, his knees 88%. That's your number one receiver. Oh, we still don't have a left tackle, but we kind of like this guy. We signed off somebody's practice squad. Stay tuned. You know, the bigger question to me is, like what? They had all this cap space. They didn't use it. I don't understand. Like even if it had been whoever, Tyron Smith for one year, like at least, like if you know you're going to take a rookie QB, at least have some sort of safety calculus and they just didn't do it. Washington's in a little bit of a different spot, though, because they have the same issues, but they have so many picks. I feel like they could probably address a lot of this, right?

Yeah, I think so. And you know, because you already have a number one wide receiver and McLaurin Dotson, who I think is really good too, as he's a great number two.

I like Brian Robinson, too. Yeah, I'm still in on him.

You, you have flexibility there to continue addressing the offensive line. No doubt. You also have Cliff Kingsbury, strangely, as your offensive coordinator, which isn't kind of an odd pairing with these rookie quarterbacks. I mean, to that I did like New England going out hiring Alex Van Pelt from Cleveland. I like the system that I think they're going to run there. I think it could be very friendly to it. It's really good for Jacobi Brissette, who that, that was like the one thing New England did that I liked, that they brought him in as a bridge quarterback because, because you have Brissette, let's say you spend your other draft picks on a tackle and a wide receiver. You have a quarterback who, you know, okay, we, we can actually have a competent offense. We can develop the young players so that next year or at the end of the season, whatever, when Mayor Daniels is ready to play, we will be in a better situation than we were. I understand that line of thinking. I just don't under, I don't get why with so much money going into the season, they weren't more aggressive knowing that they're probably going to take the rookie quarterback.

Well, my hope is that the plan was we're just going to use this to resign some of our guys who are free agents in a year. We're going to sit the rookie quarterback, we're going to stink for one more year and then 25 will be our year. That's the only way it makes sense. Otherwise, it doesn't. But I think Washington, Daniels goes to Washington. There is a path where they could be good right away. Cause he's older, like he's, you know, he was in a pro offense last year with pro weapons and did great. They could use a bunch of those picks to build up. You said they had the receiver, which is a good point. That's that Pat's don't have anyone close to McLaurin and they have new coaching staff coming in. I don't know, it just seems like Washington seems like a better situation than Chicago's. I think one of the best situations anyone's come into. You know, you look at like all the franchise guys over the last 25 years, almost always is it, it's bad. You know, it's like you get your ass kicked for a year, two years, whatever it is, and then the team starts to turn.

I don't see that happening in the Bears. I mean, they are in a good division, but yeah, no, I think I've.

Been a really big fan of like everything they've done, frankly, this offseason in terms of on the offensive side of the ball. And I like Caleb Williams a lot. You know, you and I are arguing about. Not arguing, we're talking about may versus Daniels being the debate. I mean, we're. Where I work, it's Daniels versus Williams. I don't know if you have encountered.

Is that for just discourse because we're just hitting April or people really think that's an argument?

People really think, like I work a decent amount of my colleagues truly believe it and I, I believe them. Like, I think they have conviction that I completely disagree with it and maybe I'll prove to be wrong. I think Williams was my number one pretty unambiguously going into this process. And then right at the Super bowl when I said, I do my every year, as soon as the confetti falls right before the combine, I take a couple days and I just sit down and watch the top quarterbacks. Right. As many games as possible. And after going through that process, I believed more in Williams than I did during the college regular season.

So the knock on him, six one, right?

He's dense, though. He's, he's like a young wrestler style.

Thick. Six one thick. Exactly. A little sloppy with the ball. They're thinking like, eh, is he a little too loose with the pig skin?

He holds on to it too long.

That's, that's the, by far the biggest thing on him is, it's funny because like, there's a lot of, I wouldn't say this, there's debate about this, but there's a lot of talk about how he's like the Zoomer quarterback. He paints his nails, he has a pink phone. Oh my God, what does it mean? He wants equity. But like the thing where the Zoomer thing shows up more is in his style of play, right? Yeah, it kind of is. Like, you know how people always say, oh no, what if kids grow up thinking they can be Steph and just taking those types of shots and they really shouldn't try with Williams and some other young quarterbacks. I need to may to some degree too. It's like, oh, this is the generation that grew up watching Patrick Mahomes and thinking like, ah, I should try to do those.

You think he's like the first of this new generation?

It's funny cause he's a little more like Rogers than Mahomes to me. And when you like the way he throws and the way some of these off platform throws look. But yeah, like, which is, again, Rodgers was doing that before Mahomes, but yeah, I do think there's a little bit of that. Like he plays like a zoo. He holds on to the football really long trying to make plays and way too long, a very untenable time for an NFL quarterback. Like his average time to throw like his, the precedent for quarterbacks who take that long is not good in the NFL, including the quarterback he's replacing in Chicago. But when you go back and watch, and this was what was really striking to me, a lot of it was out of necessity. I mean, that offensive line, USC was bad. The weapons were not great. The offense was not great. Um, and you could just feel him getting frustrated in games and leaning to it. But when he did get rid of the ball quickly or throw the ball short or in structure, it looks great. He's super accurate. He's great mechanics. So I'm not worried about him because it's really more about willingness than ability.

I'm not worried about him at all. Maybe I should be, but I'm just not. I think he's going to a great situation and that city's, I don't think there's a city that would appreciate having a good quarterback more than the city of Chicago and the entire Bears fan base. All he has to do is be awesome, awesome for two games and that he's going to be like the biggest hero in the city. There's, it's not even close. And that he's going to get so much love and affection and just everything from being fun to watch and confident. Like, I just, the only one who could screw that up is him. It's, everything's there for him, even that Keenan Allen. What the fuck was that trade? What was the fourth round pick like? Keenan Allen's good. He gets drafted in fantasy drafts still.

Haven't you kind of felt like that, though, this entire off season with every trade? Like, that's it.

Like, well, until the Reddick trade, that was the one when the jets, they let huff go and then somehow they're using a pick to get Redick. I'm like, yeah, why didn't you just keep huff? Like, I don't understand what you're doing. But the jets are like, we're all in. No, really? Watch this. We've traded another thing away. We're all in.

Are you, do you have zero confidence in the, in the jets and the all in approach?

Yes, because their coach is Robert Salah. If they were all in, they should have hired Mike frable. Then I would have been like, oh, you guys really are all in. You got a real coach finally. I don't know that they're like, yeah, you're for Robert Sala, QB, coming off a torn achilles who's in his forties, and this is it. It just feels like a classic kind of a train headed toward, of going off the track, maybe, but I kind.

Of like every player that they added.

I know Mike Williams signing was good.

And Smith was really good. I know he hasn't played a full season in like nine years, but he was really good last year, is a really good pass rusher. I mean, I think the offensive linemen that they added were good, like John Simpson and Maury Moses out of Baltimore. But like, yeah, you know, and I think they didn't have a choice but to be all in, right? I mean, you really have this year. You kind of got to make it work.

I mean, not again. I like Mike Williams. I like that they got a left tackle. But I let the records. Let's take a break cause I got a little more football for you. Grand slams, no hitters, double plays, they are all back. There's no better place to get in on the MLB action than Fanduel, America's number one sports book right now. New customers can start the MLB season with $200 in bonus bets if your 1st $5 bet wins. John Jestremski has a really fun way to do this. He bets on total bases for hitters that he thinks are going to go on a hot streak, like he's been doing with Juan Soto. And he'll just bet like Juan Soto. Plus 1.5 total bases, which single, double triple homer. And you just hope he has either two singles or a double or a homer and you win the bet, usually plus odds, too. You can do it. That's $200 you can use to bid on moneylines, total strikeouts, homers, you name it. Or combine your bets in the same game, parlay all on an app that's safe, secure, super easy to use. All you have to do is visit fanduel.com b's and join today.

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Oh God.

I was talking to a Pats fan friend about my, about this the other day and I was like, I think the Pats are the worst team in the AFC. Like, I don't even think, and I let guys on our defense, but I was like, I, I don't know how we're not the worst team in the AFC. And then we started arguing about it, but how many? Carolina is obviously the nadir of the league and, and probably the worst constructed team we've had in the last decade, but other than that, and maybe the Pats, are there any other stinkers that you're just like, oh, man, it's bad. Would you put the Giants in there?

Ooh, that's an interesting one. They did make some pretty good. I think the defense is going to be better.

They have a pass rush and.

Yeah, if they. Right, yeah. I mean, that defensive line is going to be really scary. And then if they throw in like a Malik neighbors or Marvin Harrison junior, I think the offense can go back to being functional. I think this probably, I'm very curious to see what happens with Daniel Jones this year and if they do actually play in the entire.

Which part are you curious of how they approach it?

Because this is like, his contract is guaranteed for injury next year, so at some point they might pull like a Russell Wilson Denver thing. Right? Where they're like, I really want him to get hurt and I don't know if he doesn't play well, so that'll be interesting. Did you catch that whole thing with Drew Locke and John Scheider?

You like, but you like Drew Locke, right?

No.

You kind of, you kind of enjoyed him on the Seahawks. A tiny bit like a whiff. You weren't against him.

I enjoyed the Eagles game with the moment that he had with Geno Smith. No, but when John Schneider, I think he was on Seattle radio, their GM said, oh, we wanted to bring back Drew, but the Giants told him he could compete for the starting job. And the Giants were immediately like, no, no. And I think Drew said, it has been conveyed to me that I'm not the starter. I got me thinking like, why don't more GM's do that to plant dissent or stir things up?

Because it was very like some underhanded just trying to start the session with another team, the Giants. The Giants over under right now, Fanduel is six and a half and that seems to me. Yeah, really? That seems high. The Patriots are five and a half and Carolina, God only knows how low that is. What's Arizona Carolina? Carolina's five and a half. Arizona six and a half, which is everybody's favorite bet. Everybody's in. I know multiple people have already bet that.

Really?

Yeah. Over. Yeah.

I don't know.

They had some momentum last year, full year Kyler, fourth pick in the draft. My guess is they're trading back at least two spots and still ending up with the receiver. I just feel like McCarthy is going to go for and we didn't talk about him.

I. Yeah, I. What's the Chargers? Cause that's team that I think is fascinating because I think they're a really bad team. With a really good quarterback and a good coach.

So the, the Chargers is shockingly high. It's eight and a half, which is basically all her. But our Harbaugh and Herbert, I'm gonna have trouble saying that all season, but it's basically like just the faith in those two guys and nothing else. They don't have the talent.

I mean, the receiver group I, when they traded with Keenan Allen's, my first reaction was the Herbert apologists, aka the entire ringer NFL staff is going to be living next, feasting next year because, and I'm a fan of his game, too.

But that, I mean, yeah, you're in there. You've gone to a couple meetings.

Yeah, but we are quietly stoked because excuses next year are going to be so legitimate.

Do you think that the kickoff rule is going to add more randomness to the season and the playoffs? I was trying to figure out, like, should this actually be a bigger deal that this happened? Because right now we special teams, we had no randomness other than a missed p, a t or a missed field goal. But now you could like, what if the Chiefs lose in round one? Because in that weird kickoff role, all of a sudden a team bust an 80 yard kickoff, four minutes left, we're like, wait, what? Just the Chiefs are out of the playoffs because of this dumb rule. I was surprised they didn't wait a year to do it.

I think that the numbers for when it's been implemented was implemented in like, the XFL kind of bore out similar results. You get more kickoff returns, obviously, because of the new touch pack. But I think, like, in terms of, like, I don't think that many of them actually popped out. I remember watching an XFL game where it did and it's, it. It's interesting, though, because one obviously looks very different. And I think people are going to complain a lot when they see it at first because it's just so weird. Um, but when it happens, like, with, right now with kickoffs, you see it. This is partially why it's both a, dangerous and b, exciting, which is you see it coming and you kind of see like, oh, my God, he's got an angle and, ah, it's happening. It's happening. And then, whereas with the new rule, it's going to be. It's just going to happen really fast. Right? Like it's, it's like Red Rover. Like the guy's going to break through and all of a sudden, oh, my God, he's going.

He's gone.

Yeah, but it doesn't. But it didn't happen that much, I believe. I don't have the numbers in front of me, but I think they're confident enough that. Yeah, like, it won't dramatically change the number of huge special teams place.

Is there any way you're not picking the Chiefs to win the Super bowl? They're plus 650.

No, I mean, I guess we got.

To see what happens with this Rashid rice thing. Not great, but. Yeah, considering they. I wouldn't say they have a shitload of good players. They kind of need him. Yeah.

I mean, they need a corner, too.

That was. I was weird. Where were the Patriots on that one?

But that's what I'm saying. This was my point. Like, there's been all these trades this offseason where you're like, damn. Like, you could, like, they're really good.

Players and like, t Higgins could be the next one. There was Ayuk stuff, but I just think he's too good. I can't imagine they would trade Ayuk, you know?

I don't think they will, but they're facing a difficult decision that is very foreign to you as a Patriots fan, which is. What do you do when you have two good receivers? Right. Like, it's. It is the Higgins.

I don't know what that feels like.

It's. There's so little precedent for teams paying two receivers. Yeah. Patriots should trade for Higgins, by the way. It's so obvious now. What did you say it. But, yeah.

Couldn't we trade the top pick and our top picking the third round for Higgins? Like, right now?

Future something or the other?

My question is, I don't think I worth the first. Really?

Well, I think so. I think he's.

No, I mean, for. From a bad team. Like, if I. I think it's in that 20 to 35.

Yeah, yeah, yeah. Sorry. Yeah.

You're not giving up, like, the 10th pick in the draft form, but when you go, like, the pats have the. I think the 35th pick for Higgins, and that doesn't seem. I mean, for iuk, that doesn't seem like quite enough. Like, we'd almost like we'd have to trade the 35th and something else. But if you're in that, I don't know, 15 to 25 range, I think. I thought that guy was just awesome last year.

I think he's like, we each have all these new wide receiver metrics where they're like, open score and catch score, where they're actually measuring what receivers are really doing in their separation, considering routes and things like that. And he always tests off the charts on our advanced measures, because he just gets so open. He's a number one. The problem is he plays on a team where, like, at every position there's a number one.

Right. He almost gets lost.

I do think that they're going to be able to thread, I don't know. This is based not on actual reporting, but I think they'll thread the needle where, like I said, I don't think they can pay 2 hours. Here's. I don't think anyone can because of how much top receivers make now, and also because of we were able to find in the draft where these young receivers come in and are awesome. So I think what they'll have to do with him and Debo and Barack is pay Ayuk now, then let Debo go a year later, and then you pay Brock whatever you end up paying him. So you have one year of Debo and Ayuk because Brock is on an unbelievably cheap contract. It's like with Burrow, right, for years. Because, I mean, they weren't paying Higgins, but because he was so cheap, it wasn't a question. Well, or actually, Herbert is a better example because he was on a rookie contract when they paid both Allen and limbs Debo.

To me, there's a little Marcus smart element to him where the way he plays, it's like he's only 28, whatever he is, but it's like, man, he's took a lot of huge hits the way they use him. And I just, I don't know what that's going to look like three years from now. And I'm sure they're thinking that, too. I know that's one of the reasons they were hesitant to even pay him in the first place. But, yeah, you know, certain positions, you're just taking a. Taking a ton of abuse. The Dak story. You think this is a story or a fake story?

I truly can't tell. You know, are they gonna actually let him come free agent?

Because for what it does to their cap, it's a borderline throwing away the season. I mean, it's gonna have somebody count $55 million in your cap. Like, that's crazy. Nobody does that.

And they could not have played it any worse. I mean, a lot of that is not their fault, at least recently, because the original sin was just not getting a contract done earlier because they didn't quite believe in him. It was like the Kirk Cousins in Washington, but like a smaller sort of scale version of that. Because I think actually they're both fourth round picks. Right. So they both played it. Both Dak and Kirk played it. I feel like we talk about Kirk and how, well, you know, he's a legend at the bank, Kirk Cousins. But Dak Prescott has taken a pretty similar path in terms of, like, he came off like a really brutal injury and said, nope, I'm, I'm going to keep pushing and pushing it and pushing with his contract. So credit to him. Um, I think, like, I doubt some Dallas fans get mad at me every time I say, you should obviously pay him. You're not going to upgrade, because they're thinking as well, you know, we, we hit this ceiling in the playoffs every year, and when you're talking about paying him, it's going to be like an, a jarring amount of money.

I get that. But I just don't see a path for them to upgrade at quarterback.

I mean, well, you saw it this winter with like, hey, Gardner Minshew. Two years, 25.

Yeah. Segments I've done on Fields versus Wilson already on ESPN and how many I yet to do this summer.

That's good content, though. I'm in on all Fields versus Wilson segments. Fields is the one I don't get because to me, it's like, if you're Vegas, I would just rather have Fields. Let's look at it for a year. He was in a weird situation. Everything changed every year on him. Let's at least see it. I kind of know what I'm getting with Minshew. Ken, I'm switching gears. So when did you have your baby?

September 27.

So I told Chang, I said, when you have the first kid, it's like, for people who are professional psychos like us, the first kid, it's like a torn ACL where you can, you can compete. You just, you don't have the same speed and you don't, you can't really cut the same way, but you learn how to rehab and get through it. And then I told him, the second kid is the torn Achilles, and you can rehab from that and you can still, you can still move in the same way, but deep down, you know, like, athletically, you're never the same. And after he had his two kids, he was like, you were so right. You were so right. So what's it been like to try to follow the season and the draft, but you also have this new thing in your life, motherhood.

Yeah, it was. He was born, like, during the heart of the NFL season, which was kind of crazy. So, yeah, I didn't time that out super perfectly on my end, but. So I didn't take a huge amount of time off, only took away two months. But a lot of my work is at home now. So actually it was not super difficult. But now he is like, as he amasses agency and mobility. Yeah, mobility is tough. I'm about, I'm. He's right at the point where he's like, crawling. He's in a four point stance, kind of rocking, and then crawling changes everything.

I'm going to have to want them in the Peyton Manning. They can't move. They're never going to scramble mode. You don't want Jaden Daniels. When they got the Jaden Daniels mode, that's a nightmare. Soon as they can stick their fingers in sockets and pull bookshelves on top of themselves, it's a whole other level. It's just a constant nightmare.

Also enormous. Oh, I think I've sent you a couple photos, but I think it's been a while. I mean, you know, 94th percentile, no big deal.

Wow.

I mean, we just did, though, the six month measurement and weight is, you know what it is. But height, it's a lot like these pro days where you're not really sure if the measurement is accurate. And one nurse will come in and give him, you know, she's, she's like, oh, wow, he's only 42nd height. And then the second nurse is like, let me do a remeasure. And she's like, wow, 95th. And I'm like, well, how do we go from. And he's like, waitlan on the chart or whatever, doing the cone drill. But yeah, he's a big dude. And I'm not huge myself, but I was a gigantic baby, which I've been told is predictive.

Interesting. Yeah, well, I'll see. It'll be an interesting next twelve months for this, for you, because once they start moving, you got that part. Once they. Once they can really start figuring out stuff and how to stand and walk and do that, then that's, that's a whole element. But, yeah, I'm, I'm interested. I'm interested for the updates.

Were you, like, locked in onto milestones with your kids? Cause I am not. And I sometimes feel like I should be like, whenever you see someone, they're like, okay, well, is he gonna transfer one object to another object or can he?

No, it's never like that. It was like little checkpoints, right? When they can, they can stand and go and hold themselves up and they're like, look, I'm standing, I'm holding myself up. But, you know, the dangerous part is when they. When they can open doors and leave rooms, which is around, like, 18 months.

That's when the velociraptors in Jurassic park. That's what you're saying.

Once you hit that, then there's like, there's some of them will just, you know, do the swan dives out of the crib. So you got that factor, too. It's just basically, you're just hoping something horrible doesn't happen every second of the day for two years.

The thing that cracks me up is, I guess now it's a little bit less of a silly question. But for the first four to five months of his life, people would always ask me, like, what's he like? What's his personality? Or what do you think he's gonna be into?

I'm like, he's like a blind blob. He's shitting on himself.

It's like. It's like trying to project a 22 year probably. I don't know. He could be anything. He could be Josh Allen. He could be Jamarcus Russell. I don't know. Sorry, baby, for listening to this. And I just come to Jamarcus Russell.

What's funny is it comes full circle. Cause the first two and a half years, you're just constantly trying to prevent them from doing something horrible to themselves. Right? And then eventually they start figuring out, and then it's good for a while. And then they hit 1516. And now you're back to being constantly worried again. It's like, I'm going out. I'll see you later. It's like, where are you going? What time are you coming? Then. Then you're back to where they were when they were, like, 18 months. So you have that to look forward to way down the road. How much march madness have you watched? And have you watched more men's than women's?

More women's. Although I am very dialed into the. Is DJ.

Yeah, definitely the whole NFL prospect story about him.

Yeah.

Multiple. Multiple NFL evaluators say that he could have a pro day.

I actually looked up. I tried to enter his height and weight into, like, mock draftable to figure out who the comps were. I think the closest I could come up with was Kaleius Campbell, because that's the other thing. People had him as an offensive tackle talking about the NC state center. And I don't know why I just did that by ESPN radio Tech. And he's. He's, like, too skinny to be an offensive tackle, but he's not rocked up enough to be a pass rusher. I think maybe tight end is probably the actual.

I was going to say. Every story I read, I was like, how are we not talking tight end for this? Like, we already have, like, the legacy of basketball going to football. He has the hands. He's got size. He could block. That was where my head went.

That usually also, with a basketball player, you should just go, there's a reason why it's like a meme, right? That, oh, I used to play basketball because it does. That's the skill set that translates the most. I will say, I don't know if I've ever told you this before. I did a story on Zion. Did I tell you this before the draft? I went to North Carolina, and South Carolina, I was supposed to have access. And then the day before his people canceled on me, it was. This is back when I was a writer. I know. Don't you miss it? I would fly places, and then they'd be like, oh, yeah.

Just fall apart at the last.

It's not available. Sorry. And, you know, this was Zion. Duke was, like, the biggest story in America at the time. So I went to his high school in Spartanburg and ended up writing about that, and I met a teacher of his, and it was great. But the thing I found out there was that his high school in Spartanburg, it's where the Panthers practice, or at least at the time they practice, like, the Carolina Panthers. And his high school didn't have a football team, the only basketball team, which might be why we lost him. Uh, and they were saying, the Panthers coaches, you should come and watch and just salivate. Watching him just be like, come on, just get him in a three point stance, because he literally has the exact same measurables as Julius Peppers. Like height, weight, all of it. And I think he would. Awesome, awesome. Don't you feel like he could have been a pass rusher?

Like the butt, you know, it would have been amazing. There's certain guys, like, they always said the LeBron wide receiver thing would have been amazing if he had actually been interested in that. Just because of the height.

Yeah.

Yeah, I was. Even when you look at Zack Ed, it's like, could you put Zack Ed? Just put a helmet and some pads on him? And when you're inside the five yard line, he just becomes a lob pass guy. Cause you're not allowed to touch receivers anyway.

Zachary, you know, that's always my thinking. But then it's like, it doesn't work in the NFL because they don't have the movement skills. There's a receiver in this draft, Johnny Wilson, probably end up playing tight end who's like six seven, and when you watch him, you're like, oh, that's. That looks like a basketball player playing football, but he actually has ball skills.

So when I was growing up, the Eagles had Harold Carmichael when they would show the halftime highlights, and he was like, the six eight receiver, and they would throw these alley passes to him. It was unstoppable, and it was, like, the coolest thing. And it's just gone from football now. There's no alley passes anymore. Cause there's no six eight receivers.

Why? Why don't they have super tall guys who try to block field goals or super little guys who score?

This is. I would have one, like, seven footer on my roster just for field goal blocks and alley oops near the. Near the corner. So who are you rooting for in the woman's? I feel like we all had to, like, kind of pick a team.

Did we?

I picked USC. I was actually. I bet on them. I was legitimately bummed out. I was at a bar in Boston last night, and I asked them to turn on the USC game, and I was like, that's a first for me. I've never asked a bar. A bar bartender to turn on women's game. But that's like, I care more about them than the men's. This year, I've been. I've just really enjoyed it. I think it's been really good basketball.

Yeah, I mean, we're still buzzing from the high of LSU, Iowa right now.

A day later, sporting event of the. Of the year.

So far, I am sort of faintly rooting for South Carolina because I love Don Staley. That's the other thing. Women's basketball is on fire right now because the talent and the players and the superstars and everybody, they're like household names and huge characters right on all of these teams. Paige, you know, angel, Caitlin, obviously. But the other thing, I think that gets kind of unmoticed or, like, maybe underplayed, maybe not underplayed, but I think is like, the coaches are just as big of characters.

It's like what the eighties were like.

Yeah.

We used to have, like, the Big east. Every school had a coach who was like this, like, legitimate a list character, like Luke Carnesecca, Raleigh Massimino, John Thompson. And it feels like that's happened in women's to the kind of the same parallel.

And I think that they have more beef than the actual players. Have beef and you, like, I kind of want to see Don versus Geno in the. You know, like, I mean, I love watching Iowa, and I'll be disappointed if we don't get to see Kaylin Kirk go for the finals, but, like, I love these coaching matchups, and I love Dawn Staley. Like, I think she's probably my favorite coach in almost any sport right now.

That Caitlin game last night was. And I didn't get to watch it cause I was doing an event, so I had to come back and, like, zoom through it. Oh, like that. The revenge factor of it. There's definitely. She has that quality that a lot of the great athletes have where they, like, there's, like, a grudge factor. It's almost like, I wish we could insert this into the NFL draft prospect. Like, what's your grudge? There's no way to figure this out. What's your grudge factor? Should be one of the interviews. In the interviews that should. What's been the three maddest you've ever been at somebody, and how did you get revenge on them? I'd almost want to know the answer, but it seemed like she had it. She was so good in that some of the shots she hit, like, there were a couple step backs that were legitimate curry step backs. They were inconceivable.

Inconceivable. And, like, so many he check moments, too, in that game.

Totally.

Yeah, it was kind of so. My husband doesn't watch. He's not a sports guy or whatever, but, yeah, he was walking by. I feel like a lot of people had this experience where this was. He's seen a couple of games. He was watching the LSU South Carolina game when they got the fight with me at the end or when that happened, and he was drawn into that. But anyways, he was. He was watching by, and he just, like, could not stop watching her, and he was just riveted by it. And I think that's an experience, like, at houses across the country that were having that. I don't feel like it's overstating it to say she's, like, a transformational athlete, and I don't feel like, by the way, that's discrediting all of the other amazing women's college basketball players currently before her whatnot. Obviously, that's, you know, we're at this moment in large part because of that, but it takes nothing away from them to say that, like, this is a person who has riveted the country.

That's really well said, because I think what's special about it. It's. It's, to me, is exactly what the Curry Davidson thing was like for two years, but on a way bigger level with more stakes and more scrutiny. You know, like Curry when he on Davidson was like, oh, this is super fun. Del Curry's son. Whoa, look at the shooting range on this kid. He looks like he's four years old. And it was fun. But this is the fact that she's had real adversity and, you know, that she stayed with the team that she's, you know, we got to watch them last year and they lost, and now they're back and they're trying, and that's what college sports used to be about, and that's what's been lost on the men's side to some degree. But is one of the cool things about the Purdue story. Whereas, like, Zack, 80, is like, I want to come back. I want to see if we can actually win this. It's like, let's come back. And, you know, I feel like we have a history with that team a little bit. But the Iowa, you know, I don't think it's overstating it to say she.

She has a chance to be on that level with some of the people that feel like they tilted a sport in a different direction. You know, Tiger did that in golf. Steph did that with three point shooting. You could go on and on. There are examples of this. I think Felix Serena did that with women's tennis where it's like, whoa, where are we going with this? And it feels like it's happening with her. And then all the imitators are going to come in seven, eight years. You know, the generation of girls who are like 8910, who are just like, I want to shoot like her.

I was going to say that's the next step. Youth basketball coaches are like, stop trying.

Please don't. Don't imitate.

Yeah, no, I. So did you read Wright Thompson did a really good piece on her, or ESPN, and a lot of it was about her psychology, which is like what you described. I really think that sort of insane grudge factor, which is so amazing and so amazing to read about a female athlete, the perils of navigating fame at that age and the level of fame. But a lot of the piece was about how she had learned to basically play with her teammates who candidly are not as good as right and then not get frustrated and to involve them. And she's played with some good players over the years, but I think this team was perceived as a bit weaker coming into this. And that adds this, like, extra layer of interest to me because she's. We were talking about the shooting. She's such a good bastard. She had some pretty. Some sloppy, some turnovers in this one, but she has some really, really cool passes in. And I feel like, I'm like, oh, I'm watching a show where this is the main character, but I remember a lot of these guys from season two. Oh, yeah.

Like Gabby and, you know, Kate and, like, I'm like, toyovice.

It's like, hey, the sergeant.

Oh, don't say we're two of the.

Only people who watch Tokyo Vice.

Why don't people watch Tokyo Vice? Can we use this platform to get. Spread the word?

I would urge people to give Tokyo Vice a chance. I'm with you on the passing. Like, honestly, some of her passes are. Are breathtaking, and she's doing it a step before you realize that the pass was even there, which is like that last step for the great passers. And I wonder, like, when she finally goes to the next level, when she's playing with better teammates, the passing is going to be what stands out. Cause it's gonna be harder for her to shoot with. There's gonna be more size, there's gonna be deep. But the way she uses her teammates, that's what I really love. I just like watching her. I really. It's funny. Cause Juju, who unfortunately lost last night, but different side of different kind of an arc. Cause she was always the best.

Yeah.

Like, from fifth grade on, she was the best in her class year after year after year. We knew about her in LA when she was, like, in 6th grade, and she was always the best. Always the best. Always the best, but really still wants it. And to me, she looks like Taurasi. And I watch her, I'm like, she's like, a faster taurasi in the way.

Skill level.

Oh, my God. She's the way. When she goes coast to coast and can, like, basically do these pseudo euro steps. Jesus Christ. I didn't know women could play basketball like this.

She's so far from her final form, too. That's the other thing I mean, you talked about, like. Because I think that's the thing that is maybe. Well, obviously, people who cover this sport talk about all the time is the difficulty of transitions. WNBA much more so than, you know, much more so. But it is very hard to be impactful. We see that all the time with these college superstars. And you talked about Caitlin, who I think is going to like, her passing is going to just get better and better in the league. And you think about how freaking young Chuchu is, and, yeah, it's unbelievable to me, like, as her game matures, how good she.

Like, she.

To me, like, she. We're. It's funny because we're coming off talking about the NFL draft and floors and ceilings. I think her ceiling is maybe as high as any player I've ever watched.

I agree. She'll be the face of the sport next year. I was watching with my daughter last night near the exact same age and wearing. She was in a different school in LA, but they were, you know, so it's gonna be one of those, like, when she retires from the WNBA when she's 37. I'm like, oh, my God, my daughter's so old. But I was like, this kid's the same age as you. Playing on ESPN, playing in front of 25,000 people with a shitload of pressure on her and a game people can bet on, like, can you imagine that? She was. My daughter was just like, oh, my God. But this is. She's kind of built for this. Pretty interesting, though, the. In general, that last basketball weekend, it really felt like college basketball. That was, like, the first time in a while I felt like everybody I knew was talking about some aspect of it in the last few years. All those Saturday games on the women's side, but then the men's games and what's UConn. It was fun. It was a weekend that I had felt like was kind of dying in some ways.

Now it feels like it's a little bit alive again.

Yeah, this march around us feels much more, to me personally, enthralling than last year. I mean, I, you know, obviously for work, pay attention to. I mean, we don't talk about NFLI. We talk about it around the horns. So I'm always watching the games and listening to podcasts and watching the coverage, but I feel like I don't know what it is. I mean, I think the women's side, it's pretty obvious. Like I said, we've been talking about. It's the confluence of all these stars.

And familiar stars and the coaches as, like, HBO characters you really are.

I think the coverage has been great. I mean, something that was really cool for me yesterday is to see really, like, all of America appreciate how awesome the ESPN commentators who have been on this all season long, Elle, duncan, Shanae, Andrea at halftime, just the passion and the fun that they have talking about it. I just feel like, you know, to use your parlance, it's having a moment, and I'm so glad you brought up.

That studio show because it's really good.

So good.

All right, so why is it really good? Well, first of all, they only have three people on it, and it's an actual conversation. They have three people that like each other that all know what the hell they're talking about. Elle's really good at driving the show, and it's like, you know, if. If this was a normal tv network situation, they'd be like, hey, good news. We've signed this person. Now there's five people on the show, and now we've lost our, you know, lost what we had. But that show, like, it flows and the conversation's good, and it's like, this isn't hard, guys. It's not hard. Pregame, halftime, postgame, it's not hard. We don't need seven people on the show.

The number, I think, definitely helps to your point. And then just, like, the obvious passion for it, you know, like, and the fun, like, there, it's not, I think.

Playing off each other. Playing off each other.

It's conversational, but I think a lot of, like, pre and half coverage and various sports, it's just like, these people sound disappointed or bored, so it's so refreshing to sound like people, just to see people. And we try to do this with our NFL show, too, just who sound like they legitimately are having a good time watching. It's such an underwear.

You guys found something with NFL live where it's four people and you all like each other and you have chemistry and you all sell for each other, and it's just like, this isn't hard, but for some reason, it's super hard. Can't explain it. You know, you know it when you see it, but I'm glad you mentioned with that one. Hey, before we go, did you watch the apple documentary on the Patriots?

Um, no, because you kind of warned me off of it. Okay. I read a lot of the coverage around it, though, and I'm familiar with the controversy.

We don't talk about it. It was very strange. It's been a very strange Boston thing. What's it like with the Seattle Seahawks in year one of? We don't have Pete Carroll as our coach.

It's super weird. I mean, yeah, we didn't even really like that. That really took a lot of people by surprise there, too. Honestly, conversations I've had, but it's. I'm kind of like. It was weird because it felt a little bit like I don't know. End of an era feels terrible. We all really love this guy who's such a great coach, but maybe time. And then they go out and they hire a guy in Mike McDonald out of Baltimore who was, personally speaking, my preferred choice.

Wow.

Before I thought Seattle was moving on from him, I thought for any team, this is the guy that I would want. And then for the Seahawks to take him, given how much they had struggled with stopping Kyle Shanahan and Sean McVeigh's offenses, to take a guy whose defense in Baltimore, granted with very significant talent, had so much success against that type of offense in particular, just felt like a dream fit. I don't know if it'll translate year one because of the personnel, they still have to add a lot of pieces, particularly on defense. But it's crazy. I mean, he is half Pete Carroll's age. That's just remarkable. And it's going to take a second.

To get used to. P. Carroll was like the surrogate dad to all Seattle fans. The second dad you didn't know you had, and then all of a sudden, it's weird. That's the weird thing about sports. Belichick was in my life. I was living in Boston. I wasn't even at ESPN yet when we hired him and went through, like, all of these phases of my life. And now he's just out. And now I have Gerard Mayo and I have an interim GM and the owner son running the team. It's like, I wish I had appreciated the bell tricker or more.

We talked about it. You were ready. I feel like actually the way I described it is pretty similar to how you felt, right? Yeah.

I think when you amass that much power in an organization, but you get a little older, but you still have the same power, but maybe you start missing a couple of things, that's when it make it tough. I can't wait for it to happen to me. Someone say, it's already happening.

You know what, though? I was just talking about you. I don't want to embarrass you on your podcast, but I was like, and this is where you very stark contrast from Belichick. I was like, you know, whatever you think about Bill Simmons when it comes to evaluating talent, that guy, he's got his fastball, which is very different from Bill Belichick, by the way.

Yeah, Belichick had that one last run in the mid two thousand ten s, and then it kind of went sideways after that.

Yeah, you're not. You're not, you know, bringing in Nikhil Harry, at the ringer, you're always.

No, not yet.

Always the young. And you. You accepted our lord and savior Julio Rodriguez into your life. Speaking of valuing talent.

Yeah, I was. I text Mina and Danny Keller every once in a while with Seattle stuff, and we had a chance in League of dorks to trade for Julio Rodriguez, and it was a lot. We gave up two keepers and two draft picks, and I was like, I want to do this right. I want to be in the J Rod business for three more years. And you guys were. You basically said, he's one of the five most important people in your life.

Okay, I. I've been in Seattle for a lot of great sports moments. I. And I will say this. I. The all star game in Seattle last year, I did a. Co hosted the celebrity softball game with Kenny Maine. And so I stuck. I hung around for the Home run derby, and Julio broke the record for one of the rounds, right. That. It's not even. He didn't even win. That was one of the most electric sports moments.

Wow.

I've ever. Like, when he did it and I don't remember how many home runs. It was insane. I'm sure you were watching. It was crazy, right? He was just dinger, dinger, dinger, dinger. Seattle going fucking nuts. Like, everybody on their feet. The level of electricity in the crowd, I would put above any legion of Seahawks game that I had.

Like, it was Jesus.

It was that guy, I swear, could run for mayor of Seattle right now and win. He is like a God there, and he has it all. Like, he. You should want to be in the. He should be the face of major league baseball, in my opinion. Like, he's so charismatic, so talented, so good, and he, like, meets the moment every time. He had a walk off, by the way, the other day.

I know. I feel like he started off a tiny bit slow, and I was like, I hope we didn't curse him by trading for it, but hopefully he'll be able to virus. How do you feel about Chang being a Netflix star?

I don't know if I'm allowed to reveal something I'm doing with Chang. I was just.

Yeah, you probably aren't. I know what. I know what you're going to reveal, though. But, yeah, Chang's. Chang's. He's just on there cooking with people, having conversations, doing intros and outros. Some people say he was incapable of those.

He's living, like, the best possible life. But all my conversations with him now are just super washed conversations about, like, when I should start worrying about preschool.

Right.

And the thing that I'm. Yeah, yeah, yeah.

All right. Good luck with that thing, Mina. We can listen to the Meaning Times podcast with Lenny, which is also on YouTube and which also gets shown on ESPN. Two every once in a while.

It does. And I had a little crossover in reverse. Danny Kelly of the fantastic ringer draft show. We did a war room. We're doing these mock drafts on the YouTube. I feel like you would really like this. This is very much your. Where I do two picks for every pick and then my guest picks from my two picks. So for the. The Dr. The Patriots, I would say you have Jane Daniels, Drake May.

And then Danny chose and the guest gets to pick.

Okay.

Yeah. And we go through the entire first round. It's really fun.

Great. And NFL live as well. Great to see you, as always.

Good to see you, bud.

Are we taping this on Tuesday afternoon? What WrestleMania number is this? Shoemaker 40. WrestleMania 40. So we're having a triple threat match. David Schumaker, my longtime colleague from Grantland in the ringer. He hosts the Ringer wrestling show. And Ariel. Heel Wani, you heel wanting or are you hell whiny today?

No, this is Heel Wannie. I cut a promo before we went on air, but for the audience, allow me to cut one on air. It's amazing to be back, as always. I do sort of have a bone to pick with shoemaker because he runs the, you know, he's sort of the head honcho. Dare I say, he's the tribal chief of the Ringo wrestling feed. Although I've never been invited on any. There's like nine shows on that and I've never been invited. I'm on the Simmons pod all the time. No problem. But I haven't quite made it to the Ringer wrestling show feed. Oh, wow.

So what are you afraid of, shoemaker? Why don't you book this match?

The hot takes? What? Yeah.

No, no, I mean, you gotta. You gotta look within yourself and make the decision when it's time to actually go for the title.

Maybe.

Maybe this is the time. I don't know. I don't know. Book our own WrestleMania here.

He wants to be the final boss of the Ringer wrestling show.

That's fine. They could have it. A ringer wrestling show feed fears he'll want you. All right. They don't want the ratings. That's fine. It's okay. I'll take the ratings elsewhere.

Maybe you can attack them with a giant Wheatley vodka sign on a truck right behind you.

That.

That you could repeatedly throw shoemaker in. I don't think the WWE has ever mastered the. What do you call that? In person? Advertising. No, what's the word when they do that?

Oh, yeah, the integrated.

No.

What's what?

Integrated advertising.

Yeah.

It was an all timer, just repeatedly. Cody Rhodes getting thrown against a truck that had a giant vodka sign on it. It was fantastic. Let's do this. All right. So, big picture. This is the most interesting wrestling has been, I'm going to say, but I'm going to say personally, since all the CM punk shit was going down, when it didn't seem like his contract was going to get renewed, or maybe it was going to get renewed, he was going to wrestle this pay per view, and the discourse was just going nuts. To me, this is the best run wrestling has had. So I'm going to ask you to use shoe banker. Is this the best? Since when?

Oh, God. I mean, the CM punk run that you're talking about, the sort of pipe bomb into the summer of punk. Obviously, as a very personal place for me, it's when I started writing for Grantland, and suddenly.

Summer of Grantland.

Yeah. It went from, let me try to conceptualize how to do raw recaps on this website to just. That took over my life, just writing essays about punk and how he bent reality in the pro wrestling world. This is definitely the biggest moment since that. I think that if it weren't for my connection to it, you could probably say this is the biggest moment since sometime before that. I mean, the attitude era, whatever you want to say. I'm not even looking at numbers. If you want to look at numbers, it's definitely the biggest time since then or since Hulkamania. I mean, they're making money hand over fist. But just in terms of cultural significance, in terms of just the hype that surrounds it, you got Ariel here interviewing guys like CM Punk and Rhea Ripley on his show. This is a. The degree to which WWE is permeated or sort of national sports discourse is pretty crazy.

What do you think, Ariel?

So I love everything about it, and I'm in, you know, in heaven. This is cloud nine stuff for us wrestling fans. I don't want to be the hipster guy, but I will say, perhaps it's because I'm a Montrealer. I adored the Sami Zayn stuff last year, and I was in the building in Montreal in February, and, you know, I'm a diehard Montreal sports fan. I was there in the nineties when the Canadians won. I was there in the nineties when the Expos were the best team in freaking baseball and were raw of that in 94. And I've seen some pretty loud, you know, arenas and stadiums in Montreal. I've never experienced anything like, you know, the Bell center in February at elimination chamber when it was Sami Zayn versus Roman Reigns. And that was, that was personal. That touched me.

So it's clearly say that ties into now. I mean, it's basically this whole run that we're having.

Sort of. Yes, the four year run of Roman reigns. And I will also say this. I thought they botched it. I thought they botched it in Montreal. I thought they botched it in LA. I was mad. I went to the raw after mania last year and I was like, what is this? Why couldn't you have just done it? And then Roman goes away. I'm like, why couldn't you have just given it to Cody? Why couldn't you have just given us what we wanted? And now I have to say, mia culpa, I'm thrilled they didn't do it because I don't know if we get it like this. It was brilliant. I don't know if it was the plan from back then, but whatever it was, it's turned out to be a masterpiece.

Well, there's some dumb luck involved, too, right? I mean, can we, can we say officially that they had no idea that the crowd was going to react to the rock like that? And they had to audible on the fly because he's probably the greatest checking every box wrestling personality you've ever had. And he understood immediately we've got a zag, or do you think this is what they planned all along?

Shoemaker, that is the biggest question in pro wrestling, and it's a credit to WWE that that's not just the only conversation we're having, right? We're actually talking about the on screen product and what's going to happen at WrestleMania, too. But by far, the biggest unknown is whether or not this was the plan all along. And for the uninitiated, I'll say when the rock made his return to wrestling, it was announced that he was going to take on roman reigns at WrestleMania. All been announced. Cody Rhodes, who had previously been in that spot, had earned his way into that spot. Just took a backseat. Let the rock do it. And their crowd, the diehard wrestling fans, like me, rightfully disapproved, right? We were like, no, we've invested ourselves in Cody Rhodes. We don't want the rock coming in here and taking a spot. And so the rock did a hairpin turn turned heels slapped Cody Rhodes in the press conference, joined up with Roman Reigns, and now he's one of the bad guys. Is going to be facing the good guys, Roman Reigns and Seth Rollins. Whether or not. Okay, if this was the plan, it's one of the most brilliant booking decisions in the history of pro wrestling.

I mean, it's just unbelievable. And more so than that, it shows that WWE learned something from the Daniel Bryan era of ten years ago, right? So this, this rise to the top, this crowd uprising that we hadn't planned for, they either learned from that lesson and said, we can't let that happen again, or they learned from that lesson so much that they said, let's do that. Let's make that happen. Let's channel, let's, let's create a false Daniel Bryan situation and channel it into making this WrestleMania main event or night one main event even bigger. It's crazy. I mean, it's really crazy to think about.

So what happens if Vince McMahon is still running stuff? Does he audible? Or does he be like, no, we're doing what we, we said.

Why do we even have to go there?

Why can't we just ask? I'm just asking. It's a question.

No, I know.

It does feel like this current regime is more sophisticated where like, hey, we have to audible. Like, people are pissed off.

Well, listen to the audience, right? Isn't this what we always want? We're like, why can't you just listen to us? The beauty of pro wrestling is unlike, you know, real sports, you can actually dictate where this goes and you can listen to the people and you could use that to your advantage. And sometimes it feels like they have made decisions in the past just to spite the audience, just to almost like, make them mad and so you mean.

Like how I'm doing rock bottom month on the rewatchables right now? Like, similar to that.

Or, you know, there's, there's a million different examples. Um, I gotta, I gotta give the rock so much credit because what did we hear from, and this is not a shot at John Cena, but we had always heard, like, ah, you know, we don't want to turn him heel because make a wish. And he sells so much merch.

And it's always the merch. Yeah, we lose merch money because we.

All wanted to see Heena turn heel. And you have a million, a billion different reasons why rock shouldn't turn heel, right? He's mister Disney. He's got, you know, moana two coming out. He's doing make a wish that, like, he is as wholesome as it gets. And this guy's freaking dropping f bombs left and right, and he's talking about Mama Rose and he's making Cody bleed and all, like, ugh, it's so much fun. It's so much fun that I'm like, I'm taking my phone and I'm shoving it in my wife's face. I'm like, look at this cinema. Look how great this is.

He swore he's breaking the fourth wall.

They're saying cut, and he's still going. It's amazing. She doesn't quite get it, just for the record, but I feel like a kid. It's just so much fun. And it's our guy from the nineties doing this with the, the Versace and the shades. Hollywood rock, corporate rock. It's amazing. I love everything about it.

To answer your question, and I agree, we can leave this part of it aside, but during the Vince McMahon era, Ariel mentioned John Cena. During that era, we were asking questions like, why don't you turn John Cena heel? These big things that are just like, you're making the bad decision now. We're arguing about whether or not they made the right decision one way or another way, right? I mean, it's. Everybody's. The right faces are baby faces, right? The right heels are heels. And then, you know, after Sunday night, we'll see who flips to the other side. I'm sure it'll be controversial one way or the other, but I have confidence that they make these choices in the right way now.

Well, with Cena, Cena would have been a good bad guy. I mean, the thing is, any great, anybody who's a great performer can do either side. Like, when we're all shocked when Hogan turned bad in the mid nineties, it worked because he's really good at this, you know, and rock had, there was the bad guy version of rock, and then he became a good guy in the late nineties. And, you know, that was really how it stayed for the most part. But then you remember when he wrestled Hulk in that WrestleMania match?

I was there.

Hulk was supposed to be the bad guy, but the crowd was behind Hulk, and rock on the fly was like, oh, all right, I'll bring out the heel side. And then became the heel just for the match. But, you know, we always knew we had it in him. I was surprised this time around, though, because he's such, you know, he's an A list movie star. And this was just like wow, he's going for this. I mean, he's swearing. He beat the shit out of Cody Rhodes. My son and I watched it last week. My son's like, he's in that stage now where it's like, I'm too cool for wrestling, which is a UFC fan. He'll be back. Yeah, he's like, UFC is much better. But we watched that and he's like, this is amazing. We're getting WrestleMania. This is awesome. But the rock, like, really seems like he's pushed them boundaries. It is.

I mean, the question wasn't, could the rock do this? We've seen the rock be a heel before. Maybe not to this degree. The question was whether or not the face of Moana, the face of Tarahumara, tequila or whatever, whether or not the guy who got on his instagram to try to explain away the shazam box office or whatever, whether or not that guy would be willing to turn heel publicly to the degree he has. And it's a huge credit to him.

That he's, I guess, after ballers. Like, do you see some of this? Ballers, not a great show, but, you know, he was. Became addicted to painkillers and brawlers and ballers. And so he was in pain and gain, I guess, was another one where he tested the limits, but, oh, real.

We knew he had this in him, but we just, I didn't think he would do this at, you know, 51 2024. Like, what's the point? And to me, like, I've had a few rants. 20 16, 20 17, 20 15. I was like, you know what pisses me off about pro wrestling? It's too damn predictable. Like, I just felt like you can predict a mile away what was going to happen. Now. I legitimately, like, that was actually part of my problem with last year's mania. I was like, oh, this is obvious. Cody's a. I mean, of course he's going to finish the story, right? And they didn't do it. And I thought they would do it in Montreal with Sammy and they didn't do it. And now it's like rock's turning heel. I think there's a very strong case to be made for Cody not winning on, on Sunday. I love that. That's. That's why I fell in love with combat sports, right? Boxing, mma. It's unpredictable. Chuck Cadell couldn't, you know, be the face of the UFC, then get knocked out in 70 seconds by rampage Jackson after he's on ESPN the magazine. Like, you would never do that in pro wrestling.

And so here, like the script says, oh, of course, let Cody win. It's time. And then it's, oh, of course, the rock is going to turn on Roman and they're going to, you know, they're going to build to WrestleMania 41. But I really don't know what's going to happen. And that's all we want in pro wrestling. We want that unpredictability. And I feel like they're there. They're just like swimming in it right now.

So big picture storylines, we have the rock just kind of reclaiming his throne is he's in the argument for the greatest wrestler ever combo. He's my personal choice. Cause I thought he brought the most to the table. Especially when you talk about Mike skill, his ability to be bad guy, good guy, everything. Like, he, he's still, I think, the best Mike guy ever for me. But you have that. You have this Roman reigns run that's now heading toward one of the great WWE WWF heavyweight championship runs we've ever had. So there's that. Then there's this Cody Rhodes angle, too. Shoemaker, did you ever think Cody Rhodes would be on this level? I mean, I was, when he was, when he had his last run, I was like, oh, man, they probably, he probably could have done better. But did you see this?

No.

I mean, listen, you talk about the greatest on the mic of all time, you got to talk about his dad, right? I mean, the american dream. Dusty Rhodes, he was a different kind of guy. You know, they cut so many promos. He was like a jazz musician. They just put the camera in front of his face and he'd be like, you know, tomorrow night in Tunica or whatever, and suddenly he'd be just delivering the greatest promo of all time. And you didn't realize it till you're halfway in. Cody has a lot of what his dad had, but it's not as free flowing. You know, it's not, it's, it's. And it doesn't just ooze out of him in the way that Dusty did. And it was always there. You could always see it. But, you know, there were times in his first run in WWE where he thought they, you know, they could position him higher. But it never felt like a travesty. When he left WWE, he went all over the indies. It showed that he had a good mind for the business. It showed that he, that he, that he was willing to bet on himself.

And then when he helped start up AeW, you could really start to imagine him as a top guy. But the crazy thing was you looked at him in Aew as like the top guy of the sort of one b promotion, you know, and then when he walked in the door, WrestleMania, re debuting with WWE, it was like he fit better there as a top guy than he did in AEW. He just walked in and it was just like, I can't believe how neatly this fits. He stands next to roman reigns and they look like the good guy and bad guy action figures from the same cartoon, you know, I mean, they, they work so well standing across from each other. And I've said this a million times, but the most impressive thing about Cody Rhodes is that I never thought we would see a white meat baby face just straight down the middle, you know, hugging kids and like, doing the right thing. Good guy again. Even at John Cena's peak, he was getting Cena sucks chants. Cody is just as much a baby face as Cena, but everybody is cheering for him. It's really, really, why is that, Aria?

Why, why has he not had the backlash yet?

It's because he's sympathetic. It's because we love dusty and this ties to dusty. We all felt like Dusty should have been champion in WWF. And there's that story about him holding the belt for like 6 seconds and now we want, like, literally, I sound like a mark here. I'm fully admitting this, but I think we all would love that the old school fans, for nostalgic reasons, would love to see him finish that and give it to his mom and maybe, you know, I know, you know, his brother can't show up because he, he works for AEw. But like, it's, this is, this is, this is a wrestling family and they've been through a lot and it's just amazing to see it kind of tie into his dad. And so he's very sympathetic. He's someone who's easy to root for. And to David's point, like, he always looks good, he's always dressed nicely. He's always like, you know, clean cut, nice. And I have to say his mic work, and I'm not even talking about his mic work on, you know, Raw or SmackDown, whatever. Let's just talk about a pretty dark time. You know, this is a great time for WWE, but it's also a pretty dark time, right.

With all the Vince McMahon stuff and every day, even yesterday, right. It's, it's WrestleMania week, it's the Monday and there's some dark stuff coming out and, and it's hard to kind of wrestle with that part in the pun because you know, we love it, but we also see this stuff, and this is evil, disgusting stuff that we're reading. And, and what happens on the first show after the lawsuit comes out? Royal rumble in Tampa. They do these press conferences, and sometimes they're a little bit clunky. Right? There's sometimes a little like, is, is it, is it a work? Is it a shoot? And who delivers the best response right off the bat? Better than anyone. Better than any executive could have, better than any other person who sat on the dance. It's Cody Rhodes. Like, you saw him sitting up there trying to kind of digest all of this, and it was real. And he. His words were perfect. Like, I looked at him and I was like, oh, this guy could be the face. This guy could be, like, the promoter. You know, thinking of it in that way, he was exceptional in a really crappy spot, in a spot, quite frankly, that he shouldn't have had to answer for.

Like, has nothing to do with him in many respects. And I thought, that's the guy. Like, that they always talk about, who's the guy that you could put the belt on and he could go on the Tonight show and he could represent the company. That's the guy that you want representing the company.

Oh, absolutely true. As soon as he was hired, I didn't know if he would ever be the biggest, the face of WWE. But when they brought him on, I was just like, the Nick Khan. WWE is going to love this guy, right? I mean, this is a pro. This is a professional athlete. You know, the LeBron James level of, like, let me get in front of a microphone and, you know, help my business. It's really. But just to be really clear, why do we love him so much? Everything that Ariel said is correct, but leading up to this WrestleMania, the idea of Cody versus Roman volume version two, was not necessarily the biggest thing in the world. It's the way they told it was taking it away from him. The reason why we care about Cody so much is because the rock came in and took it away. And now everybody who was halfway invested or on the fence was just like, no, Cody's our guy. Like, we love Cody. And whether or not that was what we felt the day before, that's what we feel now. And so we're so much more invested and watching him win.

And if I could just add one more thing. I think the best storylines, especially of the last decade, have been when the fans feel like they have actually helped create the story. And so, Kofi Kingston. Kofimania. Daniel Bryan. Yes. Movement. When the fans feel like they have influenced the bookers into perhaps calling an audible changing chorus. I think a lot of the fans feel like now, like, oh, look, we made this happen. We crapped on what you guys were doing. We made this happen. And so now he's our guy, and we're now even going to be more invested in him and backing him. And I think that always works when it could work out like that. Becky lynch with the man, like, the fans propelled her. And I feel like the same thing is happening here with Cody.

Do you think I could do that with the New England Patriots to get them to take Drake May?

I hope not do like for, like, Drake.

They weren't going to take them, but Drake May is our guy. And then all of a sudden, you.

Might be able to.

That passion, the passion and the fan base gets behind him. He's the next Josh Allen. You don't want Drake May in our division.

No, I want you guys to screw up every pick.

I want you to trade back and make some dumb trade like the Mac Jones. Trade back Jones.

The future.

Come on, bring back back Jones. Let's take a break. More discussion. All right, before we get into some of the grizzlier stuff that's happened this year, can we go over a couple more positives with WrestleMania, 41st of all? I can't believe we've had 40 wrestlemanias. I know I say this all the time, but I remember every part of the two weeks leading up to the first WrestleMania and how important it was because I finally felt validation as this loser only child who loved wrestling. And it was like, wow, we're on Sports Illustrated. They're hosting SNL.

Yeah.

Oh, my God. Mister T is going to be in it. There's going to be celebrities. Muhammad Ali's going to be there. People are going to pay for this. Like, I knew it. I knew we'd get there. And now we're 40 years later, and we've had, you know, how many, how many truly great wrestlemanias have we had, shoemaker? Maybe five? Four?

Oh, man. I would have to go back.

How many all timers, if you can.

I feel like there's more than that.

Yeah, one in three. I mean, you talked about 18 earlier with the rock and Hogan.

I mean, warrior Hogan was a really good one. Yeah. Like, actually not knowing if Hogan was actually going to do the job or not was really solid. I. People don't love the stone cold Shawn Michaels, like. Cause Michaels was hurt when Tyson was the guest referee, but.

Oh, that was.

I thought that was a really, it was a really important WrestleMania. I thought, for the company just having Tyson be involved. I thought that saved WWE and WrestleMania.

30, where Bryan Danielson or Daniel Bryan and WWE had to wrestle two matches, wrestle Triple H to make, to earn his way into the main event and come out with the title. That's great. And what was really cool about that night was that they were able to tell the story internally over the course of the show, which they don't always do with these big things. They're more like UFC shows where it's just like match after match after match. And that's an opportunity they've had for years now, doing these two night wrestlemanias. And this is the first time they're really taking the reins and saying the thing that happens in the main event of night one directly impacts night two. And it just makes it so much more compelling.

So taker, taker losing is probably the single biggest, holy shit. WrestleMania moment, I would say.

I disagree.

What do you think it was?

Well, actually, I'll go even more hipster here. My favorite WrestleMania, and one of my favorite, sort of, like, I want to say favorite, but the one that is ingrained in my brain, believe it or not, is WrestleMania four. Okay. Which a lot of people don't love. It's the one night tournament. I love the one night tournament.

It was great.

I loved it. And my favorite athlete as a kid, before any other athlete, was Bret Hart. I adored Bret Hart, but this is Bret Hart Hart foundation bad guy wearing all pink. And I thought he won the battle royal. And then bad news, Brown double crossed him and hit him in the back with the ghetto blaster and then smashed the trophy on him. And that, to me, is when I felt it for the first time, because I'm born in 82, so I watched some of those early ones a little bit later. The first time I remember watching that and I was like, oh, my God, he was screwed. And I want this guy to win. And so to me, that, to me, I was blown away by thinking that he won. And then bad news, brown screwing him like a holy crap moment for me was. Was that one. And I know that's off the beaten path. And I know the hardcore fans hate WrestleMania four and. And five to a degree, although five was mega powers explode. Same venue, a little bit weird, but I love the one night tournament. It was fun. You got to see some different guys.

It was. It was a little UFC esque, right? It was like multiple matches.

I thought WrestleMania was good every year until the sergeant slaughter one. That was like it really started. The wheels started to come off in the early nineties, and then they finally got it back. Late nineties.

If there's as far as wrestlemanias that I've been in attendance for, the only thing that can rival the crowd reaction to the undertaker losing was Cody Rhodes losing last year. I mean, you just had an arena full of. It wasn't as much of a given that he was. I don't know, maybe it was. It didn't feel as dire in the moment, but it was. But everybody was just shocked. I don't think there was a single person in that arena, in that stadium. Sorry. Who, who thought Cody Rhodes could really lose that match. And the fact that he did, I mean, it was just silent.

It was just silent.

It was crazy.

The other evolution was, I mean, eventually, what was that one we went to in New York? I. I think I'm still there, actually. I think I died in the stadium. It was so long. Or New Jersey.

Oh, yeah.

Seven hour one.

Yeah.

Ben and I went, no, it's just, it was 7 hours one night, and that it just, by the time we got to, like, hour five, the crowd was just completely dead. So I think the two night wrinkle, I think, was one of the smarter things they've done in the last, I would say, 25, 30 years, because especially now, if you have enough talent for both nights, it just splits it up in the right ways. And there's energies there. The whole time, they were really right. You're getting double the gate.

It's crazy.

That's the other thing. And now this is the first year they figured out how to tie the events of the first night into the second night, which we talked about earlier, but that now that they've unlocked that piece and then the next piece, I'm sure, will be some sort of UFC connection where there'll be some sort of UFC event on Friday night, and that they'll just make it. They'll try to make it, like, the greatest weekend in sports. And maybe there's boxing on a Thursday when they, when they, whenever they buy boxing, but they're going to try to aventi something where it's like, this is the week. This is the only week that matters in combat, basically.

It's not in the same city, but this is pretty darn close for them with UFC 300 literally six days after the second night, same company now. And so maybe if you're a fan who's a fan of both and you're coming from England or something, you're making a pretty incredible trip to America. You can go to Philly and then go to Vegas and then go back home. I agree with you. That would make a lot of sense. It might pack it a little bit, because, as you know, you know, there's SmackDown on the Friday, there's the raw on the Monday. There's. And then there's a ton of indies.

Might not be the raw on the Monday anymore. That's true.

As we discuss.

Who knows?

Yes, yes, yes.

But you got that seed last time.

I'm taking full credit for that.

All right.

I want credit from all the dirt sheets.

Yeah, you got to get that, man. You were the first one that said it.

WrestleMania, too. They did multiple cities, right? And that's.

Then it was.

That was a technological nightmare, but there's no reason at all why you couldn't do even it. Do neighboring cities, do WrestleMania in New York and UFC in Philly next time or whatever, and have them on back to back nights so you could come in and. And do both of your traveling, like. Like Ariel said, or, you know, but just really, you can prom.

They don't have to be in the.

Same city to promote them as one mega weekend.

You know, WrestleMania, too, I think, gets a bad rap, and I think is remembered incorrectly now, because the Roddy Piper Mister T boxing match was horrible, and then the steel cage they used for Bundy versus Hogan was just like, a weird steel cage. It's bad.

It's a cool one.

My big memory of that one was Bundy. Just either Bundy or Hogan. One of them just bladed, and they didn't cut away in time. And you could see him, like, doing this on the forehead. Wait, what is he doing? But. But as a card, it was still pretty interesting. The battle royale was fun. They had a bunch of athletes in them. But then over the years, it's remembered. It's this disaster. Shoemaker. What? What match? That's not the main event on either night. Are you the most excited for just as a hardcore wrestling junkie.

That'S really tough. As a junkie and as a fan are different things. I mean.

Yeah, yeah. So give me a junkie and give me fan, and then ro can do the same. Well, or what? You do junkie, and then he does junkie, and then you do fan. He does fans.

So we'll.

We'll. We'll pass the ball around.

Um, let's see. As a junkie, it's got to be, I'm going to steal, or else, as a junkie, it's got to be Sami Zayn versus Gunther, because Gunther has been, you know, Bell to Bell, the best professional wrestler in the world, maybe over the past year.

Almost like a yokage. Yokage. Like out of nowhere, like losing a little weight and then all of a sudden becoming awesome.

Oh, he lost about a Sami Zayn along the way. He's dropped down a bunch, but. And Sami Zayn is, you know, has for years been one of the most elite professional wrestlers in the world and not always been in the position to do it, but you know, these guys. I don't know how much Kayfabe I can break here. Sami Zayn was, let's say, heavily influenced by an indie wrestler named El Generico that came before him, and El Generico and Gunther. Under his previous name, Walter wrestled a few times in the indies and had some absolute bangers. It's been about a decade now since then, but these two guys have all of the mental and physical tools needed to tell a great match. And it's either that one or, well, okay, that's my junkie pick, but if you want to.

You agree with that or would you go elsewhere?

So I love that one, obviously, you know, Sammy from Montreal, Gunther's amazing. My son's name's Walter. I wish he kept the Walter name, but all good. He's been incredible. There's a part of me that wants to go with Jimmy versus Jay, the two brothers, because it reminds me of Owen versus Brett. But if I'm being honest, I adore what Drew McIntyre has been doing as of late, and I did not see this coming. And we talk about the thread between night one and night two. That's another one. They've done it with two matches here because Seth is in the main event of night one. I suspect Drew's going to get involved in some way, shape, or form. I thought Drew's character was getting very, very stale. I was at clash at the castle. Thought maybe they should have given him the belt then. That was two September's ago in Cardiff, and I just felt like, again, you know, white bread, baby face. Drew had kind of hit his ceiling, his zingers, his promos, his twitter. As of late, he's been incredible as this, like, really salty bad guy. And so him versus Seth is fantastic.

And adding to the element that on Monday, they announced that clash at the castle two is going to be in Scotland, okay? Which makes all the sense in the world for him to be in the main event and the feud between him and Punk. Punk's going to be involved in commentary for that match. Punk telling me on Monday that his tricep is, is, is healing a lot quicker than they expected, and he hopes to be back for a big show in the summer. To me, Punk versus drew for the belt in the summer clash at the castle two in Scotland is box office. So that would be my sort of junkie pick.

You saying that Drew McIntyre's act was starting to get a little stale is like saying the Buffalo Bills act of not winning the playoffs is starting to be a little annoying. Why did you go there? I think he got stale. We've seen it. This happens sometimes, right?

Like, but this is good now. He's been great.

It's been great. But you think, like, remember, it was Kane and the undertaker. It's like, oh, God, okay, we're going again. All right. It was like five years after it got stale, so he audibled at the right time.

It feels like it's incredible to watch. It really is. He's always been a good talker, but just being able to go out there and be actually, like, funny and engaging and a heel has been something to say. When, when CM punk got hurt, it was a bad thing for the WrestleMania card. It was maybe even a worse thing for WWE's t shirt sales department because they weren't going to have him to, to, you know, to buoy their numbers. But Drew's most important thing has been keeping CM punk relevant through his injury. He just goes out there and, you know, chit talks centimer punk on the microphone and people say, oh, yeah, I remember how much I love that guy. Let me go buy a CM punk shirt. It's, it's, it's been a really incredible act.

What do you have for your fan? Your fan? Your square fan pick?

My square fan pick, man, I'm all over the place on this. I think I would go, I mean, I would almost pick AJ sows versus LA Knight because the LA Knight Rise has been really, has been really fun to watch, but honestly, it's Bailey versus Eos sky. Bailey's been just an absolute trooper for the company and one of the real elite women's wrestlers over the years. And she, this isn't one of these super matches. This is a story that she has been telling with her, you know, with her former stable mate Iwa sky over the past year or so, and, and, and watching them get, you know, a world title match on. Now they've, I think, announced night two of WrestleMania. It's got to be just the biggest moment for Bailey. That said, she may end up losing and that may make it an even more sort of noble moment for her. But that's the one that I think where my, you know, heart's going to be in my throat watching the outcome of that.

Great pick.

I'll stick with the women's wrestling theme. I love the Jade Cargill, Bianca, Naomi, you know, superpowers, Avengers collide against damage control. Jade, I mean, has all the makings of being a superstar. I thought AEW bookter tremendously sort of did the Bill Goldberg thing with the streak, and I still don't quite understand how they let her go. She was homegrown. She was one of their own. She was a legit AEW star that they had built from the ground up. And I thought this was a big coup for WWE. And they've sort of slow rolled her debut and her teaming up with Bianca. When I think some people thought she would feud with Bianca and who knows, maybe she turns on Bianca. I just think all of that is great. And people really seem to be excited. And her, her entrance that they debuted on on Friday was just tremendous. Like, they're killing it with the entrances these days. So I'm curious about that one, and I want to see how she does in her, I guess, first televised official match.

So why do we have so much talent right now? We know this stuff comes in waves. And, you know, the NBA is always a good parallel with WWE, where you, you kind of want to be in the spot where you have the mega, mega star, maybe like two right under there, but you really want to have like eight to ten legit stars. And sometimes we've had WWE, WWF, there's been moments where it's like, oh, man, that person's in the freaking royal rumble main event. That's where we are. Why, why so many now, shoemaker, some.

Of it serendipity, right? I mean. Cause the rock is one of the people at the very top, and he, and it's by the grace of the rock that he's back there. And sometimes you luck into somebody like Logan Paul, who, you know, you can't say, you wouldn't say, say no to Logan Paul, but you didn't know he was going to be a wrestler on the level that he is. But obviously, there's been a commitment in this company. I mean, they, they've decided that they, I mean, they've realized they need to make big stars. It's not just one guy at the top and the rest is trickle down. They need to keep building up from the middle card. And even now, if you watch Raw last night you saw, you can see that they have guys like, like, ricochet, like, like, even Candice Lerae. Like, I mean, Ivar, people who don't even have a WrestleMania match booked, who they're elevating in real time, right? Bronson Reed, Shinsuke Nakamura. I mean, all these people are important to the company, and that helps elevate the people above them. But, and also, there's just the Roman Reigns factor, the bloodline factor.

He's elevated the Uso's solo sokoa. Anybody that comes into contact with him has, has, has, even in losing a match to him, has been elevated by contact. And it's been. I mean, it really does seem like it's been a very concerted effort by WWE to make new stars, and a lot of them.

Can I give you the answer to this question that I think will piss off a lot of people? But I believe it in my heart. I think there's two good reasons why there are so many stars right now. Why it feels like the roster is so deep and, oh, they're going to get so annoyed. Oh, the freakazoids are going to die over this one. They're going to call me a shill. Two reasons. Paul Levesque and Nick Khan. Paul Levesque is the best booker that we've seen in quite some time, and we know his influence in NXT, and you see what he's doing. We just talked about the influence and listening to people and what he's doing. He has the pencil, so to speak. Right now, Nick Khan has proven that he's going to do what's best for business. And I know there was this theory that Vince McMahon would always let bygones be bygones, but there were a lot of rivalries. There's this and that. The best thing to happen to WWE is AEw. The fact that there is legit competition has made them step up their game. And so they said, hmm, uh, we could take a piece out of the foundation and bring Cody Rhodes over.

Let's do it. We could get a homegrown star and Jade Cargill. Let's do it. We could get CM punk. There's no. There's no, um. There. There's no, uh, like. Like, period where he can't, you know, like this non exclusive period where he can. Yeah, non compete. That's the word I was looking for. Thank you. We could get him at Survivor Series. Like, they're just making the best deals, in large part because they want to hurt. Aw. Let's be honest. It's a cutthroat business. And this is a credit to AEw that they view them in this regard, that they're trying to take away major pieces away from them. And because it's a new era, it's a new time, you make a deal with the rock to come back. Like they're just, they're just making the right moves. And a lot of these people are established stars, but, you know, the gunthers of the world and, and others have come through NXT, come through that system to now they're paying off. And I know Gunther was on the indies and all that, but he had a nice little run over there as well. And then you see these other dudes that are, that are kind of cooking up in the NXT system.

You know, the, the bron breakers of the world and the Carmelo hazes of the world. All these guys. It's like, man, this is all kind of working. This is the way it should. This is the way a good organization should run in the sense that, and let me just. Cause someone's going to clip this off right now, be like, look at him. But this is the truth. As a baseball fan, what's the best kind of, you know, organization? Right. What's the best kind of organization? The one that has a good farm system that signs the right free agents. Right? And they put it all together and this is what I feel like they're doing. They're signing the right free agents. They have the right kind of farm system. They're not, they're not signing with ego. They're not making those kinds of deals. They're just doing what's best to sink the competition and to be the top dog. And I see it with the UFC. No one is nipping at their heels. No one is challenging them. That's why they run these shows at the apex, because there's no competition. They could do it because there's no one even close to them.

WWE has that competition and so that, to me, makes them raise their game.

It's a great point. Competitiveness, you think, like, the least competitive situation they were ever in was after Turner sold WCW them for a dollar and they, ECW is gone. They basically had everything. They had so many wrestling to do it, right? Yeah, yeah, they have like, hey, we'll bring Shane McMahon back. And it just, it was a complete mess. I feel like I remember when, uh, when Fs one was trying to compete. Sometimes competition can be bad because it kind of changes your business model the wrong way. It's like when fs one started and ESPN is like, what the talent, talent numbers, and it became this, like, weird thing and it actually wasn't good. But I agree with you that, uh, UFC, the best thing that could happen to them is somebody nipping at their heels. So do we believe in that new company, by the way? Does that have a chance? PFL merger. The merger company?

Yeah, PFL. Look, they're number two and they're doing good things. They're only, you know, seven years old. The gap is so big. Like the gap between them right now. It's not quite like CFL, NFL like gap. It's kind of like EuroLeague and NBA, where there's some good guys there, but it's just the show isn't as big, the stars aren't as big. It's going to. There is no one in place right now. And here's the other thing. They don't have the fan base. They don't have the tribalism that aw fans possess. Right. Aw fans are trying to will, aw, propel them to the top. No one cares about them like that. And so that's half the battle, too. Like, they don't have that rabid fantasy.

Yeah. Aew can also do that. We're like the pure wrestling place.

Yeah, yeah, no, we're the place for.

The four and a half star matches, and this is the real wrestling place.

And the toughest thing for any competitor to WWE or UFC, and this has been said a million times, is that the casual fan, or even the non fan thinks of them. I mean, UFC and WWE are like Xerox. When you think of professional wrestling, you say, are you watching WWE? Even if Aew is on?

Right?

If you see fighting, if you see cage fighting, you say, oh, it's at UFC show. And it doesn't, it doesn't matter who's actually doing it. So they have a monopoly on just sort of the public consciousness. It's a testament to AEW that they've made as big a footprint as they have. But breaking out into the wider mainstream is going to be their biggest obstacle.

Well, it seemed closer two years ago. Like it was. It felt like it was becoming a legitimate argument. And then all the stuff that's happened, WWE all the. Just one win after another for them for 18 months.

Bill, I remember talking to you before SummerSlam 2022, and we were lamenting the fact, oh, we're getting Roman and Brock again. Please, God, no. I remember saying on this show, go back to any person out there who wants to say otherwise. I remember saying, aw is infinitely more interesting right now. Than WWE. So it's always cyclical. It goes up and down and they have their moment. I mean, the punk MJF stuff was amazing. Dog collar match, all that stuff. Hulk was great. So they'll have their moments and WWE will go down. It's just like boxing their stars. Heavyweight division's up, then it's down. UFC deals with the same stuff. So I'm not writing anyone off. Any WWE fan. If you're a fan of the product, not work for the company, but fan of the product, you should hope that AEW survives and succeeds, because to me, look at what we're seeing.

Everything. Yeah, yeah.

It just ups their game. They can't rest on their laurels. It's better for all of us.

Well, in retrospect, the two biggest things that happened for WWE. One was sticking with Roman Reigns and letting him figure it out. Because I think all of them believed, like, there's really something here. This guy can carry the company, and they took shit for it in the beginning, but then it worked out. But then going and stealing Cody Rhodes, and I don't know how much they stole him or how much Cody Rhodes wanted to leave, but that's, if you're looking back, if this was like a giant documentary, that would kind of be the tipping point moment. Did we ever figure out shoemaker, why did what happened with Cody Rhodes in aw, we just never going to know. Everyone's like, we're never talking about this, like battling with the lead guy or what happened.

He's been open about it to some degree. Speaking of Cody Rhodes, and correct me if I, if you know anything that I don't, but, but he's been obviously just very. A lot of that stuff he considers personal, and he won't go into a lot of detail about it. I think that when the company started, this is an outsider. This isn't as an outsider, not as a reporter. When the company started, it felt like there is this sort of inner circle of people. And the owner, Tony Khan, was one of those, was a member of that inner circle amongst, you know, Kenny Omega, the young bucks, and Cody Rhodes.

So it's like a decision making consensus, but they were all in inner circle together.

But then at some point, you know, Tony Khan was the one writing the checks. Tony was, Khan was the one in charge of the business. And he, you know, he had to sort of take control. And as a careful balancing act, when you have people who are that, that close, you know, that much a part of an inner circle, and then there's also the weird on screen contrivance thing where Cody Rhodes decided he wasn't going to wrestle for the world title anymore and sort of took himself out of the running. So he sidelined himself and, you know, as far as the programming went. But I don't know if. I don't know if we'll ever know. I don't know if we'll ever know. It wouldn't surprise me if the on screen story is part of the real story. You know, there's part of Cody Rhodes who had unfinished business in WWE because his dad had unfinished business there. And, you know, that was the place.

That made more sense for him, I think. Kiowani, I feel like, knows the whole story well.

I just feel like I was shocked that he left because I thought he was part of the fabric. And these are CM punk's words, not mine. So just for the record, CM Punk said yesterday to me that Tony Khan is a nice guy, but he's not a boss. And so if that is, in fact true, I've never worked for him. I've never met him in person. I've spoken to him once via Zoom. But if that is, in fact true, that is not sustainable because we know what wrestling is like. There has to be a boss and there has to be, more often than not, an intimidating boss at the top. And, you know, if the wrestlers don't respect you, if they feel like they can control, look at what, you know, sunk WCW. It's when, you know, everything kind of got crazy and the wrestlers ran amok and they were deciding and Hogan was.

Putting himself in plots.

Yeah. And Hogan had created, like, there's a reason why Vince was kind of like, you know, the buck stops here and there's writers and the wrestlers weren't a part of the writing team. And so, yeah, you know, maybe we'll never truly know, but perhaps he, he saw that the, you know, the, the foundation wasn't as secure and there was an offer that was made that he couldn't refuse. And I think it's been a great move for him. I was shocked. He had a, he had a tv show on TBS. He had like, a reality show. Remember that, right. And like, you think there's no way he's leaving, but it ended up being a tremendous move.

Well, we should end talking about the shadow of all the Vince stuff and how awful this has gotten. And I, you know, WrestleMania is going to happen. It won't be brought up, but it does feel like this is a shadow that's not going to go away anytime soon. Shoemaker, how has it changed how you've been talking about wrestling week to week, month to month, just on your podcast?

Well, I mean, I will say that Vince McMahon is no longer part of the company. At least, you know, he's a shareholder and I think, I guess he stepped down from the board. So that's about the extent of it.

So he's out.

Yeah.

So we're able to sort of sidebar it a little bit. We'll have deliberate, deliberate segments of the show that are, when we discuss it, but it doesn't, it's not a dark cloud hanging over just every moment of WWE programming to the extent that it felt like it might be now. You know, there's going to be more that comes out. You know, I mean, it was, it was revealed that, that Nick Khan and Stephanie McMahon were involved in some of the stuff. They were the unnamed executives in the Janelle Grant lawsuit, and there was nothing that was said there that was particularly damning to them. But just sort of, you know, that.

They were like, they were alleged to be aware of whatever situation was unfolding. Sure.

And there, and I mean, I think common sense dictates that there have to be at least some number of people inside of WWE who are more aware than, you know, than that. So, you know, I assume that this story will keep hanging over WWE to some degree. But.

You know, when you say to some degree, like, it's even like the excerpts came out of Ronda Rousey's book and she had a bunch of, like, really negative Vince stuff in there and it feels like that's going to be what keeps happening over the next. I think people that were afraid to speak out or tell stories or whatever that faucet is now on combined with whatever, however this lawsuit plays out. And if there's any other things coming, and it just feels like now this is the story that just is not going to go away for this company. And it should.

No, it shouldn't. And I mean, and as CM Punk said on aerial show, I mean, they're real live victims here.

Right.

And those are the people that we should be thinking about. It was, I mean, it's hard. It's hard to know what to think. Part of the reason why I think the response has been a little bit muted is because some of this was sort of baked in with Vince McMahon. We didn't know anything to this degree. But I don't think anybody mistook him for a good guy, you know, and that, and there had been rumors that had floated around. And so you know, it's. I think for some people, it's worse than what they expected, but it's. It's still in the sort of same Vince McMahon category that they had before. But even to the degree that it was baked in, even to the degree that, like, I wasn't shocked when the first story started breaking, when the actual lawsuit from Miss Grant came out, the stuff that was in there, the text messages, all the allegations, was just sort of paralyzing, right? I mean, you read it and the.

Reaction from everybody else right away, like, just, you could watch the next 48 hours, how that played out too. What do you think, Aria? What? What? How does this go the next year or so? Is this just part of. Part of wrestling now for the next year?

And really, it's been almost two years, right? Like, from the initial Wall Street Journal stories. And, you know, I'd be lying if I said, like, when I read that, I was like, oh, my God, I cannot believe this. You know, like, it just kind of felt like one of those things where, okay, one shoe is going to drop and then another shoe. And I was more. More so than anything, obviously, the details you can never truly predict, but more so than anything, I was shocked when he came back. You know, like, when he reemerged in early last year and then the sale happened. All of a sudden, I was like, what the hell? Like, I thought that he was done prior to all of that. That, to me, was more shocking than anything just because, as Dave said, never had any sort of illusion that he was a great guy and a salt of the earth kind of guy. I appreciate the fact I've done a couple of interviews with the wrestlers since all this has come out. Becky, last week, punk, there might have been one or two others. And I appreciate the fact that they're not being told not to say anything.

It sounds like they're just being told to say whatever they feel. And so I appreciate the fact that they're telling us how they feel. And I appreciate the fact that, you know, Becky, I read her book, and.

You can tell that, you know, she.

She held him in very high regard. He meant a lot to her. And she's kind of wrestling with this as well. Punk made the analogy to a degree. And I understood where he was coming from to the Benoit situation where it's like you felt this sort of way, especially for the ones who worked for him and had this great relationship with him, and then everything that you feel like you knew and felt and loved about him, like, now you have to. You have to include this, and you can't feel that way anymore. You know, I've heard the likes of Chris Jericho and, and so many others talk about Benoit, and you see them. It's like there's no perfect way to answer these questions because you have personal relationships, and then all of a sudden you see this and your mind is blown. And so I think a lot of us who like wrestling and talk about it and do shows, et cetera, are kind of going through that same thing, but it's different because we didn't have that personal business relationship with him. I think the business is better off without him. I think. I think his time had come to an end long ago.

And, you know, if this is all very true, shame on him. I hope he gets what he deserves, and I hope that his legacy, when you talk about the legacy and the good, you also have to talk about the bad. This has to be a part of his legacy. And you have to wonder what else is there out there, right? Like, what other stories are out there, and will those stories come to light? How much worse is this going to get? Because it's pretty damn bad right now. But I feel like there's a possibility for more to come because it seems like every week there's a new layer.

To this story in the, some of the timeline stuff with it, too. Still doesn't make sense. Like, when Stephanie just stepped down, right, when she had come back, and then, and then all of a sudden, she was out again, and who knew what when. And it just, I thought that was.

A really dark day for WWE because, yeah, I think the world of Stephanie and I think she's an incredible leader, and it seems like the kind of person that everyone loved and respected. And out of the, like, when she came back, it was like, okay, they've got this three headed, you know, conglomerate. Stephanie, Nick, Paul, Levesque. And, like, every wrestler that I spoke to, many off the record were like, it's never been better. The vibe has never been better. The locker room has never been better, et cetera. And then she just kind of leaves, and I feel like a lot of people were deflated and were like, okay, where are we going here? And now, of course, you know, the sale happens and Vince is gone and all that stuff, and it's kind of gone a little bit back to that. Everyone talks about now how the locker room has never been better and all this stuff and everyone's friends. So that's good. It doesn't seem toxic at all, but, yeah, it's just, it's fascinating to see this all evolve in this way.

Yeah. And I don't think it's done. Evolving. All right. WrestleMania 40. I can't believe it. I feel so old. How are they?

What's your match?

40 wrestlemanias.

What's your pick? What's the match you're looking forward to?

I mean, other than the ones we talked about?

Okay. Yeah.

I'm really excited to see how they handle the Saturday night main event. Even though my son was, like, knowing nothing, just watching, like, four YouTube clips, he's like, I don't what they're gonna do. And he's, like, laid it out. It's going to happen. And then rock at the end. And then rock. They're going to be setting up rock versus Roman coming out of this WrestleMania, and that'll. So I feel like maybe this is going to be more predictable than we thought, but I'm with you on the. On, on Gunther. I think that's going to be kind of the match. That's the. That's the steamboat Savage WrestleMania three match for this whole. For this whole weekend, where it's like, yes, that. That's the one I cannot wait for. I also. Who's Rhea Ripley wrestling?

Becky Lynch.

Becky Lynch. Rhea Ripley. I'm still sorting out my feelings about her in, like, what her ceiling is, but I think she's captivating.

Oh, yeah.

I think she's one of the best female wrestlers ever, if not, like, on the short list for me already, where you watch her and you go, how anybody, whether you think that, how much of this is real, whatever, but how would anybody in real life have a chance. Chance against her to. It's one of those, like, she's a fucking badass.

She's really great. I asked him that. My podcast this week. I said, I hesitate to ask, but who's more. Who's more popular or famous right now? Rhea Ripley or Becky lynch? Because Becky lynch is an icon. But Rhea Ripley for this. For the younger generation, Rhea Ripley is, like, living on TikTok, right? I mean, she's just, like, clips of, like, she's just so impressive that I feel like stuff that she does gets passed around left and right. That's.

That's a huge charismatic. Yeah, I'm excited for that one, too. All right, so ring a wrestling show. When are you going to Philly? Probably tomorrow. Thursday range?

Yeah, I'll be there tomorrow, but I'll. But, you know, I live relatively close, so I'll be back and forth a little bit.

But, yeah, I mean, so if you run into Oreo.

No, no.

You might get hit with a steel chair or Starbucks stool.

No. Too late, too late.

Never know.

I heard you guys have a lot of guests, but I didn't get, I didn't get the invite. That's okay. One day I'll make on the indies.

Come back. Come back next week. For my son was like, can me and Ariel do a UFC 300 pod on your pod? And I was like, no, we absolutely can't. You're.

Why not?

I think people want your coherence now. He's still in his YouTube shorts face. He might call you this week, though, for some. For some stuff.

Anytime.

Good to see you guys. I'm glad we did the triple threat. I had a good time. Thanks.

Thank you.

Good to see you too, man.

All right, that's it for the podcast. Thanks to Nina Kimes and Ariel Hawani and David Shoemaker. Thanks to Steve Ceruti and Kyle Creighton for producing as well. And I'll see you on this podcast on Thursday. Must be 21 plus and president select states FanDuel is offering online sports wagering in Kansas under an agreement with Kansas Star Casino, LLC. Gambling problem called winner hundred Gambler. Visit fanduel.com rg in Colorado, Iowa, Michigan, New Jersey, North Carolina, Ohio, Pennsylvania, Illinois, Kentucky, Tennessee, Virginia, and Vermont call 100 Next step or text next Step to 533 Four two in Arizona, 8887-8977 or visit ccpg.org Chattinconneticut 809 with it in Indiana 805 224700 or visit ks gamblinghelp.com. In Kansas, 8770 stop in Louisiana, md gamblinghelp.org in Maryland, 800 gambler.net in West Virginia, 805 224700 in Wyoming, hope is here. Visit Gamblinghelp line ma.org or call 803 2750 50 for 24/7 supported Massachusetts or call 18778 Hope, NY or text Hope NY.

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