PMS 2.0 1534 - Iman Shumpert, Jeff Passan, Jackie Redmond, Andre Agassi

Ladies and gentlemen, a person that you call a hero, a person that you all have deemed a champion, a person whose self-proclaimed name is the American Nightmare is just that. He's a criminal. Last night, obviously, something devastated happened to our entire Thunderdome. I get a text around 6.55, 7.00 p.m.ish from DeBone, graphics designer here in the Thunderdome, and he says, boss, something just happened. Can we talk? Never want to get that text. Uh-oh. No. I tell him, let's talk to DeBone. He lays out a series of events that took place that honestly, I could have never believed if we didn't have our security cameras running at all times here in the Thunderdome, because obviously a lot of important things happened here. We have no idea what's going to take place, so we have closed circuit television all around here with all these cameras. So we're able to see anything that happens here whenever it happens here. So yesterday, when DeBone was mopping this floor after a great afternoon of Thunderball, which is a Wiffleball game that is played here in the Thunderdome, and it was DeBone's day that rotates each time, he's seemingly just let an asshole in here to ruin our set. Run the footage, Foxy. So this is from our security cameras. DeBone down here, mopping the Thunderdome floor. DeBone. Good mop. Here's something to his right, okay, is what he says. Pounding on the door is what he says. He goes, oh, this is weird. Let me go see what's going on out here. A couple of moments later, he comes back. That would end up being Cody Rhodes. What? When you first see the footage, you'd have no idea that that is Cody Rhodes. DeBone just walked his ass in here, gets back to mopping. Cody walks right up onto the stage, okay, full day of media in New York. And I would learn later that he posted on his story, I'm going to New York, then question Mark in Vegas, what we found out takes my back. Bus a once in a lifetime collectible. Okay, come on. Hits my mic, knocks the chair down, and then takes Randy Orton's title out of here. Yeah, you're talking multiple different things, and then on his way out, DeBone doing nothing yet again. Spike, sorry, get this off the computer. Then what was that? What was that? What? What was that? The bow. Cahoots? Is this guy in on it? So then Cody just walks his ass out of here, no problem. Then he goes on Instagram and posts a video of him walking out there playing my fucking song while he walks onto a plane and leaves. You know who knew that all had happened? There's only one other person, DeBone. How did we let a rat in the building walk up to this stage and bust everything out? I have no idea. Genuinely, DeBone hasn't been fired strictly because we want to have this moment right now. Foxy, please cut to the camera that we put into stare at Bone. Bone, find a microphone over there, please. Thank you. Bone. Hello? What's up, boys? Oh, okay, okay. What's up, boys? We're not your boys. Yeah, we're not. Just real quick, you told me last night, but I do believe an explanation should be given to the world who might wonder, this is a... No, we walked in this shit's broke. This is a multi-million dollar once in a lifetime. This is millions and millions of dollars. Okay? Let it on the back. Sign back. Yeah, exactly. Babe Ruth. Sign back. Busted in this entire thing. Computer that's been with us since day one. Broken in half over here with things everywhere. Jim. The whole aquarium right there. Falls off. That ram truck falls off. Jesus Christ stayed though. I think that's what he does. Oh, he did. He knew. Yeah. Now, to Bone, how the hell do you just walk Cody Rhodes in the middle of this thing and let him do all that without stopping him saying anything or trying to fight him for... What happened? I thought we had a good culture here. Listen, boys, as you could see on the footage, I'm mopping. I'm mining my business and I see Cody Rhodes at the door. It's thunderstorming. I knew it. And as a wrestling fan, and I was a fan of Cody, big fan of Cody. We've had good interactions. What's he doing here? I go to the door. He says, hey, I told Pat I was going to swing by. Perfect. I didn't know if it was real or unreal. How was I supposed to know? Oh, hey, guys. Yeah, I mean, come on, boys. Come on, boys. Get them off the couch and the sped of your garnoles. Okay, well, we'll talk about... You're fired. I'm going to spy you immediately because we're now like a real company. I don't know if that... That should be fired. You're fired. I should be fired. I should be fired. I don't like that. Not only should he be fired. Guess what, Mr. Cody Rhodes? I have something to tell you, pal. We looked it up. Now breaking and entering is not possible because... Yeah, moron over there letting him walk in scot-free. The bone Arnold. There's some real charges here we could cook up for Cody Rhodes. Okay, criminal mischief. That's a level six felony. Yeah, no big deal. That's over $50,000 in damage. Yeah, that photo. A lot. At least signed Babe Ruth back. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. A Bambino bag. Kidding me? Laptop. That was state of the art at the time we got that 10 years ago. Yeah, Torellic. That thing certainly was some aggravated criminal damage to property. All this. All this. I got glass all over the place down here. Money menacing, certainly a place of worship. Oh, people are wondering how that's the case. This used to be a church. I think Jesus is still here, I think. Boom. Yeah, right there. Every day. Always. He saw the whole thing. The whole... always. Yeah. In all ways. Omni-president. Because realize, realize. Realize. Realize. Branching a weapon. Boom. Bambino bat. Could have killed somebody seen it before. Burglary. He walked out of here with Randy's title. Yeah. And vandalism. Cause all this. We don't know if every charge would stick. Okay, but we do know that's wide enough net to get something. Is menacing, does that include your emotional that toll that it's going to take on you, that you know that someone broke in here and did this, all of your stuff? Yeah, and the fact that he somehow weaponized and brainwashed one of our friends into terrorizing our stuff. Might not be criminal, but... But we would like to let him know we will not be pressing charges. We do not appreciate this one bit. There will be a new photo up here quickly, Cody, because the show does not end because you somehow in Cahoots with one of our guys gets into our building and then does damage to it. Okay, Cody, the only justice that'll be proper for you is when Randy Orton kicks the living shit out of you on Saturday night and not only wins his 15th world championship, saves the business from this bullshit. I mean, just class. It looks like a righty who's swinging lefty, doesn't it? Yeah, it does. Doesn't it kind of look like a righty swing, but good swings. Okay, way to go. Way to get in here. You are smart and you do recognize me. If it was anybody else mopping, then what happens, Cody? You open that door. Bang, bang. Boom. Right in the kiss. Back to his head. All right, let's move on to other sports. Foxy, roll that thing. The following program is a collection of students talking about happenings in the sports world. It is meant to be comedic informative. The opinions expressed on this show do not necessarily reflect the beliefs of their peers, their boss, or ESPN. There may be some cuss words because that's how humans in the real world talk. If you are a young, please seek permission before watching any further. Hey. Hey. Why? Let's go. This show sticks. In the fact that you listen, we are very, very thankful for you. Maccabee all the line with a gorgeous assist. The all-time leading tackler for the Green Bay Packers. You pick. Stutter, stutter. Damn it. You're friend, tell your friend something nice to change their life. Be more proud. Be more proud. More, more, more, more, more, more. Hello, beautiful people. What is going on? Your cells going on. No. Sports. Are happening. Bailey's on the ones and twos in the back. Had a muted mic at the beginning of the thing. It is kind of his routine. Gets it out of the way then he dials in. Our friend, Nicky Skates, Nick Barato, lock going on. Hey, pulling for you, Nick. Love you, man. Oh, good, oh, good. Talks at the tables here at Boston Conner and at Ty Schmidt. One half of the hammer. Cowboys, AP, Tony's here. Nine year NFL vet, Darius J. Butler is here. D-butt, I think it's a special day. Because today we celebrate something that if it didn't happen, you and me would never have been teammates. You and me would have never been friends. You and me would have never had the opportunity to experience the greatest play. The greatest place of culture and community that there is, which is a professional sports or a, for us, a football locker room. You know, in 1947 it was a big, big time. Jackie Robinson broke the teller barrier, played in MLB, became the rookie of the year. Will go on to become a six-time All-Star and MVP and a World Series champion. And in doing so, doing what sports does, spring people together. MLB celebrates Jackie Robinson every single year on this particular day. I think that's awesome to do. I think it's a nice reminder that sports had a huge part of bringing our world together. And I think that's the same message, you know, that we try to preach as well. Because when you're in a locker room and when you all have one goal and when you're all trying to do the same exact stuff in the same exact way and you're all buying in, it's just like, who cares about anything? We're just kind of in this as a, as a group trying to conquer. And it's like, I think society can do that. And I think it's cool that Jackie Robinson is celebrated every single year. And I think it's a good move by MLB. And I would like your opinion on getting to meet people that you would probably never meet before because of football locker rooms and inevitably because of Jackie Robinson in 1947. Yeah, I mean, sports is incredible. Obviously moving away from home, South Florida, going all the way up to Connecticut, experiencing the campus, experiencing Connecticut, experiencing the team. But I can't imagine what Jackie Robinson, the shit he had to deal with, obviously off of the diamond. You know, not only him, but his family, his people around him. Just to kind of chase his dream and play the sport he loved. He was an incredible athlete in multiple sports, but he did his thing in the MLB and opened the doors to so many. I love how the MLB celebrates him, you know, year in and year out, how they champion him, how everybody puts on the 42 around the league. It's incredible. He's an incredible man and late the path was a true, true trailblazer in sports. Yeah, absolutely. And the ability to be able to take it on the shins and mental, not just on the shins, obviously, you know what I'm talking about. Like just to actually have to handle people being very anti you in a lot of situations to have the mental fortitude. He's also thinking about future generations whenever he's doing all that. He understands in the moment like, hey, if not me, then who in this entire thing. And I think that's why it's so damn perfect. And obviously incredible baseball player. Yeah, absolutely incredible baseball player. Yeah, and also like obviously dealing with the stuff off the field, but like it's widely known that like a large percentage of his teammates hated him too. You know, like there are maybe one or two guys who left side. Yeah, exactly. Exactly. It was kind of, you know, like a modern, not a modern day, but like it was a remember the Titan situation. And obviously once you see the guy play and it's like, oh, this guy could help us win a World Series. He's one of the best players in baseball already. Maybe that dissipates a little bit, but like it wasn't like he was, you know, living this life on the field of, oh, this guy's unbelievable. Everybody loves him. Everybody loves him. And then he goes, you know, to get something to eat and he has to deal with all that stuff. It's like fans hated him. They gave him shit. His teammates did. Like it took a long time of him being very good and very consistent for people to finally kind of realize like, okay, you know, like this is bullshit. This guy's been through enough. What a good thing for the sport, man. 1947 to like it's not that long. No, that's my grandparents, you know, around my parents obviously born in 60. So like it's not that long ago, but we have come a long, long way. So once again, sports is usually on the front, forefront of that, you know, some meritocracy is about what you can do on the field. You've seen it changing even in sport. We cover the most in NFL with quarterbacks and how different the quarterbacks look now in NFL as opposed to, you know, 30 or 40 years ago. Now, people, it comes down to opportunities being available to say, hey, yeah, you can play this mission or you can't be a head coach. You can't be a GM. So it's bigger than what he did on the baseball diamond. He knows that obviously, you know, him and his family, but just an incredible, incredible journey for Jackie. Hey, baby Jackie. There were, there was, I'm sorry, a watch on the. Everything all DB team. That's right. That was a big day. Yeah. That was a big day. Shout out. Shout out. Shout out. Shout out. Now on that note, no, Ernie, I'm not trying to compare, but it's like those relationships are the most hilarious and best in the football locker room. And it's like outside of a locker room. If any of the, I think even I make a lot of jokes about the whites, you know, like, hey, because whenever you're shit talking in a locker room, it's like, there is an easy icebreaker. Like, hey, I know the whites are big time this, you know, whenever you're dealing with whoever from wherever. Because sometimes the only white folks that some people see are either cops, football coaches or their teammates in their locker room. And I always felt obligated to represent for a Pittsburgh white, like, hey, I just want to let you know how we kind of operate in those relationships are just like forever. You know, it is like sports of the greatest sports. Sometimes the only black dudes people see are teammates. True. I'm not going to go to college because, you know, I'm from a place where it's a melting pot. It's people from all over the world down in South Florida, but a lot of America is kind of, it's still not segregated. But you grow up, you go to pretty much an all white school and all black school and all Hispanic school, wherever you're from. So to have that type of diversity in the locker room where it's like, look, don't care who you're from, don't care about your parents. Speaking of locker rooms, white boy Wednesdays, you have the all Florida Wednesdays. When it's Saturday or Sunday, whenever we have that common goal, we go out there and get it done. And that's why you see, I think people in sports go out have a ton of success, even in like, you know, the regular business world because you are used to dealing with so many different people. You used to dealing with a very, very, you used to even, you know, you can empathize with another person that maybe hasn't walked the same walk that you have. So, you know, locker room sports is incredible, man, brings a lot. Yeah, I think the mission of what everybody's trying to accomplish is obviously brings people together. And you know, you start having a couple drinks, you know, smoke a little bit, whatever. Sure. Whatever your thing is, start learning about each other, start shit talking to each other. I mean, then it just becomes, you know, that's why I remember the Titans movie. Like, I think you'll find a lot of football players really enjoy remembering the Titans, just because like, obviously at the beginning, it's nowhere near what it is now in football locker rooms. But towards the end, the relationship is very much like that. Like that was, it was a special showcase, I think of what is possible in a football locker room. And yeah, it's cool that the MLB has a day where we can have these types of conversations almost like, hey, remember, let's talk about the greatness that sports has and what Jackie Robinson did in 1947. Yeah. And you always talk about it too when it comes to not just football, but NBA, NHL, like the closest teams are the ones that go on to win it all. It's not just like, hey, off the field, we should be friends. It's like, hey, if we are, we're going to be a much better team. You know, when we go out there on Sunday or Saturday or whenever the hell it is, like, I'm assuming the MLB is no different too, just because 162 games, all you do is spend time with each other. Like that is the most important time. Yeah. Sports are the greatest. Joining us now, ladies and gentlemen, is a man who obviously had a phenomenal NBA career. Let me read through these entire things. Okay. So, we're going to be talking about the best rounder at Georgia Tech, Go Jackets. Uh-huh. Don Augusta saw some Go Jackets. I bet. Yeah, saw some Georgia Tech fans. Nowhere near as many Go Dogs fans. Sure. Well, a lot of Georgia Tech people. Ten years in the NBA, Nick Cavs won a championship there. Kings Rockets Nets. And then also, guys got hips. Oh, yeah. One season 30 of Dancing with the Stars. Ladies and gentlemen, I'm in Shumper. Yay! Hey, I'm in. I don't know if you got a chance to catch it. Oh, it's the Mon Pac. It's the Mon Pac. Come on, man. Don't do me. I ain't been like that. That's fucked up. Take him off. Take him off. Take him off. Take off the thing. Yeah. Ladies and gentlemen, joining us now is a man who is not only an NBA champion, but whenever you see him on TV and you hear him speak, you think yourself, wow, this guy is a TV superstar. Icon basketball legend, Eman Shumper. What's going on, Big Tom? That's fucked up. What's going on, man? Shump is the only thing. And then for the official introduction, I would like to let you know there was a conversation happening towards the end of the last conversation about is this I or E here as I'm about to dive into this. And that's on me and also I think Google, but nonetheless, did you hear the tail end of our conversation there about Jackie Robinson? I did. I did get there. Hey, whites are coming into the NBA in a big way. How do we feel about the culture of the NBA in basketball? For us, football locker room is obviously very, very tight. Are you guys, is it the same way? And I assume you can tell whenever you're watching teams if they're a tight group or not. Yeah, I think it's been something that we've actually gotten to touch on a lot when we were discussing the playoffs. The locker room camaraderie has a big, big, big piece of the puzzle when we start talking about a team that we look at as a championship locker room. If you have a locker room where you see those bonds happening, you see guys corralling each other on the sidelines. You see them reacting to another person's success that's on the floor because they might not be getting the minutes. When you see all these things happening, you could point to that team and say, hey, they're going to be all right because you know when you're making one of those runs to try and get any type of jewelry, when you're making those runs, something bad is going to happen along the way and you have to be able to hold on to your guys in your locker room. So I think it's been great that you guys are discussing this, the things that Jackie Robinson did. When I look at it, I think too, remember the Titans, one of my favorite movies when they talk about those special relationships, those special moments. I think a lot of the times people don't get to get that camaraderie unless they play a sport and that's what the game does. It breaks that barrier. Whatever we didn't have the common ground to discuss as long as we all play basketball, we get it. As long as we all play football, we get it. So we love sports and we love what it does to a locker room. We're incredibly lucky to be a part of it. We're thankful that you're a part of more of the televised part of this entire thing. Given your opinions, we enjoyed you a lot this season. Congrats on everything. I appreciate it. As we push more into the playoffs, let's talk about the play-ins last night. Charlotte team, just one of the teams that you're talking about feels like they're a tight bunch. Feels like that is a tight bunch. Yeah, I like that team. I like that team a lot. It actually sucks that we've had to harp on the thing that happened was tripping bam because if you watch that game start to finish, you want entertainment for just being a playoff, I mean a play-in game to get to the playoffs. This is true entertainment. We always had that little gap in between the regular season going into the playoffs where we don't really have anything to talk about, nothing to get excited about. I think this play-in turn had really added something to the NBA. It was special to see. I thought Davion Mitchell had a really good game. I thought Andrew Wiggins had a really good game that these things should be talked about. We didn't get a chance to because of one play, but that was a very, very entertaining game last night. Yeah, I loved it. I saw all of that game except for about like 24 seconds in the final minute of every time. I think we're all kind of there in the same spot. That was crazy. Insane. No, that can't happen. Insane. But I think they had moments down the stretch that I thought the Heat might have some things going for them. What was cool to see was we talk about a underdeveloped or the maturity level of the backcourt of the Hornets and we talk about how they need to grow. It was really cool to see Con Canipo have a terrible shooting performance and lose no confidence when Jack in his next shot. He stayed aggressive. He stayed with it. They didn't call his number down the stretch. Nobody's going to talk about it. He didn't mind it at all. He sat on that sideline. He was encouraging his teammates. He was there. Kobe White stepped right up and acted like he was back in UNC. He's hitting threes. Everybody's going crazy. When I saw that team at the end, I was like, wow, this is the first step of growth because our knock on the Hornets has been they are immature. They will play flagrant. They don't understand the moment. They understood moments last night and I thought that was good for them. I don't know how much good it does because whatever you're playing into, y'all are playing into some deep waters dealing with Detroit. But whatever they did, I think it was great for their ball club. Yeah. The Detroit fans, anytime I put a tweet out about the Hornets, they are in there immediately. And then obviously I am learning because I've not paid close enough attention to it that I guess Hornets and Detroit are what we want. We would all like to see those two play against each other. I also appreciate the fact that Charlotte for not having a team for a long time that's been relevant, that place was awesome. Showed off. Oh yeah. The baby's down there with the babysitters. I don't know if you saw it. He's down there. He's in it. He's filming with a mic. He is streaming live down in there. By the way, the baby happened to see you back, by the way. Good to see you all the way back in this entire thing. But he's literally getting boards. He's down there getting boards for them in the entire city. It's seemingly showing up for them. Good. Panther's getting better. Oh yeah. Hornets have a team. Hurricanes. Okay. Carolina Hurricanes. It's like North Carolina's whole, but definitely Charlotte here is having a little bit of a come up. They're a great sports town. I'm excited to watch if they can continue to go. Okay, let's move to the other game that happened last night in the West. I learned of a guy. Go ahead, Conn, man. Yeah, show him. Denny Avdea. Avdea kind of gets pronounced in multiple ways. He's unbelievable. He drops 41. He's one of these European guys that's basically been a pro. So, since he was 15 years old, can you tell us about this Portland team, about Denny in particular? It felt like he was a bust for Washington or maybe he just didn't come along quickly enough in Washington. Then he goes to Portland and makes himself an absolute superstar. Is this Portland team kind of got the grit they need? We all remember how the Portland season kind of started a little shaky when it came to off the court stuff. But what about this team makes you think that they can make a run? Well, it was very interesting last night. We kind of underestimated, well, at least I did. I ain't going to say we. I underestimated what Drew Holiday means to a ball club. What Drew Holiday was able to silently do every time they needed a bucket, every time they needed a decision to be made. He kind of did it for him. And I forgot him and Chris Middleton were the guys filling in the blanks when Milwaukee made that run. So I saw last night, I saw him step up and get activated again. And I'll be a takeover. We saw I'll be was one of those guys that can go for 20 to 35 any night. But for him to put his head down to be getting in ISO situations and waving the ball screen off to see him do all of this. I really don't even understand if he has a ceiling anymore. I saw it. I was saying, maybe he's not as athletic. Maybe he's not this. Maybe he's not that the guy can play basketball. He understands if he's not as athletic, he can take that little step cross your body to make you an athletic for just a second. All he needs is just a second. He's got a good touch on the ball, a variety of finishes under the rim, seeing him roll like that and say it would seem like a statement game to say, I am the man. Not I can be. I am the man. And when you have a game like that, I think that is big for your teammates to see it. But for the rest of the league as well. He's a smaller, faster joker. That's what I saw. That's what I saw. The one he made to win it down the stretch or whatever, he did that thing in the sky and then he put it straight up in the air. Had no spin. It was like a trick shot that like some uncle would do at a cookout or whatever. Like, hey, look at me and then put it straight up in it. There's no spin on that ball. And then he won it that foul too. He wanted it. Bang, bang, bang. And then no spin. Just like, guy, let me do it. He's outrageously good. Everything he was doing was special. It was like, so this guy's been playing all year. Huh? This guy. But the thing is, he's been putting together quite the campaign all season. It's not like he's come out of nowhere or anything like that. I think that he's one of those guys that we don't lean on the NBA enough for their player development. Sometimes guys come to a team and they're in a situation or a role where they can't do much. They have to leave that role. They have to get into a new environment for them to blossom, for them to become whatever they're going to become. He was one of those guys that was trapped in a situation. Him being a professional since he was 15 years old adds to the fact that he's going to say, hey, whatever the team needs, this is my job. My job on this team is this. He just never lost focus and never lost confidence in himself. And I think that if you're a young player out there watching, he is one of those guys that you should put a star next to his name and say, let me watch and let me go back and watch some of his career as it unfolded to see where he got to this point. Because this is nothing but work and keeping your confidence the whole time. They talk about when your name's called, be ready. He was ready. Yeah. Prime showed a graphic somehow popped it up. But Denny, I believe was the second leading scorer in the NBA from like March 28th to the close of the season two. So he really did come on and play his best ball now. Yeah. I think with him last night, the way he was playing, I didn't make it for the whole game. I apologize. That's what you're good. That's on me. And also not knowing that guy existed till last night. That one's on me. That was a nice little surprise. Oh, yeah. That was a really nice little surprise. LaMelo, the way LaMelo is playing right now, obviously we are keeping up with Conn Cunnipo, rookie of the year stuff with how many threes he was making. I don't think I was, LaMelo is doing exactly what he was doing in like high school. Yeah. He's doing that in the NBA now. Oh, yeah. Like he's just doing the same exact shit. They're running pick and roll, him pass to the left and feed it and then come back and go, we're going right back to the same shit. I swear, I saw him doing this in high school. What are you doing? Yeah. Everything and then him hitting that game winner after the giveaway, the turnover, when Tyler Ero said, actually, I'm going to go ahead and mess this entire thing up and hits a crazy three, then he presses. So like, I think, yeah, this crazy out of Tyler Ero. Is that right? Hero Ero is like gyro. I don't know. Hero. Okay. He was too. And then he presses up thing. Bang. And then it kind of, yeah, they ran a little, it looked like they watched the Connecticut game and they wanted to do the same thing. That's all I could think. Like they saw the Connecticut game. This is the same, this is the same thing about the happen, but I didn't see the foul right there in the corner. Didn't see the foul in the corner. I didn't see that. I don't, I don't know why they called that, but it happened. It was a very exciting play. This was a jaw dropper to them. Okay. So the foul was not right is what you're saying. That should have just been a miss shot. I did not. Yeah. I don't think that was a foul at all. Okay. Can you talk about the, was that, is that called a trap you guys run there where Tyler Ero moves up off his guy? What is that that they ran basically to confuse Lamello and have him get no options? Cause he was trapped. Not really. It's just, yeah, yeah. They just sitting in the double team and then it becomes a two to one. So if you see right there, they got the two guys up there, your next two guys in the, in the next line would now become your rovers. They're looking to intercept the pass, but they know they're playing three within two. They're trying to play that. And usually to run a press breaker, you should have somebody sprint up, somebody from the Hornets should have sprinted up from behind and got to that middle area to give him an outlet. That's part of playoff experience, part of game experience. It's loud in there, lots going on. Everybody just sort of forgot. You only get eight seconds to get that thing across. Once the shot clock turns off, you got to kind of have that in your head. Okay. So thank you for all that information for those of us that maybe didn't play organized basketball. So his only right answer is the back corner there, right? That's his only right answer at this point. Yeah. I wouldn't even make it. That's a dangerous pass. They're baiting him for that back corner. What they need is the back corner to sprint all the way up and make himself available. Okay. So he just needs to provide an option up here without a doubt. They just didn't see it in time and left him to try and make the pass, which he usually does cause it's Lamello ball. Probably put a little too much confidence in them. Somebody should have been there for him. But then him answering immediately with that layup. What a moment for him. I mean, that had to be. Oh yeah. And he was telling people he is who they say he is. He was, uh, had a lot of that. Dominic mascot. And then the block. Yeah. Yeah. And that's another thing. This guy's been a star. Miles Bridges. Miles Bridges isn't going to get a lot of credit, but down the stretch, he hit big shots, timely shots, uh, big rebounds. He played really well down the stretch as well as, yeah, that nice finish he had. And then the last block, uh, to make sure he gets back after, you know, uh, quite the exciting thing that happens on the other end to get back and make sure to get that block. Uh, yeah, really proud of the way he played and the rest of the, uh, the Charlotte Hornets. Again, I understand what happened with bam is very unfortunate. You never want to see that. Uh, but there was a lot of good basketball to see last night. Okay. I did want to get back to that. So I'm thankful you brought it up again. Um, so this is the second time he's done it to bam, right? The internet tells me that they ran a highlight from 2024. Is this like his move? Was he trying to slow him down? Is there something between Lamello and bam? Like what? Cause that's tailbone problem right there. Right. I mean, that is a big man who falls a long way right on his bone and then allegedly, you know, here it is from 2024. It happened again where he tried to trip him up. Is that like a move? A lot of guys try to slow people down when they can't get back or like, why do you think this is happening the way? Yeah. I think that is exactly what happened. The first time, I think the first time you saw more, I didn't get the call. I fell and then I'm really trying to stop the play because I can't get back now. I tried to sell the call and beg for a call. Didn't get one. Now I kind of want the whistle to blow so we can argue a little bit. You see that a lot with guys, right? The second time I really think he initially wanted to get his hand out of the way and saw, Hey, maybe I can make him step out of bounds or move. Like, I know he wasn't thinking, let me trip him to hurt him or harm him because nobody wants to sit out and take that fine. I don't think Lamello would have a problem with bam. It's not even a good physical matchup for him to be trying to pick at bam. So I look at it and I see you saw an advantage. Look, he's out. He's out. My hands on him, whatever. Then you try and move your hands so you don't get stepped on. That's what I initially saw when I saw it. If it was malicious, Lamello, you know better. Yeah. But you should have kicked out of game. Should have been a penalty, but that's not the reason why we lost. But our best guy didn't play since the second quarter. So I don't know. That's certainly something that was crazy, especially because it is Lamello. And then Lamello hits the game winner and we've all known Lamello for so long. So it's like another added piece of his character almost, you know, like we've seen him grow up on the Internet. And now he's leading a franchise in Charlotte, North Carolina to potentially a playoff run. What is the reality of them? What is the reality of them? I know Detroit everybody loves. How could you know? Oh, yeah, those guys, those guys that are waiting for him, it's no reality. I mean, I'm Bravo. They played a hell of a season. If they if they rolled they would they win the next game and they roll into that and they play Detroit Bravo. You know, Con Connipple, you did great. Brandon Miller coming along. I love it. Go home. The way they match up the way they and I love Charlotte team. I've been telling people all the time if Lamello gets better with his decision making his gifts, what makes him any different from an SGA besides SGA's head just being on straight and on the narrow to say, hey, I'm not going to leave any room for error. I'm going to make every decision this way. Lamello just plays a little bit more free flow, but I feel like he's has the same gifts. When I look at, sorry, I just lost my train of thought. Hold it. Make the comparison. They're going to lose. They're going to lose because Detroit plays defense. Lamello and Charlotte, they play a free flow, fast pace. We can throw this freelance pass. We can throw this skip pass. We could put pressure on you this way. We could put pressure on you that way. Detroit will muck up a game and say, Hey, you're going to use the whole shot clock. We're going to go downhill and there will be no three point attempts. They defend the three point line as well as shoot threes. They control pace and they control decisions. If Detroit gets them into a game where decisions have to be key or else it opens up, Charlotte cannot match up with Detroit in that way. I just, I can't see it in my wildest dream. Okay. I love it. I cannot wait to watch this Detroit team play. Obviously I have been all season guys. So good. So good at basketball and that's how it's always been up there. Right? You guys, we've been the one seed for the entire season long. This is the perfect matchup for us because they hate each other's guts. So be no sleeping by the one verse to eight seed thing going on. They'll be ready. The crowd will be ready. The Pistons fans have been waiting for this for so long. Congrats to you guys. You paying a 21 year old tiger baseball player. Yeah. Here we go. Detroit's really doing it. Okay. So you like the Pistons obviously clearly. How could you not one? I do. Let's go. Let's stay in the East. Go ahead. Debuff. Yeah. Pistons up top of the one seed shampoos and the Celtics are the betting favorites to come out of the East. But after that, I'm actually about two of your former squats, the calves in the nicks. Nick's got a ton of expectations every day. I see. Hey, if they losing the first round, wholesale changes Cleveland, James hard. I got the most wins ever in the playoff without winning the title. He's paired up with D Mitch over there. Which one of those teams do you think are primed to make a longer run in the playoffs this year? Well, I think it's the New York Knicks. The New York Knicks were put together for this reason. I don't see why else you bring along Mike Hellbridge's. I don't see why else you bring along a call Anthony Towns. Like this is what it was for. Down goes Jason Tatum and everybody sort of changes the odds. But as far as I'm concerned, when I watched last year, they had Jason Tatum. They were the favorite already and the Knicks were going to beat them before Jason Tatum went down. So in my mind, when I look at it, the Knicks are the only team with something to lose in this. Everybody else is sort of playing with an element of surprise. It's not a surprise to everybody that's been watching all season. But when we talked about before the season, we talked about the teams being up top. Nobody had Detroit on their mind to be the number one seed. What they're doing right now is great. Kay Cunningham had to sit down for a little bit. He'll be coming back. But there are excuses on paper for it seems like every other team. There is no room for error. There is no excuse for the Knicks. The Knicks have to come with it. Good luck to the Knicks, man. Last year they were so good. They do. And the Pacers just happened to be like, the hottest team. They do. Ten-nick. Ten-nick. And I like Boston a lot. I like everything that they have going on. I just, I don't see them as the favorite because of what I know the Knicks were brought together to do. If Boston was coming into this with a healthy Jason Tatum all year, I would have a different thing on my mind. I still haven't seen the explosion out of that leg. Knowing that the Knicks already had y'all on the ropes. I'm excited to see the matchup with they do run into each other. I love that Boston Carter cannot wait to respond to that. I would. Oh, yeah. That's the ease. You can finish it up and then head to the West. I believe Jason Tatum played like 15 games. There's more double doubles than your guy as GA does all season. Maybe he's not throwing down dunk to have a motion, but he's still playing unbelievable basketball. I mean, all wheels ahead. It's different when you can put a whole game playing together for somebody though. It's easy to knock somebody off on Tuesday. I can catch you on Thursday. I could catch you on a Saturday when y'all went out the night before. You can do all of that during the season. Y'all know how that is. When the playoff starts, everything changes. You get a big packet. You get a binder. You get film out the ad. I don't know where they get all this film from. You get loads and loads of plays and seeing actions over and over to the point where we get out there. We don't have to yell out what plays they're running. We don't have to think about it. We've been trained to do this. We have been running drilling over and over. You can't surprise anybody in the playoffs. And when that happens, sometimes those athletic gifts have to take over. That's the only question mark that I have by them right now. If they choose to keep leaning on Jaylen Brown, he's shown improved that he can do it all season. I would like to see how it looks in the playoffs. Didn't they have an exciting light five that they ran? Yeah, they had a white five. I think it was. They're bopping the wood. These guys were bopping the wood. Got a European just like Denny, you know, you have all his secret weapon. Yeah, that classic white five. Yeah, they had it. They had it. Mazula was like, what? Send them out there. You know what we're going to get here? They dominated. And they did. They did all that. I love it. Okay, so you just broke down a lot of things that happened in the playoffs. If everybody did that, I wonder how everybody is in champion. But there's obviously one man who has been at the top and in the playoffs since the beginning of ball, seemingly, of my life. Go ahead, Conrad. Yeah, Sean Fellett, the Lakers might roll into the playoffs, you know, feeling good. And then Reeves and Luca go down from your experience with LeBron right now. Is he just basically locking in remembering every play in the history of basketball so he knows what the other team is doing? What do you expect LeBron to do over these next couple of weeks? People are already kind of pontificating that the NBA has made the schedule for the Lakers rocket series a little bit longer. Maybe give Luca some time to come back. But do you think LeBron will even need it? And do you see him just taking over? He's going to take over, of course. He has no choice, you know what I mean? And you only take over. He only has to take over in the respects of, I'm going to lead us this way. This is what we're doing now. This is what we need to do. This is the score we need to stay within until the end and I can make sure I can get us over that finish line. What he's going to do out there is have a feel-out game where, yeah, he's going to come out, try and score it and do as much as he can to be aggressive and send a message. But he's also going to have to do the Andy from Toy Story. Put Andy under everybody's foot and know how to play with your toys. You got to know where Marcus Smart wants to be. I don't know how we get DeAndre Aiden excited, but DA, it's time to get excited. It's time to start dunking and celebrating and yelling and where's the emotion? He's going to need that from out of all his guys and people underestimate LeBron's willingness to go down the line of anybody that's on his team and bring out the best in them. Now, I'm not sitting up here saying LeBron's about to miraculously go out here and beat the Houston Rockets by himself or bring these guys along to do so, but am I going to say they're going to compete? Yes, LeBron will not walk into any type of competition and say, I'm just going to lay down. So whatever the Houston Rockets do, they better do something to start off the game saying, sending a message to them saying, hey, this is not going to be that. This is going to be 4-0. Let's get them out of here. Don't give them any confidence because LeBron James is one of those guys. I understand he's 41, but I didn't think he would be the guy that's healthy at the end of the year and he's the guy that's healthy. Whatever he's doing to take care of his body is unbelievable. And if he's healthy and available, he is dangerous when he turns his back and makes decisions down the stretch. Yeah, he's three years older than me. Hey, listen, I went to his camp and got discovered. I was unranked, got discovered at his camp. He's still playing and I'm discussing this with you. That's what I'm saying. What are we talking about? This is ridiculous. Well, and then, you know, there's obviously the debate on goats. It's like it's two different leagues and two different sports, but it feels like it's been two different sports since the beginning of LeBron's career versus the end of his career. You remember when he was super Jack LeBron, then he got super thin LeBron. Now we got 41-year-old LeBron who's still playing massive minutes and doing everything. It's absurd, the professional athlete that he is, let alone basketball player and all. I think we heard on a team USA practices that he was like literally talking the entire time every single ball, hey, blah, blah, blah, blah, blah, blah, blah, blah, blah, like the entire practice. Is that what it's like every single day with him? And is it just expected that that's what it, and how does Luca you think fit in with that? Or Austin or any other stars fit in with that? Because that's always the conversation about LeBron, right? That's why the big three thing was the thing couldn't win alone, but then people don't want to play with him. Maybe it's like, what is it like being a teammate of LeBron? You kind of know that it's his shit, right? You kind of have to? Yeah, I mean, obviously. I mean, no matter where you see yourself on the rank list, you're going to be under LeBron James when joining his team. The fascinating thing for Luca and Austin Reeves was how beautiful is it to start playing during the season and then get the nod from a LeBron James to say, hey, y'all take control. Y'all go ahead. I'll take the backseat. It's okay. Letting him do that and be selfless in that moment to try and be relevant again. I can't say to try and be a contender. They just need more over there if they're going to be contenders. James, it's a fun story. I just didn't want to say the wrong thing to make people think that, but it has been unbelievable to see him still doing it because I remember playing with him and having to deal with the frustration of it doesn't really matter where he mon is in his career because when you're on a team with LeBron James, you have to win now. There's pressure on you because there's pressure on him. He is that and that's where you start to understand his greatness in the grand scheme. When there's people that don't want to play with him, there's people that don't want to play with him for a ton of reasons. Sometimes it doesn't make sense within their career. Sometimes it's way too much pressure. He's too ball dominant and I'm also ball dominant. You know what I mean? There's a ton of different reasons why you wouldn't want to play. It's not always a negative thing how people think about it. It's always can that situation make sense right now because right now is always attached to LeBron James to say he has to win right now or else we should fire this coach. The coach is on the hot seat. The owners have problems. The G is got problems. It's all type of panic when LeBron James is in the locker room. It's not his fault. It is to owe to his greatness. Yeah, it's just like it's a part of the gift. It's literally the curse portion of that entire thing. It's like, yeah, but we've known you since you're 15 years old. So why don't you go win a title? You're still healthy. Might as well win a title. Hey, remember Michael Jordan or LeBron thing? Yeah, my memory serves me right. Jordan won. So why don't you go? That's literally what people think. Because you only see the highlights. I mean, that's Michael Jordan won though. That's not like just something people say. Where are you from again, Sean? Chicago. Oh, man. Back to back, man. I got so many bulls just listening. I was supposed to go to school. I was supposed to go to school saying so many times that Michael Jordan said, nope, we not losing. I got nothing bad to say about him. Thank you for joining us, man. We hope you'll do this again. You're the best. Man, whenever y'all need me, dawg. Hey, sorry about the whole I-Man thing, you know, because you can see how I'm saying that I am A-N, you know? Yeah, sometimes people want to think I'm a man. Like, you know what I'm saying? It is what it is. Yeah, yeah. All right, Emon, thank you, man. Emon Shumper. Yeah, Shumper. And be a champ. Legend. Love him on TV. I do too. Love him on TV. I saw him walking through the arena, I think, one time whenever we were down there in Game Bridge. And I appreciated the vibe that seemingly followed along the long side. You know, I love too, he still does the old throwback kind of COVID gimmick, suit up top, shorts down bottom if it's way up there. So you saw him. Yeah, yeah. Final six. I thought it was unbelievable. I was so happy. Oh yeah, well, we were doing each other. Yeah, and I saw him. Yep. And I smelled the situation and then, you know, I was like, this guy's the man. Okay, hopefully we'll interact with him at some point. He's going on the program. He can't be pronounced his name wrong. That can't be. How can you know? Yeah, it's one of those. I'm sure it's been said a thousand times, a million times maybe. Shump. He said it. Shump, that's what I've always... Yeah, exactly. He's never been a first name guy. It's always been last. Joining us now, a man who we know his name, senior baseball contributor for ESPN, Jet Passett. Yeah. How you doing, Jet? Jump is like the coolest guy on earth. Oh my God. Actually, right? We were seeing the same thing we were seeing, right? Oh my God. He's majestic. And that's wild, by the way, that he went to LeBron's camp and LeBron is still playing. You know what? I'm sorry to do this and talk about another sport. The fact that LeBron James is still playing, let alone playing at the level he is right now is one of the incredible sports stories of our time. This guy started off in the spotlight at 16 years old with more hype than any athlete in American sports history and has not only lived up to it but exceeded it. And I understand Michael Jordan is the best of all time. LeBron's like 1B. He is phenomenal still. I like that. We get Jet Passett's vote here. We just got Jet Passett's vote. Where are you from originally? I'm from Cleveland. Okay. Okay. I'm someone who's not from one of these cities. Well, he said 1B there though. Yeah, that's true. I don't know. How old are you, Jet? Forty-five. Okay, so I'm 38. So you're a little bit older as it was happening, but I was like watching LeBron. You know, I was like in the age of like three years younger, four years younger, great. It's like how do you... In high school at the same time he was. Yeah, exactly. And he came to Pittsburgh with his high school team and played a Pennsylvania State All-Star. Everybody that's good in this entire state will play this high school. This guy came in, sold out the arena. It was like five, $10 tickets at the beginning. And then obviously he got to a point where it was just like standing room only. And it was like that's before the internet, it's before everything. That's just like whenever old fashioned dial up. Dial up internet, something pops up. Kimbo Slice is knocking somebody out. Okay, he's walking right into their place. He's walking right into their place and knocking somebody out. Okay, no questions asked. And then all of a sudden you're seeing LeBron James has a new deal somewhere where LeBron James did something else. So there's a new highlight that has hit the internet. And it's like a guy got a Hummer, I think, whatever. He was like 16 is one of the first deals. And then he had a Nike deal. And then now, so I saw it all, I think. So I kind of viewed it a little differently and I wasn't in the basketball world. It's like, I don't know how he's done it. I have no idea how he's been able to do it. And obviously people are going to say, he's made mistakes. It's like, yeah, dude, we've known this guy since he's 15 years old, literally his every move in a competitive sport where he is coming into your town in ruining nights for your team. So people are going to say a lot of bad things. He's going to go through a lot of stuff. He's going to get a lot of money. We all know his story didn't come from a lot of money. He's going to put on all his friends too. I didn't want to turn us into an entire, hey, LeBron is the man type ship. But it's like this guy. No, but he is. I don't think that's like that. That's the thing. He absolutely is the fact that you can be in the public spotlight for a quarter century like he's been. And I'm not saying like there haven't been moments where there have been questions. But the questions on LeBron are such small potatoes, like avoiding any sort of like real scandal in that time, being great, winning championships, being a good human being, playing with your kid. Like how cool is that? He has, he has lived an incredible sporting life. And I think it's one that because it's still happening, maybe we don't appreciate it as much as we ought to, but over time we're going to see it. And it's going to be right up there with Michael Jordan. People are one and one. People are going to absolutely hate that we just did this for the last six minutes right now. But let's move along. Let's move along. NBA playoffs, he is the king of the NBA playoffs. He's been in there for 25 years. So that's their M.L. Is there a baseball version of LeBron James that have come through the MLB? It kind of had these expectations and surpassed them. Yeah, Bryce Harper, I think. Like that's the closest one. He was he was on the cover of Sports Illustrated 16 as the chosen one. And, you know, when when you have that right there, like that's a lot. And Bryce Harper has been nothing but awesome in his time in the big leagues. And in the same way as LeBron, frankly, I think has conducted himself, generally speaking, in a tremendous manner from start to finish. Hey, I have a question for you about the NBA because we're on there. Obviously, Jackie Robinson Day. Do we know in the NBA? Is that a celebration as well? Like what year and everything that was? I know it's around Bill Russell, because there's a story about Bob Cousy when it came with the Celtics. They had the first ever player to break the Colourberry in Boston. Earl Lloyd became the first black player to play in an NBA game on October 31st. 1950 says Google, debuting for the Washington Capitals, known as the Big Cat. He broke the Colourberry in a game against the Rochester Royals, preceding fellow trailblazers Chuck Cooper, first drafted and Sweetwater Clifton, first signed in the same 1950-1951. OK, so Jackie Robinson in 1947 obviously kicks a lot of this all off for us. Me and D-Bud actually started the show talking about how we want to be free. No, we would obviously assume that humans and mankind in our country would get to this point. OK, but who knows? It's always going to take a person of action to go ahead and decide to dive into something that is going to be, you know, very difficult, especially mentally. Jackie Robinson getting celebrated every single year by MLB. We think it's very cool because it's a good time to chit chat about the sports culture as a whole and how often sports kind of lead the way on what the rest of society should be like. Jackie Robinson once said, a life is worth nothing, except for the impact it's had on others' lives. And I would make the argument that nobody in the entire world of sports has had an impact on others' lives like Jackie Robinson. What happened in 1947 when you look back where the country was and where race relations were, it's incredible because Brant Rikki, who was the general manager of the Brooklyn Dodgers, he wanted to break the color barrier, but he didn't want to do it with just any person. He wanted to do it with somebody who he knew could take the the reams of crap that was going to be given to him, that there were going to be racist comments, not just from fans, but from fellow players as well. And there was a compact, essentially, between him and Jackie Robinson. Brant Rikki said, I need you not to get angry about this for three years. I need you to internalize it, everything you hear, all the awful words, all the racism. You just need to be bigger than that. And that's an incredibly difficult thing to ask of anyone. But I think Jackie Robinson understood that the impact that he could have, not just on sports, but on society, was so much bigger than whatever he felt that he was willing to sacrifice those emotions and to keep them inside in order to go out and help facilitate this country moving forward in the right direction. And that's exactly what he did. The country is a better place because of Jackie Robinson's place in it. Hell, yeah. And I'm happy we remember that. That's obviously a huge part of society. And yeah, life worth living is your impact on others. I think it's certainly rang true for Mr. Jackie Robinson. We're thankful for that. And sports are the greatest MLB also hitting a time now where I think we've got some active baseball nights. Hey, I'm enjoying the hell out of the sport. Can't have a work stoppage. No, I don't like that. That's lurking right now. But where baseball is right now feels special. Ty has the last question for you here, Jet. Yeah, Jet, we're obviously going to have a couple of days where, you know, it's really cold and the games kind of stink and pitching has by and large dominated the first, you know, 10 or 12 games of the season. But over the last couple of days, a couple of days ago, nine guys have multi-homer games. We have a bunch more the other night. Do you think now that the weather is getting a little bit warmer and we know how much velocity is out there? Like, are you expecting that we're going to see a lot more of these types of nights over the next few weeks, especially with all these marquee stars hitting a bunch of homers as well? Yeah. I mean, just last night, J.J. Weatherholtz, the rookie had his first two-homer game. The interesting thing that I'm looking forward to seeing, Ty, is actually how ABS is going to impact this. The one number that is up significantly across the sport this year is walks. And so guys are being patient. They understand that ABS is changing the zone. It's changing the calculus of the plate appearance and how you go about that. You know what your strike zone is now. Like, you don't have to guess what the umpire is going to have it as. You know where to look for a pitch. And so you think that that should have some sort of an impact on offense going forward. And I understand it hasn't taken quite yet, but you're exactly right. Early in the season offense tends to be brought down by the weather. As it gets a little warm, the ball is going to fly a little more. And I think we're going to see it pick up. Yeah. And also these pitchers got to throw it a little tighter. They can't be thrown it as loose because they know that ABS can just kind of beat them if they want to. So maybe there's a couple more meatballs getting tossed right down. Yeah. Not nibbling as many edges. That's right. Yeah. You were nibbling the edges yesterday and thunderball. Yeah, I was. I was trying. Jett, we created a wiffle ball light in thunderball in here with a mind. Some pickleball is what we're pitching, obviously a bat. And it's four on four teams of four, one pitcher, three outfielders. Obviously rules of wiffle ball get the ball back to the pitchers, man. D-butt had a tough go. Yeah. D-butt had tough go. He's pitcher for one team. We'll say it was his team. And they got absolutely rocks. Showed. Right here at first inning. That's Nick Moraldo. He hit a three run home run off of Darius as he got sent to the dugout. Nick would finish the game four for four with four home runs, including one grand slam. When you talk big bats, you certainly talk Nick and then pitching. Tie through a complete game tie. This thing was up to seventy four seventy five miles an hour at one point. I was going to say, is that tie up on the hill there? Yeah, yeah. Yeah, it was at the. Wow. The bump was at thirty thirty eight feet. Yeah, the bump was. Yeah. And tie through a complete game. And I'll tell you what, Bruce went down. Everybody went down. Big hacks, big swings, great pitches, big fun. That's Thunderball Baseball. Ty, you were phenomenal yesterday. Well, you know, hey, I tried. It was it was nice, you know, kind of loosening the wing up. But I will I'm pretty sore today. I threw about sixty seventy five as I was not expecting to do that when I came in yesterday. But, you know, when you see that with football dancing out there and you know, you get the Velo up a little bit. Yeah, it felt pretty damn good to be back on the ball. Yeah, you were lining them up, knocking them down. I mean, it was yesterday was awesome. Me and Connor were running full commentary on this thing. Look for probably a live stream of Thunderball within the next two, three weeks, if I had to guess, we're making graphics right now currently. So we know so Connor and I can know everybody in there can know what was the count. Yeah. How many hours do we have? That's that's tough. The no score bug thing. Very tough for all parties, if you're not really keeping track of it. But I'll tell you when talk came in, talk one immediately from editing tick tock's straight to the mind because he was called in for the bullpen after Bruce Brown quit the team. Yep. Bruce Brown quit Thunderball yesterday after his second, third straight consecutive strikeout and then he couldn't throw a strike. He quit, talk takes his place, finishes an inning. Then he goes up the bat, gets a hit. Then he goes and pitches the next inning, gives up four home runs. So talk at a quick run. It was a tough day of Thunderball, but we'll have to get you in here, Jet, to bring your own team. I have a team ready to go. OK. In fact, you guys, you guys had had John Boy on a little while ago, I think they have a whole warehouse where they do games like this. It's like a Blitzball game. And I brought my son, his best friend, a cousin of mine and his friend. And we went in there and with their asses. So we are ready to take you guys on. I don't think your boys are touching Tash. Yeah, I think I think they will light tie up. In fact, in fact, I guarantee that they will absolutely crush him with us. Commentating as well. How's the mental toughness of the boys? Because they got to deal with Tye's mouth, too, not just the pitches and three guys in the outfield. All big mouths, all big people. Tye's mouth is like his arm. It's just kind of medium. Oh, yeah. Right. Hey, you know, you can say what you want, but you know what? When you get in the batter's box, Jeff, and I fucking embarrass you, you know, then then you'll be sick. I'm not getting in the batter's box. I'm bringing in my ringers. Are you kidding? You got to play. You can't go. Do I have to? I thought I was going to be on commentary with you. Oh, you want to you would like to. Yeah, I would make that. I like it. I like it. Yeah, good idea. You're you're the skipper of your team. You're saying. Yeah, absolutely. I listen, I'm a talent evaluator. I find talent. I bring them places and we go and wreck shop. OK, well, don't wreck shop. Because Cody already did that yesterday with the help of the bone. Yeah. Did you see that? Did you see what Cody did? No, I didn't. Did he take your belt back on the tape? It's not. It's Randy's title that he took out here. Yeah. That. Okay. Look at this. He walked in last night because the. What's so funny? He's laughing at. What's so funny? It's not funny at all. That's not true. That's a bitch. That's a priceless, maybe a million dollar photo right there. And he just busted up because he throws a little hissy fit. Now, he shouldn't have been let in here. We should have had to get him with a breaking and entering, which I assume he probably would have done because the bone mopped the floor last night after a thunder ball. Obviously a lot of sweat. He hears a banging on the door, he says. So he said it's Cody Rhodes goes, oh, we're going to talk to Cody. What do you see what he does, Jet? What do you see with this asshole who works here? Does walks away being. Go ahead. Don't worry about it. Wow. Belt right up there. That's a that's a fire able offense. Yep. Oh, yeah. The bone said the Cody said, hey, Pat said, I was supposed to come pick up the title and bone goes, I don't know what was real or unreal. I didn't know. And then it's like, well, bone, how about when he picks up the fucking signed Babe Ruth bat and then starts busting through the desk? Maybe you go stop him. He just throws off. Oh, I mean, between between this and bones relay earlier this like break the back, you know, broke the back. No, it's two strikes at least on baseball. He's got one more and he's on Jay. Photo is going to go out for charity, too. Yeah. Yeah, it was to save lives. Yeah, exactly. It's a lot. Then look at this. Yeah, thanks, bone. Yeah, we're gonna put this bump into our computer. All right, jet. We appreciate you, man. Hope you have a good time. Are you going out to mania Saturday night? No, I will not be there, unfortunately, but I will be watching. It's a what you're supposed to be a wrestler, Mark. So once in a century, once in a never night. Listen, I understand completely. But, you know, when you got a new show, like I do with sources, tell Jeff Passon now on YouTube. Sometimes you got to get foot in the work, buddy. This guy, I like that good plug to man, you get it. You got it. First episode was fantastic with scoogle and skeens. Yeah, fantastic stuff. And Detroit just paid a guy. So that means scoogle's got no chance of going back there. They got to pay scoogle, too, if he wants to go back there. It's going to be 400 million plus. There'd be up to 500 million. Geez. It's gonna be a lot of money, Patrick. That's jet passing. We're back on the other side. It's gonna be a friend tell friend something nice. I'm gonna change your life. Goodbye. It's the middle of the night in a small town on the Jersey shore. Someone reports an abandoned car on a bridge. A search gets underway for the missing driver, 19-year-old Sarah Stern. Is it a missing person? Is it a suicide? At this point, nobody knows. Count friendships, buried cash, and a sinister plot that was once pitched as a movie plays out in real life. I'm Juju Chang from 2020 and ABC Audio. Listen now to Bridge of Lies, wherever you get your podcasts. The Greatest. We're so incredibly lucky that we get a chance to chat about them every single day. The fact that we are who you spend your afternoons or mornings or nights with wherever the hell you live, we are so eternally grateful for that. Now, if you're a wrestling fan, though, I want to let you know, and I see you in Vegas, don't talk to me. Don't look at me. I don't like you. I hate you, actually. I'll say it. Sorry. Sorry. There's a title that was sitting here that's going to be hopefully back here if Randy continues to be as gracious as he is to me because he is obviously the actual goat, a man who has the most matches in the history of Monday Night Raw because he's not just showing up and being seen. Now, he's out there crafting, working, burying, dominating. He is the perfect WWE superstar. On Saturday night at WrestleMania in Las Vegas, those fans have no idea what they're seeing. They look a gift horse in the mouth. These bums don't even know greatness whenever it steps foot in front of them. So if I see you out of WrestleMania, no, I hate you. And that's fair. Pretty simple rule. You guys are, you gotta say mean stuff to me. A lot. I'm the hero in this entire thing. Got 25% off tickets for three days. They want thank you. Nope. Nope. Not one single member of Cody Rhodes' family. Give me a Cody crybabies. Bingo. Seems like there's a lot of them. A lot of crybabies out there. Seems like even people that maybe weren't Cody crybabies before, they kind of became crybabies. In the office too. Yeah, in the office, obviously, that's a dipshit that just lets somebody in the building and says, I don't know what was real. He said that you said it and I'm real. Me too. At two bone. Big for no one. Yeah, exactly. And now I will say this. You're lucky. You're lucky. You broke a picture that can be replaced. Oh, that being said. This was a once in a lifetime artifact that has Randy Orton's sweat on the inside of it from the evening in which we announced together in St. Louis that we were going to save the business. That's worth a lot of money. More than 50,000, definitely. No doubt. Way more than 50,000. You were underselling it. You said a million in the first hour. I think you could argue that's $500,000 to a billion. Or $500 million, excuse me. Yeah, just like Pawn Stars guy. Exactly. You never know who's going to walk in and want this thing. It could be a billion dollar piece of art. You never know. And this asshole comes in here and damages it. Oh, what's that? A felony. Okay. You get your title. You also multiple, level six felonies. Multiple happen in this entire thing. And you walk out of here with Randy Orton's title as if like you're supposed to have it. Possessions is not intense at all, brother. It's been here for a while. Bingo. I think it was in Augusta too. Also, the boys did a full photo shoot upstairs up there with it. It was kind of making it on our own. It was ours, wasn't it? It was. It's cool. Randy Orton's going to handle you. Oh, yeah. Big time. Yeah. I didn't bone finish sweeping. He just, what happened? That's a great question too. He got tired. No, when they started passing out. So when he talked to me, when he called me, and maybe he did get a little tired, which could certainly happen a long day or two. Whenever he said something happened, you know, the whole. Right. Exactly. And he told me the entire thing. I said, I think it's a crime. Like I actually think it's a crime scene. So why don't you just get your ass out of there? Okay. So he didn't touch anything. We made sure, Foxy made sure to get a bunch of B-roll of everything so everybody could see. We didn't touch really the handle of the bat so that we can make sure fingerprint. Definitely him, even though our security cameras in that top corner right there by the bison. I mean, that is just what it is. So we got it all here. You know, we're not pressing charges. We're not those types of people. Maybe we'll see what happens on Saturday night. But on that note, Randy will handle this thing. Saturday night, Russ Mann available on ESPN to the first hour and then on ESPN premium plus super duper. That's right. Bingo. And you're going to want that. The super duper. Oh yeah. You're going to need that. You're going to need. Well, you're definitely going to need that. But you're going to want that too because all the things that are available. Try to figure it out today. Definitely ahead of time. Yeah. Let's not run into the old, well, I missed the hole. Yeah. Now that might be me as well. At my house. You got to figure that out. You got to figure out. Boss of Connor, Attai Schmidt, one after the hammer. Cowboys, AP Tonys here, nine year NFL vet, Darius J. Butler. Yes, sir. D-Butch, you've been a part of some action, you know, in the wrestling world down there at NXT. So you kind of know what it feels like to walk into enemy territory whenever you, you were disrespecting what they have going on. Remember, we had this in NXT. So you kind of get a feeling of what I'm walking into at a leisure. I'll tell you what, I got to San Jose. I'm in my bus. You know, great to have a bus. Yeah. Good bus. I opened that door. I see a bunch of people that hate my guts. I'm like, oh, I forgot all these people were probably taking this pretty personal as well. And all of a sudden it is like, hey, this is me versus entire for the good of it. And they don't even know that this is for the good of everybody's life over there. It actually sucks that you are helping them. Like, hold on now. That's kind of where it's like. Yeah. Interesting conundrum. Yeah. Because my daughter about to be three. I would like her to be a wrestling fan. So I'd like there to be a business. You know that is right. To be a fan of, yeah. To be a fan, yes. Yes. And it's like Randy Orton can definitely do that. Go go. Bingo. The most dangerous three letters in all of sports, entertainment, RK. Imagine what he's going to do this weekend. We've been drawing them up. I'd love to say, hey, think about, you know, because he has the Seth Rollins one where it's well. And there's obviously the top rubber on D-butt's been drawing them up all the time. Yeah, you're right. You're right. Good call. You're right. Not always lost. And we will if we have to. Oh yeah. He will for sure. Hey, look at this. Let me set the picture for you. Like I'm not actually, you know what I mean? All right. It's for the good of all you. You need to remember that. Boom. Boom. European uppercut, a couple of those. Yeah. I'm kind of, you know, be Randy Orton there for a second. Get him in the corner. Let's go ahead and hit him with a few. Randy, let's go ahead and be up. Boom, bang. Boom, bang. Boom. Boom. Let's go ahead and lace them in. All right. I saw some good side by side today. Yeah, thank you. I was really, I think I got, I mean, if I was hit, you know, because I'm trying to learn from the greatest. Everybody should be doing that. Yeah. Jordan Love, Brian Rogers. Bingo. Everybody in San Jose should have been doing that, trying to learn from Randy Orton on what the hell to do, how the hell to do. It's basically what the business should do. What I was doing, you see, and I definitely thought about this as it was happening, I was showcasing what everybody should be doing. When you get a chance to watch Randy Orton, you're watching what it's supposed to be. Yeah. This is who you should be trying to be. Take notes. Nobody else. You should be trying to be Randy Orton. That's what it does Saturday when it's 15th World Title and it saves the business. Yeah, exactly. But you, and you already know, I mean, you're not, no one's going to see the light. You know, you've tried a bit to help everybody see the light for the last couple of weeks now. I mean, what have they done? Just said rude thing. Yeah, just potting. A lot of potting. I'm seeing a lot of potting, which I thought, you know, going into mania, we should be a gaffer. Is this potting mania? Yeah. It feels like potting mania. I want WrestleMania, not potting mania. Which is why Randy's going to do what he's going to do. Yeah. Joining us now, ladies and gentlemen, is a man who's a college football national champion, Super Bowl champion, Ryder Cup winner. And also, a man who's been a part of one of these before. Physicality. Ladies and gentlemen, AJ Hawke. How you doing, man? The D-Bone just put in a tough spot last night. I would say he probably failed the test, but he was in a tough spot. I thought after Cody was in there, you know, taking those left-handed cuts and really messing the office up, I thought we'd see D-Bone come flying from behind, you know, cheap shot him or something. Yes. That is what we all kind of expected. Because when D-Bone, the bone explained it to me on the phone, you know, he undersolded it obviously because he wanted the conversation to end a little bit lighter than it could have been. Sure. You know? Cody came, I let him in, he took the title. What? What? What? He says. He hid some things. It's hard to under, and then I had to go pull the footage. Let me get onto the app. Let me look at the footage. And then all of a sudden, it's like, you walked his ass in here to terrorize our office. What is even the question here? And then you got to think like, did the bone and Cody set this up like long term? Because potentially. Could see that. But D-Bone was told that today is his day. Yesterday was his day to kind of mop, to kind of alternate. So if somebody else is working, does it just so happen to be that day? Or did it just so happen to be that day? There you go. You know what I mean, H? Yeah, we need a lie detector test in there. You got anyone out there that can bring one in, hook them up? Yeah, because I thought it was someone else's day. Good idea. D-Bone volunteered to mop for that person yesterday. Okay, so that would be a different conversation than I would be privy to. I don't know. Let's move along here. Okay, somebody who might have a little bit more to say is a lady who not only is phenomenally one the WWE on top of all the stories, a part of all the stories and incredible public speaker also massive NHL superstar. Ladies and gentlemen, Jackie Redman. Hey, Jackie. Hi. It has been way too long. You got to get better security over there, Pat. I'm shocked at the footage I've seen today. So outside we have blurry footage, which by the way, I think it's on auto focus. I don't like that. I don't know. It wasn't focused on the right thing. There was a truck parked outside gate. Okay, we got construction going on. He jumps over gate. Gates not tall enough. We need to raise that thing. Yeah, we do. Yeah. But Cody Rhodes should not be able to jump over our gate. No way. Randy Orton. For sure. He can jump over our gate. He's not allowed to run through it. Okay, not Cody Rhodes. So he comes over gate, runs up to door. I genuinely wonder what the plan was if we don't have the trader. Yeah. Right. D-Bone doing that at that time, Jackie. I genuinely don't know. So we can't get him on braking and entering. It could be trespassing because he comes onto our property. I'm looking into all of it. You think so? I won't press charges. Randy Orton's going to handle him at WrestleMania. Oh, go ahead. Oh, I was just going to say, I look forward to seeing how you handle business with this because there's a lot of layers to this now. Thank you, Jackie. Speaking of the business, me and Randy about to save it. How has it been and how do you feel just a few days out of WrestleMania? What are you most excited about, especially for the things that have been brewing over the last year? I think brewing is putting it lightly, especially over the last few weeks. And I don't want to make it all about what's going on with you and Randy. But one of the things that I do love about WWE is when we go from everything being sort of black and white to being very gray. And right now, I'm enjoying kind of figuring out like, who's team Randy and Pat here and who's team Cody Rhodes? Where is everybody? And I think that behind the scenes backstage, people are very divided. And in fact, today, you know, I'm in Buffalo, I'm about to do the Sabres and Stars game tonight. Last game of the season means nothing. So there are probably going to be a lot of just shenanigans happening on the broadcast tonight. But even Eddie Olchuk, the great Eddie Olchuk is tapped into what's going on with you and Randy and Cody. And he told me that if I came on here and did not tell you that he is pledging his allegiance to Pat McAfee and Co. That I wouldn't be letting them build things tonight. So I am here to report that Edzo is in fact team Randy and Pat. He's for some reason irritated with Cody Rhodes. I am, of course, objective. I am a professional journalist. I don't take sides, but you do have the great Eddie Olchuk on your team. Edzo has the right. Yeah. That is why. Eddie Olchuk, I appreciate you. I got one of his boys sticks. That's right. Thunderdome. I appreciate him doing that. I'll send some text out to Wayno. We'd like to hear. You know, we'd like to hear. We'd certainly like to hear from others in that world. And we'll certainly talk about the NHL as we go forward, which you are obviously a pillar of. But let's chit chat a little bit more about Mania. Obviously, Punk and Roman main event on Sunday, Oba, Brock. It feels like it is stacked and packed to be a two night spectacle. How do you feel? Oh, I'm so pumped, especially for Oba Brock. Like this, this match is going to be insane. I cannot believe the energy in the building when Oba Femi shows up like Brock Lesnar is one thing and he's had that. He has had that aura for quite some time, but Oba Femi is a bonafide effing superstar. I can't remember if I'm allowed to swear in your show or not. So I avoided it there. You do whatever you want. You do whatever you want. You won't let them fire me. You won't let you know. I don't know about that. You should do what you should do. You think you should do. You should do what you think you should do. You very quickly went from that to whatever you want, Jackie, to never mind. No, it's your world. I just do not want to ruin your world. You do whatever you think you should do. Yeah, I'm excited for Oba Femi. I cannot believe like how quickly this guy has become an absolute superstar. He is such a force. I can't wait to see what happens there. I think it's going to be absolute insanity. So I'm really looking forward to that match. If I was obviously both main events are huge draws and CM Punk and Roman, you know, every time they get on the mic, it's phenomenal. I'm sure you have your own thoughts about Punk right now, Pat. Of course. Rightfully so. Rightfully so. But I'm actually, I think Brock Oba is probably in my top three for the matches that I'm most looking forward to. Like if you're watching and you're a casual wrestling fan, you don't know Oba Femi. Like he is, he is a reason to pay the price of admission at WrestleMania. And if not, at least tune in on ESPN and watch this guy in action because he's a monster. Like he is, he's awesome. And he's taking on the beast, you know, so the opera ball of the species taken on. Oh, but it is going to be spectacular first hour on ESPN. Now this will be following. Obviously something happening on Saturday night. Go ahead, AJ. Yeah, obviously, Jackie, we know Saturday night. We're all, we're all circled here. The main event, Cody, Randy, everything that's transpired, Pat will be in tow. I guess you're, you are an objective journalist. You've got to play it right down the middle. But honestly, how do you see this match going? Is this going to be a marathon match? Obviously, we think Randy is going to win. We all believe that. We know. You believe that. And I guess, I don't know, how do you think like the pacing of it is going to be a high energy, like high octane match, high flying? Like what's going to be like? I don't know what to expect in terms of the pace of the match because there are so many like unmitigated factors. Like I don't know, Pat, what your plan is coming into the weekend, but I do know that you shocked the world when you showed up on Friday night SmackDown. Like nobody saw that coming. Nobody knew that Pat McAfee would be the guy on the phone with Randy Orton. So for me, I feel like you guys, you and Randy have been planning things for a while. You guys have been talking. I don't pretend to know the content of those conversations for sure, other than what you've told us. I think the fact that you were able to keep that under wraps for as long as you did means that you guys are able to, you know, put a plan together. And so I am a little nervous for Cody Rhodes here because nobody saw you coming. So what else is there that we might not see coming? So the intrigue for me is sky high, but you know, Cody Rhodes, Cody Rhodes is a well connected dude as well. So I don't know if anyone else is going to show up. I don't know what's going to happen and how far either of you are willing to go. But it feels like, it feels like you and Randy are dead set on quote unquote saving the business. I, I don't know if the business needs to be saved, but you guys are adamant about your goal. So I think whenever people come together with a common goal, it's a dangerous thing. So I don't know what, how far you're willing to go. How far are you willing to go, Pat? Well, get done what you think needs to be done. Listen, I'm not. To the end of the earth. That's good. Hey, you know what? You're right. It comes to saving the business. Exactly. I got kids. I got kids. Going to have kids. I want the future of this business to be strong. Thank you. Thank Randy. With on that note, Jackie, you're talking like I'm pulling strings here. No, no, no, I'm motivating the greatest of all time. OK. OK. Plan. I mean, plans, an interesting thing, you know, whenever you get on the horn with somebody and you say, hey, listen, you're the only one that can do this. You're the guy. He's got kids. The next generation. He's third generation wrestling or a wrestler star. His family's business. Which way is this thing going, Randy? Which way is this going? Right. Or are we going wrong? OK. Like which way? So I'm just a motivator, you know, Randy, most matches in the history of raw, most matches in the history of like everything. The guy who's been there done that through everything. Youngest ever champion, Fianon comes from the business, is made for the business. He'll be the one that'll figure it all out on how to win 50. Yeah. Just know, though, I don't know. You saw me working on my European uppercut, right? Yeah. Boom. And boom. Right there. So, you know, I'm in good shape. So there's a chance Cody could catch some of those, but I'm not getting my guy disqualified ever, you know, you know, and I'm not getting booted because I definitely want to be in the middle of that ring. Oh, yeah. Doing exactly what we did in San Jose. So I'll be smart, obviously, and Randy will do his thing. And if I need jelly, should not have came out. No. Go home, Bubba. Yeah, he should not have come out. This isn't your fight, Pa. He should not have. That's a bad idea. But I appreciate all the angles in which you spoke of there, Jackie. And you tell those people backstage that whatever the business is better, they'll be gone. So everything will be, everything will be good. Yeah, you go ahead and tell them that. OK, Joe, I need to tell myself that. Do I need to start worrying? No, Jackie. Come on, come on. Miss Jackie. TBD. You never know. We don't know what you're doing tomorrow night. Yeah, we don't know what you're doing tomorrow. OK, let's let's talk a little bit about the hockey. Obviously, NHL playoffs are electrifying. They are. I'm very lucky that I'm from Pittsburgh, that I got a chance to watch these growing up, obviously, without great. The penguins are I'm from hockey, Tom. So obviously I understand this, but I think the casual viewers of hockey, people that maybe don't watch as many, they tune into the playoffs and they think to themselves, wow, is this the fastest, most electrifying, most physical sport of all time? I think the Olympics, having the final that it had with USA Canada, with a lot of America tuning in is going to bode well for the playoffs because you're going to see a lot of similar style of hockey in the playoffs. How do you feel going in? What are some of the big storylines? Obviously, penguins are going to win again. But what do you think people are going to fall in love with with this NHL playoffs series is the penguins are in and how about those flyers? Those flyers are playing pretty well, boys. Jackie. I got to say, I know you don't want to hear that, but I just move we covered that series. OK, the OK, I made a deal. I made a deal with the governor of Pennsylvania, Shapiro, when the pens win this again, OK, against the flyers who haven't won a cup since 1970, five or six, something like that. Nobody alive has seen them win a Stanley Cup. So we're not very much worried about the flyers, but it is good for hockey that they're in there, giving it all they can. Sure. Yeah, it's good that they're dancing again, you know, it is. It's good for the game. And you know what? It's, you know, you said it best coming into this is like even the most casual hockey fan will say like Stanley Cup playoffs are the best. The first round of the Stanley Cup playoffs, it's chaos, it's drama, it's physical, it's feisty, like people that don't watch hockey all year, tune in to the first round of the Stanley Cup playoffs because they know it is going to be electric. And I think that that's going to be turned up times 10 this year, especially in the East, because the East is a bit of a wild card this year. We have a lot of the heavy hitters that have been in the playoffs for the last decade that aren't there, right? Like we got no Panthers, we got no Leafs, we got no Rangers. So there's a lot of teams back in the postseason in the East that haven't been there for a while and a lot of the big dogs that actually aren't in the postseason in the Eastern Conference. So I think that anything is possible when it comes to the East in terms of who is going to make it to the conference final and who's going to represent the East in the final. So for me, that is super exciting because there's always upsets. But I think the potential for there to be Cinderella runs and craziness in the first round is even higher than usual in the East. So I'm very excited to see it. Obviously, the Buffalo Sabres are a massive story. If you're not paying attention, they haven't been in the postseason in a very, very long time either. But they're in now. They got Yarmul Kekalainen, the general manager, who is a straight up Finnish G running things when he took over. How's that pronounced? The Finnish G? Is that like a. Yeah. Yeah. Is a Finnish G. I don't know what that is. He's a gangster. He is like a straight up G, but he's from Finland. So I just added the Finnish part. I don't know how you would say that in Finnish. But he is the man when he took over earlier this year as GM. He went in the room and he went, none of you guys are safe. I don't care who you are. I don't care how much money you make. Like just know that like anybody can be traded here. Anything can happen. So you guys better like get your shit together. So Yarmul Kekalainen is awesome. Lindy Ruff is the head coach. They're doing amazing things. And Paige Thompson, who we saw at the Olympics with Team USA, is one of the cornerstones of that franchise. So we can see him again this postseason. So I think Buffalo is really excited for that. And I think American hockey fans should be really excited for that, too. So Buffalo is a big story in the East and then over from the West. I mean, Colorado is the top dog. Nathan McKinnon and the boys have been a favorite all year long. There's still like all of the teams are set, but some of the matchups could still change tonight. There is a very, very, very, very small chance that we could get Nathan McKinnon versus Connor McDavid in the first round. Which would be wild. I think the Oilers want none of that. I think that's a terrible situation for them. But if it happens, it's a good situation for hockey fans to see those two powerhouses go head to head. But a lot has to happen tonight in order for that to happen. So probably won't happen, but there's a small, small chance that it could. And then in the central, I just feel bad for the other teams in the central. Like Dallas and Minnesota are two of the have been two of the best teams all year long. They're going to have to face each other in the first round. And then the winner is probably getting Colorado. So that's a super, super tough path. But I love the Dallas Stars. They've been knocking on the door for a while. They have some injuries. So that might hold them back. I remember Otter and Madonna down there. The good old days. Yeah, we got the 99 tarps for the playoffs, two boys. Look up. Inmate, for those that don't know, that's Gumpy. He's from Victoria, Canada, which is north left Canada. He's a Miami Dolphins fan, a Miami Hurricanes fan, a Boston Red Sox fan and a Dallas Stars fan. So Ann Liverpool. Sorry, you never walk alone over there, pal. So he has been riding with Texas hockey for a while. He likes them a lot, but I think you even understand the reality of Colorado, right? Isn't that kind of how you've been speaking, Gum? Yeah, it's a tough row, but Ranton and Ragdoll them last year. You'll probably do it again while they're a physical group, though. It's going to be a tough battle in the first round, boys. OK, let's stay in the West, Jackie. Ty has a question for you. Yeah, Jackie, John Tortorella takes over for the Vegas Golden Knights. And a lot of people, I don't know, maybe thought it was just kind of like a side show, hey, get get through the rest of the season here. They have not lost since he took over. How much does this change the outlook for the Golden Knights moving forward in the Stanley Cup playoffs? Listen, I think it's I actually think it's massive because Vegas has really been underwhelming all year long, right? Like, even though they're a playoff team and everyone wanted to talk about, oh, my God, they fired their coach and they're in a playoff spot, whatever. They have not been performing to their standard all year long. Like, this is supposed to be a contending Stanley Cup team, and they didn't really look that way. Like, yeah, they look like a playoff team, but like 16 teams are playoff teams. They're not all necessarily bonafide cup contenders. So for them to get Mitch Marner to have all this hype and then really underperform for most of the year by their standards is the reason that that move happened and anybody that follows Vegas knows that they have been that way. Since their inception, like they are not afraid to fire anybody. They're not afraid to trade anybody. Like they are all about business and winning. So in terms of the move, though, like, Tortorrella was kind of the perfect guy because his reputation has always been that he squeezes every ounce of juice out of his roster until they get sick of him. And he's new there right now. So I'm not surprised that they got the torts bumped that they're playing really well. But I think it's dangerous for whoever is going to have to face them in the playoffs because they were already a Cup contender. Now they've had this very, very late season change. It's obviously working. There's a renewed energy, whether that's directly from torts or just the fact that it kind of woke the guys up and had them start playing with a little more gumption to me makes them dangerous because they already had the roster to do it. Now they've got someone leaving the charge that's got them fired up. I don't know what torts is doing over there. But he is somebody that even fires up viewers, right? So if that guy is coming in your room and getting the best out of you and you're already a contender in this guy, got the best out of the blue jackets. John Tortorrella is the one that led the underdog blue jacket. The crab shot blue jackets. Yeah. Mm hmm. To a math member, they got swept the Tampa Bay Lightning when the lightning at the time had put up one of the best regular seasons in NHL history. They got swept by the damn blue jacket. Yeah, Tortorrella is very good at getting the most out of his players. And Vegas is already a contender. They were they're not an underdog. No way. The fact that they're playing like this to me. Scary. Yeah. And they have a good path. Yes, they certainly as now. I don't know what's all been punched in. And Ty certainly loves here that has a Vegas Golden Knights fan. Do you remember that? What was the mascot name for the Columbus blue jacket? Blue Jackie or blue jacket or something? Yeah, blue jacket. But for something. But it's definitely not what it was. I think it might have been. It was. Yeah. Yeah, I think it was. What's it? I think it might have been Buzz, maybe. Oh, Stinger is the name. Oh, Stinger. Oh, okay. I was the buzz. I knew I'd get there. He was bopping around at Ohio State Game Day first week, you know. Hey, and I just always remember the blue jackets being ass. So I immediately go, hey, what's up? Your ass. I know that. And then all of a sudden there was an immediate like, mm hmm. I know we're actually we're actually good now. And they did the entire thing. But I remember towards everywhere it goes, it's always like a lightning rod, right? Isn't it like he doesn't get along with the media. He he's he fire. You say he gets everything out of them. I guess he goes in there and he's pretty. Yeah, great asshole. Yeah, that's what they say. Yeah, he is a super accountability driven, I think, right? And the way he goes about it, he doesn't have like feelings, emotions about like, hey, this is how we win. This is what we're going to do. He's not scared to be like that either, right? I think that's the difference of him. Yeah, that gets spot on. And I think like you talked to guys that have played for him, both current and former players, and they all say the same thing. Like, you know where you stand. And I think as a player and Pat, you can speak to this. It's like when someone is direct and black and white and is like, hey, you're not playing. This is why or like, this is why your ice time is down. X, Y, Z. They give it to you straight. John Tortorella is somebody that and I've talked to guys that were like, I don't like him, but I respect him because I knew exactly where I stood. I knew why I was in the press box. There was no gray area. There was no question marks about like, why isn't this guy playing me? Like, I'm not going to, you know, I talked to a player about a month ago who told me that like his coach wasn't even speaking to him and he wasn't sure what he needed to do to get into the lineup, right? And so sometimes there's murky water there where like, you know, you're not like in your coach's good graces, but you're not really sure why or what it is that you need to do to kind of get your ice time back or get back in the game. And with John Tortorella, I think his players, even the ones that maybe didn't enjoy their time playing for him, understood why he was making the decisions that he was making and understood the reasoning behind those choices and got direct answers from John Tortorella himself. So I think there's a there's a level of respect for the fact that Forz is going to maybe make decisions that you don't like, but you're always going to understand why he's making those choices. And I think that that's a sign of a really good coach, because at the end of the day, I think all anybody really wants is transparency. And kind of a plan of like, listen, your ice time is down because of this. If you can do X, Y, Z, like it will go back up. And then it's on you to kind of execute as a player. So I think for Torz, yes, he is a he is hardnosed. He will tell you like it is. He tells you straight, no BS. And sometimes you're going to like it and sometimes you're not going to like it. But at least you know that he's always being real with you. And so I think a lot of players respect that about John Tortorella. Yeah, we understand that type of coaching style well over in the football world. Obviously, there's different ways to go about doing it, but that has been a proven way to win in sports since the beginning of time. Basically, it's like, hey, if we're all doing everything right and somebody is not going to take any shit or anything less than that, probably going to be good if I had to guess the team. But some coaches play mind games, right? Like there's coaches out there that like aren't super direct. And they very rarely win, I think they very rarely win. So it's like, I appreciate and respect the way Torz goes about doing his business. I also appreciate the fact that they're going to win. And I think that Vegas Golden Night Change Room, I think those boys are OK with a little bit of accountability over there. Yeah, without a doubt. And I think there was a clip from right before they brought in Torz. And it was like someone was, you know, giving everybody, you know, nuts before they're going back to the change room. They had just gotten beat and everyone was basically like, fuck this guy. Like no one gave him anything. And it was just like something's going on in the locker room there. Something good. Yeah. It's just something is very weird. And then Torz comes in and now they're already with the hottest team in hockey. I don't think that's a coincidence. You slow as shit. Can't get on the ice. You can you receive a pass one time? You I don't trust you with anybody's family. I mean, there's no way. Weird. Just towards coming in and being like, no, no, no, no. You get the hell out of the way. Can't be on the ice. And they don't trust you. They can't be on the ice. Can't trust them with the puck. Can't trust them with the puck. Can't trust them watching the kids. Can't trust them watching the house. Can't trust them on the fucking ice. And there's nothing we can do. By the way, just on that note, when I played college football, I was very lucky to play for Richard Rodriguez. Richard Rodriguez is a I think he and towards probably pretty similar. If I had to guess, there's a new Mike up coming out of Richard Rodriguez. He has evolved a little bit, but it's still in there. It's still in there at the beginning of the video. He goes, you guys just line up right behind the fucking tackle. It's very simple. When a tackle let the tackle figure it out, and then you line up behind the tackle. Then like 35 seconds later in the video, it goes behind the tackle, behind the tackle. And then the play happens. He goes over to the same group. He goes, that's on me. I thought you knew it once. Center guard fucking tackle is right. It's like it's still in there. Now, back in the day, it would have been a little bit more. It would have been a little bit more delivery on him. But like the way they think in the way that they expect and would like perfection is why those teams are always good. You know, like those coaches seemingly always good. Now, if you don't win, players will revolt. That kind of happened to the Bill Belichick coaching tree. Guys would leave the coaching tree, go into a new place. I'm Bill Belichick. This is how it's going to go. You lose and the players go, first of all, you're not Bill. We suck and this sucks. That is just and you get people out of there. So I'd assume a big part of towards this thing is he has to win. Or I assume that gets bad. I'd assume that's probably why it ends the way it does in certain places. Jackie, I think just, you know, any time you're you're dealing with someone that, you know, has a high bar set for you and isn't afraid to kind of be direct and tell you how it is and and maybe be, you know, hard nose, as we like to say, in hockey. I mean, that that runs its course anywhere. Right. Like you just get more and more comfortable with someone. And if they're barking at you all the time, like eventually, you know, I'm tired of this guy barking at me like I don't like it. And so, you know, it happens everywhere. So I think and even, you know, Bruce Cassidy is a fantastic hockey coach, right? Want to stand the cup with the Vegas Golden Knights. And but he is somebody that demands a lot of his players. And I think over time, some anywhere, no matter who you are or how good of a coach you are, it's going to happen anywhere. So I think that's just part of the business. And hopefully, you know, for torts and the Knights, they can they can make something magic happen soon because, you know, Vegas, they'll they'll they'll fire they'll fire their coaches in a month. They'll fire torts after six weeks on the job and have no issue with it. So you love the high expectations. Don't you? As a Vegas Golden Knights fan, absolutely. They should be winning or going to the Stanley Cup every single year. And that's what you've done. Everyone should have those expectations. No, everyone. Love that. Love that. That's what I'm. I wish the league if we're a little bit more hard at. Oh, never gonna. Never gonna. Never gonna. They could have used a little of that. Yeah. Went for the last hundred years. Yeah, I'd say. I wish the Red Rims had that. Run it back. Can we stop running back the losing? How about that? How's that for an idea? OK, I have an idea, too. That needs a little bit more information. When was the last time a Canadian franchise has won the Stanley Cup? Oh, you want to guess? Because I can give you the answer, but I'd love to hear your can you want to take a guess? Pat, it's been a while. I'll tell you that. When was when was there the original? Who's the captain? Where's the captain on the panel? He hasn't been that long. Where he grow out? Where's he from? You talking about Nova? I'm talking about Sydney Crosby. Well, the greatest players of all time. What are you talking about? He lifted Lord Stanley for the Penguins, right? Oh, shut up. We're talking about Canadian franchises. Oh, sorry. I thought we were talking about just great Canadian players that helped out your team. No, we're talking about the Olympics. We're talking about OK, so we want to get in here. He's got a silver medal in his ears. You can't hear. Oh, my God. Oh, he can't put up. And more on the way. And more on the way. Only like 40 more. You catch up. OK, exactly, exactly. The last Canadian franchise to win the Stanley Cup was in 1993. Oh, my God. 93, the Montreal Canadiens. Wow. Let me tell you about that. La Habitante. La Habitante. You know, we talk about the decisions that have to be made at the coaching position in down here in America. We'll bring in the accountability driven coach. OK, we'll send him around town. Hey, you got kicked out of this place. This guy's too hard nose. Some American over goes, yeah. That's our guy. We won't take. And then they come in here and just hoist Lorda all the time. Florida, Florida. They don't even have ice outside. No. They don't even. Never. Can't have ice out. No, in drinks. Texas. You had a winner. Well, we did have the winner classic in Miami this year. That was outside. Yeah, they have a special style for it. It wasn't naturalized. Yeah, we need to start doing that more because they win more Stanley Cups than Canada does. Yeah. So I mean, it's just something to think about. OK, let's pivot away from NHL Playoffs, which are going to be spectacular. Can't wait to watch. D-Bud has the final question for you. Yeah, it's championships. There's nothing down there. Hockey beach. So you know, she said the east is wide open. You know, you're welcome. But moving away from hockey since I am out in the Stanley Cup Playoffs. Let's go back to Mania. We're talking about obviously it's upcoming weekend in Vegas. But I want to go back. What's your favorite Mania moment? I know mine, 40, Philly, that pop when Taker came out. Oh, unbelievable. Been in that crowd. What's your favorite Mania moment over the years? That is a really, really good one because I don't think most people saw that coming. And so when you heard like the dong, it was just like, what? That is insane. My first my first or my favorite Mania is probably my first Mania with the company, which was in Dallas when Stone Cold was in action and I was standing like 30 feet from Stone Cold being up on the top ropes, smashing beers together. Pat, I think you were lying on the floor. I can't remember. Yeah, that was my first. That was my first. Mania. That was my first ever Mania with the company. So selfishly, that has to be my favorite because it was just like I had one of those rare moments where you actually stop in the present moment and actually have the realization of like, how did I actually get here? Like, how is this my life right now? I felt that in the moment. And so that only happens every so often. And for me, that one was really, really special because, you know, a 10 year old jet backie would not believe that she was going to meet Stone Cold Steve Austin that day and then watch him smash beers live from the floor. So that's my favorite one selfishly. If it means anything, you tell 10 year old Jackie that old 10 year old Pat had no fucking idea. You know, that was going to be happening as well. Yeah. Special night, obviously. Let's get back to that. Yeah, exactly. Exactly. Let's get back. Can I ask the final question? Is that OK? Sure. Sure. I just Pat, just like if you could snap your fingers, everything goes exactly the way that you and Randy wanted to this weekend and into the foreseeable future. What does WWE look like if Pat and Randy get their way? Like paint that picture. Jackie, if your 10 year old Jackie would be excited to know about Stone Cold Steve Austin meeting you and being a fan of yours and everything, and that would make you excited. You understand that what wrestling is. OK, you understand what it's supposed to be. And at the top of the card, you know, that is what everybody is striving to become. OK, it goes all the way back. Sam Artino did it for a long time. Andre did it for a long time. Hulk did it for a long time. Obviously, you get in the Stone Cold rock era of carrying the company. And then you got Roman Reigns carried to come. John Cena carried to come. When the top looks how it's supposed to look and acts how it's supposed to look. Everybody else falls in line. You know, so you understand. You get done doing an interview with somebody, they stumble over themselves, their ass, and then you're told to send it back. And you're like, how the hell is that? What this is? You say, I know you do and your brain is a professional speaker. So whenever the top looks how it's supposed to look, everybody else kind of falls in line. And Randy Orton is right here. This is exactly what it's supposed to be. And that's all I've been saying is like, hey, Randy, you're the only one that can really make this look how it's supposed to. Yeah. For future generations here. And he might be, you know, in his career pretty deep here. We got a lot of time to save the business, especially with a super motivated guy who's 280 pounds. Oh, my God. We'll say, I will say, I do think over the last year that not enough people in wrestling and around wrestling have been talking about how close Randy Orton still is to potentially breaking the all time world title record. Like he is still active. He is still amazing. And I know, you know, we had John Cena's retirement tour and we had him break through at like all that stuff is important. But I feel like Randy did kind of fall into the shadows a little bit like, hey, this guy is still wrestling. Yeah, Jack. See, bad ass. You get it. We're not talking about him being so close. Like he could still break that record. And I will say I maintain my objectivity and have no sides here. But I do think that that was not getting enough attention or play over the course of the last year that Randy is still right there. Yes, you get it. Thank you. I knew I was speaking for people with brains and this will be good for the future. And Randy knows it. He knows the weight on his broad ass shoulders. Yeah, he didn't have to lie about his numbers up there. No, not one bit. And in between his ears, like the other guy in between his ears and behind that ridiculously handsome face, massive wrestling. He is good looking. He is good looking. Did Cody. Yeah, Jackie. He is WWE. This guy is six, five, two, seventy, five. He walks into a room and everybody goes, Holy, what is that thing? Oh, that's WWE World Champ. Of course it is. Did Cody change that graphic when he was in here last night? Six, two, two, twenty, two. Yeah, I don't think so. Yeah, we did. We did some job. We did some measurements on what Cody is, especially, you know, being in the ring with him. Anyways, we appreciate you, Jackie. We'll see you in Mania. It sounds like you understand it. She gets it. Yeah, even though San Jose didn't and I assume these disgusting pigs that are going to be in Las Vegas aren't going to understand it either. You're the best. Ladies and gentlemen, that's Jackie. Red. Pigs. Yeah. Uh huh. I can already sense it. I can already sense them. We're three and a half hour flight away. I can smell them. Yeah, they're massing already and their stench is just floating over. Disgusting. Like a like a fog. Yeah. Yeah. Remember wildfires covers in entire country. That's what happens at Mania. All these people get together. It is crazy. Next Monday, Tuesday, look out Ohio, Pennsylvania. Yeah. The shit sent coming from WrestleMania, Marx is on your way. Small air quality. The worst. Ladies and gentlemen, joining us now is a man who's about to do something special tonight. There is. Oh no, no, no, we just got a new. There's a sponsor in front of this thing. I've never seen this name before. Tonight, 7pm East. I can't go. You can't do it. Can't do it. Ladies and gentlemen, tonight, 7pm Eastern. We have a million dollar pickleball series of games taking place. That'll be headlined by a two on two. By the who's who in tennis and pickleball. Tonight at 7pm is the Aries pickleball slam for joining us now as a man who's falling in love with pickleball because of the pickleball slams. I don't think he's ever lost. Ladies and gentlemen, tennis icon, future pickleball icon. Andre had to say. Yeah, Andre. How you doing, man? Those are very generous words, my friend, and a lot of assumptions there. Well, I heard you fell in love with pickleball. The last time we talked to you, I think was pickleball slam one. That's true. Fair enough, that part's true. Saying I'm going to be the future of it somehow is, you know, I don't know. A lot of good players out there. OK, so how much have you learned about the pickleball community since pickleball slam one? Because I think you only played for a couple of weeks leading into that. Then you got obviously go on TV, you win. It tennis pickleball used to have a thing. It felt like the last time we talked about it. Now I'm hearing you have fallen in love with pickleball. You actually view it as a beautiful thing. Post-tennis is what it sounds like. And tonight you get another chance to do that. Is that all accurate? And why have you fallen in love with pickleball? Yeah, it is. You know, the earlier slams of, oh, I mean, I fell in love with pickleball because it's like it's just added a lot to our lives internally as a family. I mean, it's I mean, we're actually making friends now. It's hard to do it at my age. I mean, stuff. But the truth is, it's a low point of entry. Everybody's intimidated to try it. Everybody gets better quickly at it. It brings community together. There's a lot, a lot of gifts to it. It's great physical outlet, believe it or not. And mentally, it's also requires a lot of lock on. And in this, in this slam, it's different too. Because we got the tennis thing with me and James Blake, but we also got the Annaly Waters and Jeannie Bouchard who play professionally. So it's a, you know, they want to promote his battle to the sexes. But to me, it's a celebration of pickleball. It breaks down gender barriers, you know, cultural barriers. I mean, just, just love it. We're looking forward to it. Yeah. James Blake will take on Annaly Waters. I don't know if you know this, Andre, I can see. And then in a two on two later, you and James Blake will take on Annaly and Jeannie Bouchard. The Annaly is really good at pickleball. She showed up at Radio Row and we had a little bit of a, uh, a bit of a pickle, a little bit of a pickle here. She is very talented. I don't know how much film you've watched. I was able to go a little bit here. We're rallying. Okay. We're on stage. She's going to hit me with a little topspin number. That's really going to drop quick. I think you need to be prepared for this late. It seems to be her strikeout or ponche maneuver. Right there. That was it right there. That thing said goodbye right after, you know, it cleared my desk. She's unbelievable. She is the phenom, right? 165 gold medals, 168 gold medals, 38 triple crowns, 38 triple crowns in pickleball. She is like the one. I'm excited she's a part of this, but how much have you interacted with her? And what are you expecting tonight at seven o'clock? I think it's easy. I got to play against her in a few hours. You're freaking me out here. No, I've played you. I played against her. I played against her. I've appreciated watching her. I mean, it's, it's obvious what, you know, what makes her so good, which is pretty much everything she does. You know, the question becomes, you know, how does that sort of match up against a few things that we can do? And I think the jury's a little out on that. I mean, the discrepancy and tennis from male to female is pretty relevant from the standpoint of strength above the shoulders, but in pickle, the ball never gets up there anyhow. So I think the Delta is a lot different. I think we have our work cut out, but we also had the luxury of being able to watch them a heck of a lot more than they've watched us. So we're looking forward to it in a lot of ways, but it'll just be data for me to, to take in and hopefully inspiration to keep getting better. Excited to watch you try to cook in the kitchen against the world's greats. Go ahead, AJ. Yeah, what's it like playing with a partner here? Obviously, one on one, we know you can hustle around, do everything. But when you have a partner, you kind of have to have a strategy on which balls to hit, what not to hit. I know the little bit of pickleball I've played with a partner. Sometimes you get in arguments with your partners and say, Hey, that was mine. You shouldn't take that one. All of that. I guess how do you work through all of that on a big stage like this? Yeah. Yeah, fair enough. Well, James and I have rallied to play together, you know, a handful of times leading up to this and the good news between our games is they're very defined in what we do well. I mean, his athleticism is crazy. His forehand is huge, his quick hands are as fast, which does anybody I've seen out there and the guy can still cover a lot of real estate. So we kind of have a pretty framed out way that we can sort of work together. I know exactly what to expect from him. He knows what to expect from me. I wouldn't say it's nuanced in its versatility, but it is something that has to be stopped. So we're looking forward to, you know, to bring it out there. But you're right. Not knowing your partner is a huge disadvantage. When you're out there in real time, because you're not sure what you can count on and what you can't. But with James, it's pretty clear what you can count on. And that helps me know a lot easier where to be on the court under different scenarios. Do you have a rating or a score in the pickleball world? I don't kind of officially, because that just requires my ADD, I think, doesn't allow me to, you know, focus on the pre-match sort of. Yeah, but no, I enjoy finding games where I'm the worst one on the court, which is getting harder to do. And but at the same time, the levels just keep getting higher and higher. So that's when you really improve the most in pickle. It's like, if you're the best one on the court, like go find another court, you know, you don't improve that way. When you start seeing new sort of people that can hide the paddle face at the last second, it's crazy how one tool changes a lot of dynamics. So I'm getting into the strategy of it a lot more now and, you know, hopefully have enough ability to not bring somebody down who plays better than me. Okay, so hold on. Did you just give away a little gimmick that you're going to debut tonight potentially on Annalie and Jeanne? What is the hidden, you're turning that thing backwards and then your, what is the move that you trick you just found? Because maybe we add this into our pickle. Yeah. You're asking me what trick I have. I don't have many tricks. The question is, you know, how late can you sort of change your mind with your paddle face, right? It's those are split seconds, but the distance and proximity of players on a pickle court is so close that that, you know, that last second change of shot is very important. And, you know, and speeding up in tennis, we speed up when we see opportunity to end points, you know, and pickle, you speed up to set up the end. You kind of have to unlearn a few things if you're a tennis player and you, you know, you try to create opportunities sometimes being a little bit calmer. So it's, it's a challenge, you know, mentally to, for a tennis player to transition a lot of ways, but in other ways, it translates pretty comfortably. So it's a give and take. I cannot wait to watch 7 p.m. The pickleball slam for brought to you by Aries will be live from Hard Rock, Seminole Hard Rock Hotel and Casino in Hollywood, Florida. Love that place. Oh yeah. Gorgeous. Absolutely love that place. I heard you have some history down there too. Oh, Andre. It's a classic venue. I mean, we, I mean, I've seen Metallica here playing this venue to Red Hot Chili Peppers. I mean, forget about it. It's intimate, but it's, but it's, uh, it's electric. It's, it's big enough, but it's not daunting. It's the, there's not a bad seat in the house. It's, uh, it's a great venue to play in. That's why we're thrilled to be back. Metallica Red Hot Chili Peppers, Andre Agassi, James Blake, Anna Lee Walter, and Jeannie Bouchard, pickleball slam for, we can't wait to watch 7 p.m. on ESPN. You're the man, Andre. Thank you, buddy. That's one else. I missed that there. You too. We agree, Andre. Anna Lee Waters is a problem. She's never like lost. Yeah. I think, but Andre sounds like he's figured it out. Yeah. My money's on Agassi. Yeah. He's taking on Jeannie. He's taking on Jeannie. One on one. James Blake takes on Anna Lee. One on one. Then they do the two on two at the end. I think two on two at the end is the one that decides it's like a warmup match and then it get in. Okay. Sorry. Go ahead, AJ. No, I can't wait to watch. I love Agassi. I read his book back in the day. Feast. Yeah. He's, uh, he's a weapon. I can't believe he enjoys coming on her show. We're very thankful he was back. Pickleball slam for tonight at seven. We'll watch. We'll see you tomorrow. Goodbye. Phew. How to get a lot in there. Got it in. Cause I am intrigued to watch it. Cause we know the girl, we know. Yeah. Yeah. She's the one. So I'm gonna think about, uh, I'm not a big tennis guy above the shoulders. Obviously that's serving. Yeah. What else? Or a spiky. A bad, yeah. Yeah. Yes. Mm hmm. Okay. So now evens the plan. Mostly, mostly sir. I think thinking is going to be the kitchen is where Pickleball is. You played, the e-bots played, right? Yeah. Yeah. I don't know. You know, like it kind of takes away pickleball kind of neutralized. This is athleticism and power and all that. It makes everyone like more of a level playing field. Yeah. But on that note, I do think they do hit, uh, uh, AQ speed balls. I think is what AQ calls it. Cause AQ has a score. Yep. He's right. He goes at graded areas. He goes and plays at country clubs against people. He has a little tag team, little duo that they do. They wake up early and go do the whole thing. He's in there, in there and watching him kind of go, I'll score now. I'm scored this. I'm ready to this. This guy's this. If somebody's really good, he'll say, for instance, this guy's this. He's this, but he said the speed ball is the game changer. Cause you gotta, you gotta hide the speed. But speed balls when you just hit it at the person and all of a sudden they get right out of that's the game. Yeah. That's AQ's game. I don't know if that's everybody's game. AQ is falling in love with the pound people with the ball thing. Sure. We had a good run. Great run. Incredible. Now we got. I got a better one. I'll tell you what, Thunderball was the name of the pickleball. It was. Uh, but it was rebranded. Now Thunderball is a Wiffleball game. AJ, you would love this game. I think you'd be very good at this. You should give maybe a centerville Elks team together. You, Herbie, Bobby, technically from centerville, but. Yes. I'm to think about. I need to see a tie, tie versus Herbie. Yeah. Tie versus Herbie would be incredible here at Thunderball. I'll tell you, tie through a complete game yesterday, 72, 73 miles an hour from 38 feet. Okay. Apple is coming a little bit. It's possible. Yeah. He might Nick, Nick really went four for four with four donors. Yes. Anna grants, one of them being a grand slam. I believe he had nine RBIs. I don't know if that'll ever be top. No, I was dealing though. Yes. Actually, it was, uh, it was a great time. And we're, you know, figuring out the rules as we go. The bat off your shoulder, Foxy. I just was honestly baiting tie to throw three strikes in a row. And he did it. Yeah, that was incredible. That's why talk became your guys's picture because he was the only one on your side that could throw a strike. Accurate bit of a quick. Tell us don't meet balls. A quick hook on yourself. Or yeah. Bruce really took. There it is. Bang. Talks, talks form is off the chat. Dirty, dirty was good at game though. I mean, I know we're showing a strikeout right now. Dirty was great at game. Hit a home run in the park home run and an actual home run and talk had his moment in the sun, but inevitably he would get shelled. Look at the goal. And, uh, talk off my space home. Why are you so big, D-Ball? Two RBIs. I only base. Hold on. Go back to talk running from from the home. Talks change of direction is awesome. Oh my God. Oh my God. He runs into the wall. He runs into the wall. Here he comes. Let's watch him put on the brakes here and redirect. He's going around third. He's currently on second. Let's watch him. Oh my God. I got time. I got space. Sideway, sideways. Oh, he's been in the break. Such an OPE. Yeah, you're right. Good game, AJ. It looks awesome. And then the Thunderdome was sabotaged by a scumbag. Scumbag. Scumbag. I don't like that that happened at all, by the way. No, it's bullshit. There's just glass shreds, shards everywhere. I like how you said he looks like a righty swinging lefty. He did, didn't he? I mean, it looked like it. I'm guessing he is a lefty, right? You tell me after looking at that swing. After you said that, it made me rethink if he's right here lefty. It really did. Well, honestly, I'm going to say that regardless. You know, that was going to be something I was going to say, no matter what. Him walking out with a goddamn computer. We've had that computer for 10 years. Yeah. That computer is the old faithful computer. Yeah. Look at the stack of papers. It's been there since the first paper. We're lucky to knock those over. Yeah, it did look like he was kind of in a little bit of like a blackout. Yeah. Like an angry rage. If he would have, if he would have, he didn't even know that. I mean, he probably thought that was a part of the table. Well, fingerprints, fingerprints. Whoa, whoa, whoa. Oh, geez. We know, we know who it was. All right, we got him on camera. Hey, watch yourself, Pat. This guy's got bar. I know, he busted a bat off the desk. He's not allowed to touch you, right? That's the rules. Big Gambino. Bingo. Bingo. And also, DeBone, you're good at making graphics. Not the best sweeper. More security. Well, or being a teammate. What was going through Bones' mind right here when he saw? Oh, shut up, shut up. And shut up. Oh, bro. Shut up. Put it down. Put it down. What does it say? I'm sorry. I don't know. Need more kept. I think he was in on it. He's in on it. He knew it was coming. Oh, oh, I'm with the edge. It has to, I mean, it's an inside job. And maybe Bones didn't take the cameras wrong. He thought he had a Wi-Fi jam. I walked him in. You think you said go do whatever you need to do right now? Yeah. Yeah, I said, I mean, how do you know you were gone? Sweep this floor. I thought he was just stupid, you know, like, because he said, wow, the Thunderstorm too, going on last night. So he's like, oh, man, gotta let Odeo. Yeah. Exactly. That's what I think. To get cold or get sick. Yeah, he's going to be freezing. That's what DeBone said. Yeah, sometimes DeBone, you know, he likes Cody that much. He did at least. I mean, I don't know. I remember. I remember he was all about him when I tried with Chief one. Oh, and look who look in this cute. Oh, Jesus. Feth. Felonies multiple. I was flying on some private plane. We got private plane. Must be nice. Yeah. We're on Southwest heading out there. Exactly. Gee, that's what we do. Three connections for the good of fucking ozone. Great. That might be bad for ozone. Reconnection. Yeah, maybe three connections. I'm not farting out there like us. Yeah, there's more people. So those planes are going to plane. Yeah, exactly. Anyways, there it is right there. I wonder why he grabbed the computer. I don't know. I mean, that's just classless. And he ripped the cord, by the way, off the back that connects it to the entire thing. Got had to fix the cord. Thanks. Didn't even add that. Oh, I kind of passed your shoulder like, Hey, well done. Well done. That's right. Right here. Just like we talked about. Pat on the. Yeah. Thanks to bone fucking asshole. Hey, bone, bone. Why don't you go ahead and grab your iPad? You know, meet coach upstairs. Gee, get them out of there. Don't come near me, please. I stay out there. Stay out there. Stay out there. Don't go anywhere. I was going to the snack drawer. We all know. I walked past the next door somehow. Oh, good. OK, good. He is much more of a gentleman than we thought. Yeah. Resigning before we have to fire him. It's probably going to get cold. That's phenomenal. It is nice. Thank you, bone, for doing that, for taking the taking the decision out of my hands. Yeah. Yep. Because that's that's treason. Oh, yeah. You kid me. Big time. Punched full by death. High in some countries. Firing squad. This country. How much money is this thing worth, age, if you had to guess. Remember Rick from Pawn Stars? You never know. Yeah, the camera. I would say 10 to 12 million. There you go. Do you know what that does? Whenever you talk about destruction of property and stuff like that, the value. Oh, yeah. Starts at 50,000. What did you say? 10 to 12 million. That's a that's I'm underselling it too. It's probably more. That's what I'm saying. This thing can get. And I'm not a big I'm a press charges guy, but this guy's in jail for Saturday. What is that? Randy Orton wins. Yeah, victory. I'm not doing it. Randy Orton will handle you. Yeah. Hey, if if DeBone comes walking out Saturday night, we know this is a bad deal. If he comes walking out with Cody. We will know it's a bad deal if he does that. What's this music? Does he have music? Does DeBone have music? Yeah. He got W. W. W. I thought he came out to his dad's music. What's his dad's music? He also likes the Dom Minos. He likes that one. OK, all right. I like that song as well. Yeah, I mean, he just said that's his favorite song. OK, we have some people within the business. Why? Reacting to the security footage. Dan Hasen says CGI is probably isn't even Cody Rhodes. Could be anybody. Probably Matt Cardona. It wasn't Cardona. OK, Indy God didn't come walking in here straight out of a deathmatch and go. Whoa, whoa, whoa, whoa, whoa, with his bat and hit this thing. OK, that was the American nightmare. Mr. Hasen, I think you got to do some realizing on who these people actually are. That's right. Good. I'm not worried about you. Dan Hasen knows what's good for the business. Yeah, you do. Dan Hasen knows. I still want to get very close to him. Sounds like he's blinded by Cody. Yeah, that's what I'm saying. This type of thing could potentially be distracted. I didn't stay away from that thing. Yeah, exactly. Randy, it's OK. It can't be cursed. Perfection cannot be cursed. Bingo. But I need to for the good of my being out there in Vegas, which I would like to be positive vibes because we're going to save some. Yeah. Got to have the right mindset for that. Sure. And also I'm motivated or Randy. Randy can't see me. No, first. No, no, no, no, no, no, no way. Can't do that. There's no reason for me to be any part negative towards my. The only thing I've done is positive for Randy. I think everybody kind of agrees with that. Yeah, I think you know wrestling committee is everything that I have done has been positive for Randy Orton. They love it. Yeah, putting them over all this time. I mean, what else can you do? See, I'm in the lead up in the lead up to this. I mean, what happened? You heard? Put them over all the time. Yeah. Yeah. I do put them over all the time. Yeah. Anytime I went in there. Yeah. Spend a bunch of money around him. I did that. Yeah. We did that. We are fans and we just want to motivate him to make the business better than it's ever been. Yeah, exactly. Exactly. All right, AJ, we're going to get the hell out of here. We got a Thunderball game to play. We got cleanups of glass. Yeah. And we got a Thunderball game to play. Pickleball Slam 4 tonight. 7 p.m. On ESPN. NBA last night obviously had an incredible night of playing games. It was electrifying. Obviously what Lamello Ball did to the Miami Heat drove some conversations today about was that was ethical? What are we doing here? Yeah. I'll say this. That was an electrifying playing game. Yes, it was. Shout out to Charlotte for parading that atmosphere environment. And that game. I'm telling you, the baby was the sixth man on the court for the Hornets. He was on the court. He's about to pick up Lamello. Go all Lamello. He's picking him up down there. Picking him up center of the matter. That's what you need. You need the city showing up like that obviously in a big way. And in Portland's got a guy. Yeah. We've been watching him all year. We've been talking about this guy. That's right. Trying to tell you. All year. He's been a pro for nine years now. Terrible. We've been talking about him. Avdea. Avdea. Yup. Avdea is a problem. Okay. And it was nice to see you last night, pal. Because what he was doing was just spectacular. It was a fun game. A basketball to watch him go for over 40 in a play in game. And also potentially learn about his existence at the same time. Yeah. That was a fun thing. That was a fun little playing game. Now remember, if you lose these playing games, you find yourself in a position that is like completely screwed. You're in the middle of the NBA. You're probably not going to win the draft lottery. You're not going to be able to rebuild because the amount of money you spent, you're kind of in a purgatory situation. But if you get hot during a play in and go on a playoff run, you can miraculously turn your franchise into a much better franchise over the course of what? Two months basically. Is that Portland? And then they got Dame Time coming back next year, right? Yeah. So Dame Time and Avdea on the same team. Yeah. That could be good. And then obviously, Charlotte gets away tonight though. Magic. Sixers. Sixers. Steph Curry taking on the Clippers. Now Clippers conversation has been loud off the court all year. Yes. Kawai's playing. Kawai's healthy. Kawai's good. Oh yeah. Very good. Best year in a while. And what we've been told is all Kawai cares about is the playoffs. Yes. Yep. So let's assume that Kawai Leonard goes bananas tonight. And who on the other side? Oh, Steph and Dreymont. Dreymont, a guy who we now know will punch somebody in the face at a meeting. Yes. Okay. Off the court. Not just that basketball. Yeah. On the court, he'll do it. Off the court, he'll do it. And for that, we have to, we have to genuinely show respect for a man always being the same person since the beginning of time. I think that's a, and Steph Curry coming back from injury, lighten up the hoop. Is he going to be able to lead Golden State from a 10 seat into baby in eight seat after a play in? And then, you know, the Orlando Magic. Here we go. They got a lot of good guys. Oh yeah. They got all the guys. When they're playing basketball, people go, wow, those guys, they know basketball. Paulo's a dog. Paulo Banchero. He's so good. So good. Orlando Magic. And then the Sixers, I mean, Paul George obviously over there. We love that. Tyrese Maxi, Vijay Ejikom. Really, a fun team to watch, honestly. Because Maxi can float. Yes. Flats. Yes, he certainly can. Yeah. All right. So tonight we got two more incredible playing games. Maybe we'll be able to see the entirety of it. It won't be technical discus. Down it. Twenty six. Anything about that? Huh? Have they, have they mentioned, talked about why it happened? What, what's going on? Sorry. They said computer went down or something like that. Hardware in the truck. Yeah, it's hardware in the truck. So a computer or an input or something went down. Now there is a chance. And I'm not going to say this, but whenever you're doing a live broadcast and we have found ourselves now talking about this multiple days, we're not going to act like we are the experts on this, but we have certainly done it in a variety of fashions, uh, strictly off a generator, off of other power, bringing in a truck, being in the back of a truck. We've done a lot of, we've been a part of a lot of boots on ground live productions in place. There is so many things that can go wrong. So, so many things that can go wrong whenever you're doing live events. That's why the CBS master's 18th whole thing. It's like, we have no idea if a camera just glipped, like just blip for 30 seconds. Well, why did it do that? No, no clue. Well, it's resetting now. It's like, well, how long is the reset for? Ah, we don't know. It should be pretty quick or whatever. It's like those types of things happened. They came out and said something in the truck kind of crash. You would obviously hope that it isn't like a timer was set, you know, not expecting potentially going to overtime, which we have seen happen before. I've called a game and they had the lights on a timer and they didn't expect the game to go as long as they didn't. All the lights turned off because it was a timer. Then we had to wait. That was East Carolina. We had to. I think it was East Carolina. I believe it was East Carolina. We had to wait until the lights came all the way back. That was like the old school lights it took forever, but they had it on a timer and somebody was like, you can't like that's something you don't even really think about. So there's a thousand things that could happen. They said they had a hardware issue with this entire thing. Whatever the case, it seemingly can happen. You know, like that, especially in overtime, your first run with the playoffs and it's in the final minute of playoff basketball that matters. And it's good, like 24 seconds. One of the best of the game. Yeah. So, but on that note, a lot can go wrong. So anytime you see these things go live, there are people riding the tech in the back like a bucking bull. Yeah. You know, like there's been there's been shows that we've been a part of where the truck has lost all cameras. They don't know, but it's still somehow shooting out. To live TV. So it's like, what do you mean? The cameras of the truck has gone by. We can't see what the feeds are, but the feeds are going to TV. And it's like, OK, so what are you going to do? We're going to stay on the wide shot because we can't see any of the other feeds. It's like, well, how long are we there for? OK, we're resetting. We're resetting. And it's like, that just is all happening all the time for all these games. And I think everybody just assumes it's all figured out. But it's like, you got a lot of humans in a place. A lot of humans, a lot of tech, a lot of a lot of shit happening. And obviously we should get perfection, especially whenever you're spending billions of dollars on something, you should want perfection as well. But it's like all with tech, it's a fickle fucker, man. Tech is a really, really fickle thing, I think. And we've seen it now. Masters potentially, even though Jim Nance said the students are being made in real time, potentially something else. He didn't really give an answer. And then with Amazon, it's like we lose some valuable time there. It's like tech has the answers to there's nobody telling the tech what's happened. The tech is telling us what the problem is from our experience, basically. Yeah, for sure. I've grown back to Jim Nance. He talked about the ultimate team player when you talked about like the broadcast and everything going on, how he handled it was beautiful. Like gave a great answer, but also stood up for all of his people behind the scenes. Yeah. Cause that can happen that he knows at any time. And it's probably been so much chaos in his ears before. Hey, we've lost five cameras. We got two cameras. Let's go back to 18. That's all we got right now. Nothing's happening at 18. Yeah. Phil, Jim Phil. I want to go to fucking 18. Coming in, you know, there's those things happen. Like that's why there's people in the truck. You see sometimes there's like chaos. They only show you the shots when everybody's like just kind of. Yes. Merry Christmas to our families. You know, but in the corner, you'll probably see somebody sweating. That's the tech guy. And he has had something happen that he has no idea why it's happening. He can guess there's an in theory. Sure. This could be the case. But with where we are in technology now, it's like they're kind of trying. They're telling us to fucking figure it out. Did I know? All right. The Amazon's Bezos figured out, especially NBA. You got how many different things you got to have to watch it. You NBA. Oh, yeah. I'm so sick. So they turn on four different platforms to start the playoffs. That's a completely different conversation. But if you are Amazon, thank God it happened yesterday and not on Saturday or Sunday when it's going to be some of these six verse three. Like if it's a playing, sure it does suck. It was over time. Like, great game. Come on, figured out great game. But like if this was tie game, LeBron versus KD 30 seconds left, like just as bad then. Now, I would like to say before the NFL went to Amazon, Amazon was their first streaming partner. Amazon had to prove multiple times that they'd be able to handle a game, you know, because platforms dropping, breaking, busting, overloading. I mean, we've been a part of a couple of those just in our, we take our podcast to a new platform. All of a sudden the thing crashes, you know, and it's like, that's a good thing, I think. But also, hey, how do you let that happen? Like we're working on it right now. We are recoding everything. We'll be back up and running or whatever. And then that company sells for like, yeah, well over billions of dollars. And it's like, well, wait, I know. Good for you, man. Good for you. And I put on that note, the people that get it in the back end and get into the coding thing and all that stuff, it's like, I don't even think they know everything about everything at this stage. You know, there was that. What was that documentary was on Netflix about what, um, Al goes and everything they're doing for you. Uh, forget the name. When the scared everybody away from phones and kids with phones. Yeah. That one scared me a bit whenever the Google person came on and was like, nobody knows what, what, why it's happening. Social dilemma was the name of it. Some guy from Google comes in and goes, nobody knows why the Al goes doing what it's doing right now. We can try to like, kind of, we can say, Hey, this is actually a good thing when you do this, but it's like, it's going to decide whether or not it wants to do it and whether or not our prompts are the right prompts or not. It's like, we're kind of just in their world. Now, granted, when they're operating, like, I mean, just looking right now, I mean, we got PTCs, PTCs, I mean, we got everything. The amount of wiring that goes to every single thing that has to be perfect. And it's like, uh, it's a crazy thing. Can't have it in overtime. No, I haven't. No overtime. And no, can't have. And also if we're going to have it, I need something better and elevator music with technical. Yeah, that would help too. I need something, I need something better. Like, uh, because they had to choose what that was. Yes. Oh, like the YouTube TV, the Zen thing. Give us a Zen thing. Yeah, the Zen's, the Zen's not bad. No, it's not bad at all. I'm in the mountains. Yeah. Nice garden. Beaver Lane on his back at some creek somewhere. And suddenly I'm just terrible song. Good luck out there, streamers. We appreciate you investing in sport though. We'd like that to continue to happen. But yeah, that is where the old legacy brands who've done live events for a long time kind of have, they've been through the war so many times, but even they mess up all the time. So it's like there, there is. Shocked it doesn't happen more often. Like from what we know now, yeah. From what we know now, I don't know how it does. I can't remember that ever happening with an NFL game on a network and maybe in my lifetime, with at least in the last 30 years, I can't ever remember there being any kind of glitch in an NFL game. And there's like triple check, double check on everything too. Yeah. That's probably how they got to this point of what they got. Because anytime there's a live broadcast, it feels like, well, this is a bit overkill. Do you need all of this? And they're like, yes, it'd be better have it than I have it. It's like, I guess so. But even those go down. Yeah. And then a transition from one to the backup, the transition from the regular to the backup is its own thing. Anyways, do you even, I'm telling you, if we were to write a book about all the shit that has happened whenever we do the live stuff or what we've seen, these shows should not be up on the air. No. I mean, Jackson State is in the middle of the Jackson State is that was where coach prime was, right? Yeah. Mississippi. We were in a, there was no, you said there was like no infrastructure for internet. No, no, no, we were out there and somehow they sent, we're in Montana. It was negative 13 or whatever had to cut the generator to the heater because we ran out of power to be able to send the signal out. I'm like, are we on the air right now? Cause none of the TVs are working that we can see cameras. Yeah, right. Can't see who knows if those are on. And it's like, are we live on air? Like, yes, everything's still going. The heaters don't work and the lights aren't working. That's not working, but we are still sending the stream. It's like, how I have no idea how it works. And the text is the tech that's doing it is like, we're the captain's now. Yeah, seriously, we got your back. Until we don't. And on the flip side of all that, we have streamers walking around the entire universe and they're perfectly streaming 4k quality anywhere they want. That makes no sense either. Yeah, they got a backpack guy next to him with a live you plug directly into a phone. I think they have to go to places where live you is big though. Yeah, I don't think those are flawless live you is a collection of phone services made into one particular thing. It's a it's a device. It's a little block you can put on your back. We've looked into it a couple of times for our live shows. Those speed was used to in Africa. I think all of them. And that might have been Starlink though. That might have been Starlink, wherever it's at. It was back for like 30,000. All the backpacks. What's the box? That's really the the box inside that you're buying in the backpack. Obviously, I assume there's some radiation protection. Oh, I hope I sure hope. I assume there has to be something. But yeah, it's great technology. I love what they're doing. Those streamers, man. It's crazy. That's a full commitment. That's a full commitment of your life to entertainment. And I respect it. I do wonder what long term what happens, you know, that's a lot of time on air. Oh, yeah. A lot of time on air. And just broadcasting where you are nonstop. There's a lot of wackos out there. Yeah. Oh, buddy got punched yesterday. Exactly. Yeah. Yeah, that's. And on that note, we're done here. We gave away too much on where that was. Yeah. If you're going to take somebody's title, I guess you shouldn't just display it all over the place. Unless you know it's yours anyways. Yeah. Cody, that title can be sitting in your plane, but you know where it's headed. Randy Orton's shoulder. Saturday night, WrestleMania. We cannot wait to get out there and change the business, save the business forever. Stack card should be a blast. And if I see in Vegas at one of these wrestling events, fuck off. Now. They don't like me over there either. So I'm letting them know. Mutual. Yeah. And don't you be saying go home, Pat, because I am home. What I'm in there with Randy. You're the guest. And we're trying to. That's a sweep. Something that dad asshole. No. Couldn't do. That's right. Oh, on the marquee out there. I don't know if they're paying me or Randy for that. Hmm. Gonna have to have a little conversation about that whole thing. Did we want those wrestling marks to be able to see that big of us? No, they do not. You think they deserve that size of Randy Orton in their life on their eyes? Yeah, right. They're going on a chair as well. I assume. Better not. I don't want those stupid stinky butts all over Randy Orton's face. Imagine. If those are the seats, you fatso's and disgusting bums do not sit down. Yeah. Do not sit on those. Do not chant. Go home, Pat. I am home. You sound stupid. And don't look at this. You don't deserve to see Randy Orton this big. It's almost life size, actually, of Randy Orton is. Yeah, pretty close. Almost a little bit smaller. But a giant. An impeccable WWE superstar. A man who's going to save the business on Friday. Download the ESPN Super Duper Premium app now. If you would like to watch a night changing, a business changing night. And also, why don't you come join us? If you're able to get to Vegas Saturday night, there's going to be one of those hours there moments. It's going to be one of those, hey, you remember when moments. And I'm going to be lucky as hell to be the one that's motivating the greatest of all time, Randy Orton. All right. Thank you to today's sponsor, Seekik. Obviously you can get $30 off your WrestleMania ticket. Yeah. What do you use code Pat McAfee? Now remember, there's over 35 million downloads of Seekik. It's the highest rated ticketing app there is. I'm close. Because it's the greatest ticket buying platform on planet Earth and the moon. Which sounds like. Yeah, we're going. Coming soon. Coming soon. We definitely went. We did. So all the pictures. Sure. Heard the contact. Astronauts are back home. We did it. America yet again. That's right, baby. Proud of us. Well, anyways, whenever there's a live event on the moon, Seekik will have the greatest tickets for you. You can get $30 off right now whenever you use code PATMCAFEE. Restrictions do apply. I think that's how much the thing is. There will be fees and shit like that because it is the ticketing business. You can get $30 off the entire product there with Pat McAfee code at Seekik. And we appreciate the hell out of Seekik because they don't lie to you. They'll tell you if it's a shitty deal for a ticket. There'll be a little red dot. Scale one to ten. Obviously green dot means good. This is a good ticket for a good price. They're not scared to lie to you. They're not scared to lose a sale. They just want you to come back and know that Seekik is your ticket buying friend. Shout to Seekik. Shout out. Be your friend, tell your friends something nice. It might change your life. We're gonna have to clean this up, Cody. Jack out. Peace and shit. As punishment, Bones probably cleaned up with his teeth. Yeah, Bones shit. He left the building. So maybe that's better for all of them. Good. Is he still walking? He's just walking down the street now. He wouldn't get very far. He's tired now. Now he's got a tiny little car out there that we can literally go flip over with two hands. And he probably hopped in that little toy car and drove his ass to wherever that plane was headed for Cody and said, I did your job. I didn't even think about him being in on it. I just thought he was stupid. You mentioned AJ that he was in on it. I didn't even think about it. True treason. Yeah, yeah, just shoot. You gotta get a lie detector in there. You know that. Good call. Or that serum that you could inject him to make something. Yeah, yeah. Either one works. Either one. All right, I like it. Be your friend, tell your friends something nice. It might change your life. We're gonna stay together. Team on me. Team on three. One, two, three. Team. Goodbye.