Vince Wilfork and Daniel Cormier, Plus Michelle Smallmon Hangs Out for Life Advice

Hey, Rosillo listeners, you can find every episode on Apple Podcasts and Spotify. Prime members can listen ad-free on Amazon Music. The Ryan Rosillo Show is presented by DraftKings. We did an earlier version of this day because we have almost two parts on the show today with NBA trade deadline just 24 hours away. We have reaction on Harden and AD, which you can check out from the earlier episode on today. Talked to a former coworker and also won a couple of Super Bowls with the New England Patriots, Vince Wilford. On his time with the Patriots, what he thinks about this matchup and also how mad he was that he fell to 21st in the NFL draft. Daniel Cormier, the UFC heavyweight and light heavyweight champion of the world. His background, combat, getting ready to those fights. and we go back to Bigfoot Silva and Strikeforce because I watched it again today. And Michelle Smallman, special guest on a special edition of Life Advice, the biggest star at ESPN, joins the show. 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New York, call 877-8-HOPE-N-Y or text HOPE-N-Y. Connecticut, call 888-789-7777 or visit ccpg.org. On behalf of Boothill Casino in Kansas, wager tax pass-through may apply in Illinois, 21 and over in most states, void in Ontario. Restrictions apply. Bet must win to receive bonus bets which expire in seven days. Minimum odds required. For additional terms and responsible gaming resources, see dkng.co slash audio. Limited time offer. We'll keep cranking here. Super Bowl week. A guy that knows something about Super Bowls and I don't know if he knows this and this is where I'm going to start it. Vince Wolfork here with USO. Patriot's great. It's great to see you. We actually used to hang out in the green room at Comcast before we would go on air. Back in the days. And then there's no way you remember this, but April 2004 the first person that interviewed when you were drafted was me. Really? And Kevin Winter. And you came on, you were on the phone, you got drafted. We were doing a live show from Foxborough. And so I was, along with Kevin, the first guys to talk to you after you were drafted. Yeah. Wow. I did not know that. There's no way. You shouldn't have remembered that. It wasn't as significant for you. It's good to know now. That's pretty cool. Yeah. 20, almost 22 years ago. And here we are now. I know. That's crazy, man. I loved when I interviewed you. I also loved you as a player. Because I remember if you would come out in the 03 draft, where would you have gone? ooh 03 I think I probably would have been in New York but you would have gone higher than yeah absolutely because that was the whole thing with you yes yes if I believe if I would have came out in 03 I would have went to New York because William Joseph the other defensive tackle went to New York right and you know me we were very competitive I'm like I'm better than William you know as is what it was so I think I would have been to New York before William but I think I landed in the right spot and the crazy thing is when I did get drafted I was so pissed off because I was the sixth hurricane drafted that year. And I was so mad because I'm like, there's no way in the world. I'm the sixth worst first round. And you will, you know, and, uh, and that was also one of the great rosters. The game has ever seen that you're coming off. So I'm like, I'm like, okay, yeah, I get, you know, in that time, Sean Taylor, I get it. Kelly Winslow, I get it. Vilma, I get it. Now, DJ Williams, Vern and Karen in me, I'm like, come on now. Like, those three, like, come on now. So it was always a running joke. I always see Vern in the stands now because he had his other son, and now he's got another one. Yeah. He's cooking. When you came on, you did a great job of hiding how mad you were. Oh, yeah. I was living night. So give us a draft story. Like, give me somebody that thought you thought you were telling, they were telling you they were going to take you. Oh, it started. It started at, I think, Atlanta. Atlanta was eight, six or eight. And then I had the Texans. I think Texans was either eight or ten. Okay. And then we had Chicago where they were 13 or 14. They took Tommy. Those three, because I met with those three. me and Lovie Smith we had a real good conversation Atlanta I was talking to Atlanta the Falcons every day I was talking to them Atlanta loved me and Houston came down that's when what's the coach's name I see his face right now but the Texans they had a dinner with all the hurricanes and we all was there and they was like hey we you know if you there we gonna get you so those three so when those three kind of passed I was sitting there. I had no idea where I was going. No idea. So I'm sitting here like holy smokes, okay. I went to Buffalo and then I just started being, you know, taking a little person. I'm like, okay, Buffalo. I grew up a Buffalo Bill fan. I hope they get me. But they had Pat Williams there, right? So I'm like, okay, not Pat. And then it's Minnesota. I said, okay, Minnesota. I can go to Minnesota. John Randall. I like that. No. So at that point, it was like, I don't know. And then the Dolphins came. up. I hated the Dolphins growing up my whole life. I hated them. And then I get drafted to New England. I even hate them more. Right. Right. So then the Dolphins come up. I'm like, oh, I can stay home. Dolphins. Yeah. Now I'm a big fan of the Dolphins. They didn't take me. They'd take Vernon Carey. So at that point, I had no idea where I was going. And next I knew the Patriots get on the clock and boom, I get a phone call. And it's, you know, it's Bears was calling me. Hey, this is Bears from New England Patriots. Woo, woo, woo. I'm a Nicky. I'm a Bill Belichick. Woo, woo, woo. Be a good on the phone. Adventure. Yeah. You know, we would love to be, love for you to be at New England Patriot. You think you could do that? I'm like, yes, sir, I can do that. Woo, woo, woo. So I became a Patriot. So I hung the phone up. I'm saying, hey, New England. Like, where's New England? I'm like, is that the new part of England? Like, where's New England? They was like, no, it's where the Celtics play up in Boston. I'm like, okay, well, just say Boston then. So I'm thinking, I'm like, I had no idea. I'm like, New England, I just knew Boston. Boston. So the funny thing about the Patriots was, I remember I was out of town leading up to the draft. I was in Vegas. And the Patriots called me. They said, hey, Bill want to fly you in to work you out. And I'm like, this is Bears. I'm like, man, F the Patriots. They never draft nobody from us anyways. I ain't coming to hang up. Blink. Hung up. Straight up, I hung up. Now they on the phone talking they want to draft me. And I'm like, holy smokes, I hung up on this dude that was trying to get me to come work out for Bill. And I hung up on him. And now I'm a New England Patriot. And the good thing about being a New England Patriot, honestly, I grew up a Celtics fan. My whole life, I grew up a Celtics fan. And when they was like, This is where the Celtics found. I'm like, oh, that's music to my ears. So, and I remember my defensive coordinator telling me at University of Miami, he said, I had buddies to come over. Like John Vilma came over to my party because I was raising money for diabetes. DJ Williams, he was coming over and raising. And they just saw like the disappointment in my face. And they were just like lifting me like, man, you're going to be good. You're going to be straight. You're going to get, don't worry. And I'm like, man, I'm sitting there taking the person. I'm like, I'm not the sixth. I'm still sitting there saying I'm not the sixth best out of all of us. Like, I'm the person. I'm like, that's where I'm at, right? Yeah, right. So I get drafted, and then I remember my defensive corner, Randy Shannon. He said, Vince, you're going to have a better career, and you're going to win the most Super Bowls. He told me that. He said, you're going to have a better career, and you're going to win the most Super Bowls. You might not think of that. He's like, but watch me. And sure enough, my rookie year, I won my first one. And I remember calling him. I said, Coach, remember you told me I won the Super Bowl? He's like, yeah. He said, I told you. He said, you're not done. And that was my first one. And I ended up playing in four, winning two, losing two. And I just remember, you know, just, you know, going to New England and just having the team that I had around me and the players. It was similar to UM because we was a brotherhood at UM. We played together. We ate together. We did everything together. I get to New England, it's the same thing. It's like it's a brotherhood. Now we're adults. You know, you got grown men over there now with family and kids. So we all grew together. We played together. We hung out together. But we was a huge team. So it was easy for me to transition from college to pros because I seen the same thing. Come from a winning culture. I came from, you know, teammates holding each other accountable. I did all of that. So Patriots was the same way. They just won a Super Bowl against Carolina and Houston. They had probably the best nose tackle that ever played a game in Ted Washington. So they get rid of Ted to bring me in to draft me. So now I'm going into this thinking like, holy crap, like they picked me first round. They had this nose tackle. Now they're bringing me in. They brought in Keith Treller that never played nose. So he had two new guys that never played nose tackle before that he had to teach us how to play nose tackle. And when I tell you, I look back at just my growth and just how things were and the teammates I had and stuff like that there. It was a it was a great career. you know when you came out to like i think what what got a lot of people that are excited about the previous year was like hey there's i think today like we don't even think about that nose tackle and the three four of like you have to be this body type you've got it like we're just not you're an endangered species right it's just there's not any kids in college that are like hey hand in the ground lining right up over the center and then we're staying in the three front the entire time um and granted like look you can you can get some stuff and like hey we'll just play two of these guys they don't have to be you they don't have to be you know um just i think of these bohemians that used to come up here right well ted washington obviously you know i mean it was ridiculous the size that he was at and then it's like okay then you're gonna move this guy around a little bit so i really felt like you're you were like one of the last ones even if they got a little creative with how they would move you around like why do you think that happened to the position Did it just, there weren't enough guys? No, I think, I think offense changed. It went more to a passing lead. And now you have to match up defensively to what offense is putting on the game. So now when I played, we played a lot of base. You know, a lot of teams came out and 21 person, two backs, one tight end receivers out there. Now it's more than 11 person there, one back, one, you know, one tight end. And that tight end now is a receiver tight end. So you have to match and you can't be sitting with a 350 pounder in the middle when you know it's passed. You know, that's, you know, big boys is known to play the run. So now I just think it comes down to so much nickel play at the college level and the NFL level now that no soccer is instinct. It just it just don't it don't make sense because you're only going to play base defense a handful of time now. because a lot of times people playing in nickel, they come out first down there and every personnel. Like, so you match it up. Right, and that's why a guy like you might even still run off the field on third down if it's third and long. Third and long, they're like, hey, I did my job. You know, four defensive ends in the game at that point. But that's why I think that position is kind of extinct. What's going to happen is it's going to take a team that's going to be like, I'm going to run, come in, and I'm going to go old school. I'm going to run this. I'm going to pound this ball against you and force you to play your base defense. and see if you can stop this. And once you start getting teams, start doing that again. I don't know if it'll happen or not, but once you start having that, that's when you'll probably start seeing more of a transition and back to, okay, we got to play the run, but I don't see that in no time soon, honestly. No, but I think all this stuff is cyclical at some point. It's just, will we see the 350, the 370? Will we see that guy in the middle? Unless he's like a freak athlete. Right. Like if he's one of those freakish players, he's 350 and can move and can do this and could do that. But if you're not having that, and a lot of people don't understand, like two-gapping is hard. I don't care if you 400 pounds, it doesn't matter. You could be 400 pounds and can't two-gap. Right. And that's picking which side of the center. Yeah, it's like, it's mentally challenging and it's mentally tough and it's physically because you have to be knowing and willing to go and get beat up every down. Every single down, you're going to take double teams, sometimes triple teams. You're not going to make no plays. You know, the plays you make is going to be, it ain't going to be no crazy outstanding plays. You're not going to be on SportsCenter. It's just one of those unselfish players that you have to want to do that. But physically, I just think it's a lot of people physically can't do it because they're not tough enough to do it physically. I'm just being honest. What do you think of the front then on Seattle's side? Because I love what Leonard has become and then the Murphy kid. Again, they're playing a different thing. They're playing it for. They going to get it. What's that mean? They hitting and getting it. They ain't sitting down too gapping. And even the Patriots, they're not sitting in too gapping. They play good technique, but they're not too gapping. Like, no, they're hitting the dirt. They going. And I think both of these sides, you know, defense up front are really destructive. I mean, they can change the game up front. Yeah, like Seattle all year. I was like, okay, that makes sense. And then once Barmore and Williams getting back, like Barmore has probably been the guy through the last couple years where I'm like, he's the most talented guy in the roster until this year's bit of a turnaround. And now Milton comes in. Right. Like Barmore's the one guy two years ago. I was like, well, at least they have him on the roster, you know. But go ahead. No, you're right. You're right. Now, you know, you go out and you get Milton Williams and he come in and now you add some pieces around them. You know, you got, what's his name, Tonga. You have guys that play very well together in there, right? They're not a bunch of superstars. They're just a great bunch of guys that love to play football that's going to play hard and going to play tough, right? You got Barmore and Williams. Those are your two headliners, but you got the guys that are rolling in behind them. You come in to make more plays just as much as them. So I think our depth defensively, especially the front for New England, I think I'm pretty happy with where we're at. You know, and being in the playoffs, getting these guys back, getting them in Williams, coming back, you just see how it changed the flow of the game because he changed the whole tempo of the game, the mindset of the game when he came back in the playoffs. Now our defense is the top defense in the playoffs because of him. With him coming back, it just raised everybody's level of play. So that's what happened when you have that much of a dynamic player back in the rotation because it brings so much to your team, you know, and he carried him. So I'm looking forward to it. Both of the I'm a defensive guy, so I'm looking forward to see who you're going to be able to win the match up front, who it's going to be and how it's going to look, you know, for, you know, the four quarters. but you got two good defensive mind coaches that understand what this game means and know how to get it done. So we're going to see. The Game Time app gives the advantage back to the fans. It's the hack for unlocking amazing tickets and experiences in just a few taps. It's incredibly easy to use and the Game Time guarantee means you can trust you'll get 100% authentic tickets on time and at the best price. Plus fees are always included. So what you see is what you pay. And now with the big game coming up, there's no better way to buy tickets than through the GameTime app. You can save even more when you choose a section and let GameTime choose the seats. So download the GameTime app today and get started. What's it like for you seeing Vrabel do this in his first year? Man, I love it, man. Listen, I vouched for Vrabel when Houston was looking for a coach. I vouched for him down in Houston. You know, when he left. Because your last two years were there, right? And so you were on it that early. I knew, I knew, but I knew since I was a player with, with Raves, I knew he was going to be a coach then. I'm like, y'all letting the best coach that you have on this team go. And he going to Tennessee. I told him that. And I was public about that with the Texans. And sure enough, he go to Tennessee. He takes him to the AFC championship and then he loses the AFC championship by a couple, you know, points. And I just, I'm like, he's going to be a hell of a coach. I know he will. So when he was available to become the Patriots head coach, I'm like, this is actually a good move. If we're going to get rid of Gerard Mayo, this is the best thing that could have happened to us. Bring a Mike in. You know, he knows the organization, understand what it stands for, understand the city, understand the culture, understand how to get through the players. He just understand the game. And I just knew what makes Mike so special as a coach. He's a great teacher. He's a great teacher and he takes the time and he shows that he care about his team this morning football. It's not just football for him. He cares, actually cares about him. And that's why they play the way they play for him. They run through a wall for him because he's shown, shown them like, hey, I'm going to be with you throughout this whole journey. I'm going to be with you. I'm going to have your back. I'm going to be there. You know, my word is bond and he's proved that to these players. And that's why he getting the best out of this team. That's why. When you left New England, there had to be an easier transition, though, because like Romeo is still the D coordinator those first couple of years. Right. Bill O'Brien. There's probably some relationship there, even though it's a different side of the ball on it. So, you know, with with this team, it wasn't like the Patriots are going to go, hey, you know, the last couple of years for Abel, like, don't come in here. because it's like now come in here and like turn the table over like you could you could have shift this whole thing um so your story is a little like the inverse of like now going somewhere else but there is familiarity yeah i i wonder i wonder if his style like gets the attention immediately because there's trust or if there wasn't really anything to be prideful about the patriots the last couple years so it was a little bit easier for a guy to come in and go hey whatever you've been doing here. You've been doing it wrong. Well, I just think it's the whole makeup for Mike because Mike knows football and you know how you can get around somebody and soon as they start talking, you can gravitate to him. Be like, okay, I feel what this guy's saying. Like I can feel it that he believe in me. I can feel that he believe what he's coaching. And I just feel this vibe. I feel like he's very matter of fact. It ain't no second guessing. Hey, we screw up, we're going to screw up. It is what it is. That's my. And for me, I like a coach that's going to, I don't like a hesitant coach or a coach that's on the bubble or scratches his head. I have to scratch my head and be like, I don't know if this right or wrong. If a coach come to me and they confident in what they're telling me, I'm automatically confident. Because I put so much trust in my coach to give me what I need. And if he's coming and telling me, hey, this is how we're going to do it. Even Bill did it before. Bill done it before plenty of times before where he'll come into a meet room and he'll tell us straight up, this is what we're going to do. This team suck. And this is how we're going to do. Simple. Right. OK, coach, you're right. You are right. And I think that's what Mike brings to the table. He gives the confidence right away on this is how we're going to play this game. We're going to attack here. We want to attack this person. We got to stay away from bad football. We can't do this. We have to execute. And he hold people accountable. That's what it is. Who is a better athlete? You or Vrabel? Me. Man, listen. See, you got to understand. Listen to me. But he does. How many touchdowns do you have? Man, that's okay. But that was biased. Because you got to understand, I've been 300 pounds since I was in high school. I returned kicks in high school. You were returning kicks at 300 pounds? I returned kicks in high school. See, this is what you have to understand. I was dunking it in seventh grade. I still hold a shot put record in high school for Florida, 68 feet. You understand me? So that was bias. You see what I'm saying? Because, you know. I'm bringing this up because I heard you with Jules talking about who was the best athlete. I'm the best athlete, man. So because you you were awesome because I was like, I wonder who he's going to say. I wonder who's going to say. And he's like, oh, he picked him. He picked himself. But then you mentioned like Jamie Collins, right? Jamie Collins is nice. I was like, he was a freak. Yes. And I was like, so Moss doesn't count. Moss is a great actor, but I put myself again because, you know, I can do multiple things. Right. OK, state your case. I'm not saying you're wrong. So like I said, shot put, jumping, 300 pound kick returns. Kick return, punt returns, kicker, running back. You're dropping coverage a lot? Linebacker, DB. I played all of that. I tried all of those positions. I did all of that. My coach can do that to me because of who I am and what I was. It ain't like they just throwing that. No, I produced at those positions. Okay? Now, throwing a football. Right. Throwing a football. It ain't nobody other than the quarterback got an arm like me. And I'm not talking about. I ain't talking about. Philly special. We could have been doing the Vince special. Let me tell you something. Bill Belichick had one year. He had me do a 7-on-7. I was a quarterback. What? So what'd that tell you about me? Well, it tells me a lot. It tells America a lot. You can ask. This is an international show. You can ask Jules. You can ask Randy. Whoever you want to ask about me throwing a football. I'm going to ask him about me throwing a football. I'm going to ask Gronk. Ask Gronk. Yeah. Ask any of those. I'm not doubting you. I just need to do more research. throwing a ball I can that's one of the things I grew up doing is throwing footballs I could throw a football I put that needle on the thread like listen to me like yeah and by the way Moss in coverage right if he had to drop back and be a corner Moss he'd be taking some plays off right Moss would be like pointing to the safety like they do on tv being like I thought I thought you had the deep coverage here. You know what I love? And I'm going to close here and then get a pick from you and then talk about USO a little bit here. Right, right. When you first got drafted, and then I'm a Comcast doing the Celtics stuff, and then all of a sudden Vince pops on the scene, and he's doing like once a week hits with Gary and, was it Gary and Greg? Tainway and Tainway. Yeah, and then it was Felger, right? and so I sitting with Vince and like they would always get like a little like worried like oh is Riscilla going to bug the guys or whatever because it was like you know we just sitting there I going on after you or whatever So we got nothing to do So I remember I just asked you I was like, I didn't give a shit. I was young, too, because everybody was so conditioned to the idea like Belichick doesn't want anyone doing any media. Belichick doesn't want anyone talking like you're not supposed to have any kind of voice almost like, yeah, let's just be militant and brainwashed in the same way for a football coach like great yeah i don't want any of you guys having thoughts or freedom or like i don't want you thinking outside of what i'm doing here i'm trying to control 53 guys all rolling in the same direction so it was it was mind-blowing to us in new england and in the media to go this guy just got drafted now he's gonna be up here doing weekly hits on fucking tv like are you kidding me so you and i were just sitting we're waiting for something else to be done i was like how did you do this like what did you just do it did you say something how did you get permission and this is like my favorite and it's something i've obviously never forgotten 20 years later because it just spoke to like who you are as a man who you are as a person and why you and bill probably loved each other as much as you did is you were like ryan i just went to bill and i said hey you're a man just like i'm a man and i was offered to do this thing and it's a little bit extra and i will make sure i do it the right way but you know you kind of hinting at like you're not going to tell me i can't do it you're not telling me i can't do it because i'm fucking doing it and i want to do it and you were great and again you never said anything got anybody in trouble i remember you complimenting players that i know you thought stunk yeah you were good at it but you because you would tell me something i don't know about that I just thought it was incredibly impressive. And it was when you were really young and you had this mindset that even like, you know, I'm older than you are. And I was like, oh, my God, damn. So and I know like your background and everything kind of forced you in a spot to where like you had to be your own man very early on. But it's why I know how like everybody who all your teammates and the reverence they speak of and why you Bill hit it off is that you did something that I don't. nobody did that back then. Nobody did that. And that's why I always love that story. Yeah, man, I appreciate it. I just, you know, I am who I am. And like I said, I don't, I don't fake the funk for nobody. You either like me or you don't, but this is what you're going to get. You're going to get my authentic Vince Will for it. And I think that's why people love me a lot. Like a lot of people really gravitate towards me because I'm real. And, um, and that's all I know how to be. And, you know, life is just what it is. Life is for the living, man. You, you have fun, you live and you learn and you screw up. Oh, well, get up, dust yourself out, do it the right way the next time. And that's how I operate until this day. I still, but I'm going to leave you with this one before we close and move on. You're talking about athletic, right? I love it. I'm just going to tell you now. So you remember when Bill used to make the big guys go back and catch punch, right? Right. Okay, so you know he tried that with me, right? You know that, right? Well, I assume. Okay, so I don't know this exact story. Okay, so Bill tried it with me. He put me back there to catch a punch, okay? I went back, caught a punt, caught it, boom, boom, and I punted it back to him because he was like, hey, if Vince catch this punt, the night is off. I'm like, well, guys, the night off. You know, I'm going back as a rookie. So I catch the punt, boom, night out. So Bill's like, oh, I can't do this like that no more. I got to make it up. So now he had me hold a ball. I had to hold a ball and catch another punt. I did that. So I had to hold two balls. I had three balls I had to hold and catch a punt. That should tell you what type of athlete I am. To track a ball with three balls and catch one, I'm going to leave it at that. And you can research and talk to whoever you want to talk to. All of them was there. Tom was there. Matt Light was there. We're going to ask Lonnie Paxton. Lonnie was there. Ask him. I mean, and then we had a lefty build. It's a rotation going up there. I don't care. But yeah, I take myself athletically over anybody pound for pound. I love that when I interviewed you when you got drafted and then you were like, Larry Burr is my favorite player. And I was like, he's so full of shit. But man, is he doing a good job? And then boom. You were like, no, I actually didn't really like the Celtics. The original beat three. Yeah. And then you were fired up. You're like, I can't wait to see the snow. So this is awesome. Anyway, USO, you're here this week. You're here with all the alums. But what are you doing with those guys? USO, you know, we've done three USO tours for our military and service members. And we go in, you know, around holiday times, we go in, we spend time with our military family because a lot of these guys and ladies are away from families for a long time. And it get kind of lonely, you know, it's, you know, can you imagine just being 18, 19, 20 years old and you've been away, you haven't seen famine over a year or two years. and just you getting ready to go protect. And for us to go to these places and just put a smile on their faces, just to show them that the support we have for them, the love we have for them back home, how important they are to us and our families, they the true heroes. And just to be able to just go hang and just talk and just ask how their day is or ask, you know, what are you doing here? What is your specialty? Like, it's amazing to hear an 18 and 19-year-old spit out right on the spot about this machine that they're in charge of or this jet that's $40 million and they're 19 and they're in charge of this jet. And they have to know this ins and outs of the jet. And not only they have to know it, the pilot. He have to make sure this jet is safe for the pilot to drive. Right. And you're talking 19 years old. So I wish everyone can experience once in their lifetime, just go and just sit down and have a conversation and just sit down and talk and let them just tell you about what they do and understand. And for us to do all of this, to play the Super Bowl and all this, this can't happen without them. It can't. My great career I had, yeah, all the accolades, it couldn't happen without what they do for us daily, the dedication that they have to make daily. While we sitting over here getting ready for the biggest sport event there is, there's people 24-7 making sure that this event be taken care of, that we can go out and have a great time. and I think we need to start doing a little bit more and showing and actually talking more about the respect and the love and the support that we have for those guys that make our everyday life a lot easy because it's easy for us to come to work and not think about nothing but what we got on ahead of us but not knowing like when we sleep they work they work for our freedom. And you talking, like I said, 19 years old, 20 years old. You talk about the young babies that have basically the world in their hands to make sure that we're safe at night. So we've been to 11 countries in three years. We've been to Romania. We've been to Italy. We've been to Poland. We've been to Greece. We've been, you name, we've been to 11 countries in three years. The last one we just did coming back from, we was in Kuwait. We was in Djibouti, Africa. We was in Jordan. We went to, we was in Sicily. So we go to these places and right around, you know, after Thanksgiving, heading into Christmas because that little break, you want to get them after Thanksgiving and then before Christmas. So you want to, because a lot of times they can deploy. So that's probably like the last time that they'll have like, you know, contact or anything with. So they did deploy. So we make sure that we go in and bring in the holiday season, just get their spirits high and just let them know that we're here, that we love. They are the true sacrifice. They are the true patriots. They look at me as this great, nah, night, no, it's you guys. So we just wanted to make sure that we always show the love and support that we have for our military family because of the sacrifices that they make on a daily, daily, make daily. and it doesn't stop for them. And I know that you and Aaron Jones, the Vikings, ambassadors throughout the week, and it sounds like full-time in a way with the USO. Vince, always great catching up. It's been a really long time since we saw each other. So when you came on, I was like, let's see. Let's see and hang out, man. So congrats on everything. Thank you very much. Thank you for having me, man. This episode is brought to you by Raising Canes. I'm a huge Canes guy. I've been smelling it all day in my studio, and I love it. I wish this was a cologne. The crispy chicken fingers, the crinkle-cut fries, grilled Texas toast, and, of course, the Cane's sauce when I'm watching any sport. But especially the big game this weekend. There's nothing better than a Cane's box combo. There's also nobody better than Cane's founder Todd Graves. Todd's always at the big game with a star-studded crew and his suite. Never know who's going to be there with him. Me, personally, I'll be watching the game and enjoying some Canes. I'm a simple guy. All I need is some of their chicken fingers and cane sauce, and I'm good. Raising Cane's chicken fingers. One love. Fired up to have Daniel Cormier in studio with us, former light and heavyweight champ of the UFC, and also here on behalf of UFC and the new partnership with Paramount+. We had Dana on not that long ago, so an awesome start. The main event with Patty and Gaethje was awesome. So it was just kind of cool for the unveiling of the whole thing to have that kind of fight, because that's one of my favorite, not from a technical standpoint, but just the sheer toughness of what those guys are doing. Well, you know, when this whole thing started, right, Forrest Griffin and Stefan Bonner had a fight on Spike TV. And at times, they looked like they were fighting outside of a bar. But if you were a casual fan and you turned that on, you were like, oh, my God, I want to watch this. Right. And so it really did help to spring the UFC forward. The fight that we had a couple weeks ago, I think it did the same thing, Because if you're a casual fan and you go, well, Paramount's doing all this promotion into this new thing that they're doing. Let's check it out. Right. And you watch that. You got to see everything. You got to see two tough guys. You got to see both guys have their moments. You got to see an older guy who was supposed to lose when the underdog. I thought it was as good a fight to start this new partnership as there could be. And when I say like the technical part of it, I think it was better for a new audience coming in being like, I won't know. Like, it takes a long time to learn any of this stuff, right? If it's too clean. If it's too clean, it can get boring. You kind of just want to see a fight, you know? Yes, especially to the blind eye. Like, if you're not someone that's watched it, if you watch Justin and him, there are moments in that fight where Patty might dip his head to the side. You're like, well, I could do that. You want people to feel like they could do it. Because they're like, well, I can relate to that. But they can't do it. Well, just think every Buffalo Wild Wings pay-per-view, there's like 30 guys in there thinking that thing they can do it right especially back in the old affliction t-shirt days uh one of my friends on a buffalo wild wings and he was like the pay-per-views he's like they come in and drink waters because they're worried about doing workouts in the morning he's like it's a tough crowd tough crowd uh i i'm gonna say this and i and i hope i i say it in a clear enough sense to you and the audience is that i'm in awe of of anyone who's a badass all right and what you guys do and it's funny because i was down at mavericks yesterday sal to hear that big surf right and it wasn't cranking yesterday it may go tomorrow so i might check it out again on friday and i was waiting at this dive bar for my uber to show up and i they had all these pictures of these guys that had done stuff in mavericks and these massive massive waves and i'm sitting there i'm looking at these fucking pictures man and i'm like you're never gonna do that and when i watch you guys i'm like obviously you're never gonna do that and there's this, I don't even want to turn into a negative thing. I think it's just this amount of respect that you have for guys that do things that put themselves in positions where it's all on the line that 99% of us walking around will never do. And so when I think about your career, like what was it inside of you? What was going on inside of you that you needed combat and that you would be one of those guys? You know, I love that question, man, because you always try to explain to people what you're feeling, right? And honestly, I always say, I wish I could let you experience what I experienced, the range of emotions that I would go through every time I went to a fight. From that excitement of walking into the arena, to the fear that you get right when you're there, to the warmup and then the excitement again, and then the calming of the nerves before they call you name. And there's always this one where they go, all right, DC walking in five, four. And then you walk. And as you get closer to the arena, bro, the music gets louder because you're in the hallways. But as you get close, I hear Lil Wayne starting to pump. And then you get excited. And then when you get into the ring, it's like, bro, the main event, the crowd's going crazy. Things there. And it's like, that's what I miss. I only miss that feeling of God I'm on the verge of something great and once you're like is the fear lingering the night before and in the morning and then when it's music in the cage you're still scared in the cage you're still nervous like when I didn't feel that nervous energy I was like man what is wrong with me but then I came to realize as I got older in my career those weren't fear nerves they were competitive nerves I needed to fear that competition. That thing that you said that lived inside me that made me go and pursue fighting another man in front of thousands and thousands of people. That's what I was missing if I didn't have that thing in my stomach. And then I remember, I always tell people, I don't care how many people was in there. Bruce Buffer's there. I'm here. The other guy's there. Usher's everywhere. Herb Dean. You're ready to fight. You're ready to fight. You turn. when I would turn back around, everybody was going. And it was just me, that guy, and Herb Dean. And there's a pin inside the octagon. Seriously, which is crazy to me because that cage and those heavyweights, Tom Aspinall and Cyril Ghosn, 250 and 260, they hit that cage. There's a pin that keeps the door closed. And I could hear that pin drop every time. I could hear when they walked out there, the blue shirts, blue shirts. And they drop that pin and it will go clink. And I'll be like, okay, somebody's got to die. It's going to be me or him. One of us is not getting out of here. And you got to look at it like that. And they would say, fight. I was scared until the moment. I'm like, listen, if you're scared now, what are you going to do? Jump over this thing and run? You're stuck in there. Go fight. It's the best, man. It's like you recognize very early that there's something in you that makes you different. And, you know, I always tell people, I go, hey, man, we're we are nice guys, but we're not normal to go out there and fight. You're not normal. It's just too much to be normal. There's something in you that's different. Because even when you're thinking about like maybe younger and the nerves of it, how do I fit in? Is this even a good decision? All these things. And then getting a little bit older, it's like, can you even like set your fantasy lineup the morning of a fight? And you're like, all right, let me see who's on waivers. It's like you're fighting. you're fighting a 250 pound guy tonight like can you do can you be normal in the morning of that day yeah yeah for sure you can for sure could you do it when you were younger uh as i got older i got better but when i was younger like i everything was so new but but you got to remember like i started when i was 30 i was almost 30 that's what i want to get to yeah because i was older for again the audience they know the deal incredible juco record go to home state wrestling powerhouse the Olympic run and obviously with the medical stuff, obviously probably really disappointing. But then you're what with American Kickboxing Academy at 30? Yeah, 30 years old. I turned 31 six months after I started fighting. So what did they say to you when you showed up? Well, this guy can really wrestle, right? Yeah. But even Coach Javier said, if this guy isn't a great fighter, at least I know I have a great coach on my hands because he loves coaching. And he's 31 years old about the, you know, he's an Olympian. and then I started to fight and they were like well he knows how to make punches land you don't know what he's doing but he hasn't then the root ability to hit people and they're like you know we got something here and you were what you were wrestling at like 185 all the way up to like plus 200 so what was your were you thinking hey I'm gonna be in the 205 range when I cut I started heavy started heavy yeah I started heavyweight Kane Velasquez was the heavyweight champion and I was like I'm in the weight class with this guy because he's gonna make me better and that's why that's why I started there. But yeah, you learn to deal with all that emotion as you age. But I had these, I had these things, man, to settle myself and all that wrestling helped me. Right. Like I, I, I was much different than most people starting because I had wrestled at Oklahoma state. I'd wrestled the NCAA finals. I'd wrestled for a medal in the Olympic game. That's probably the best foundational thing to have. And then it's probably way harder to catch up in the other direction. Absolutely. Because we got grappling, right? Like jujitsu comes kind of natural. It's the striking that gets hard. Like striking is hard because you're figuring all this stuff out while someone's punching you. And honestly, three months into my career, I used to always try to switch southpaw, right? If you ever watch any fight videos, you'll see the guys fighting with their right hand in front because it's your power. It's your dominant hand. So you, if you throw a punch. This feels faster than this. So you want to put it in front when in reality you have to switch because you want the power hand coming from behind. So I would always switch and then Kane kicked me in the face. I didn't realize that when you switch, it opens up that window for them to kick you. Dude, he kicks me in the face. I turn and I grabbed the ropes in the ring. I go, oh my God, oh my God. I had no idea that I even had that reaction inside of me to turn away from the fight. I go back to Oklahoma because I was still living there at the time. I go to my doctor, they fixed, they reset my nose. And I said, I'm never doing this Southpaw thing again. But you know, I didn't quit. Most people would have quit. Blood was everywhere, dude. I got kicked in the face by Cain Velasquez. I got, oh my God, oh my God. They say, wait, wait. Cain was He was coming to finish me. He was going to finish me, man. He was going to time out, right? I was like, time out, time out. Please stop, stop, stop. White flag, white flag, man. He was a killer, man. He was so crazy. When he was the world champion, his training habits were so, they were legendary. And I realized I'm not doing that no more, and I'm going to just keep getting better. And that's how I progressed through my career. I was watching the Strikeforce fight against Bigfoot today. Yes. So, you know, you're in Strikeforce before the UFC. and just making sure I know you know that. And I think there was always still this kind of like, because even on the broadcast, like you catch Bigfoot a couple of times, but you don't want to go to the ground with him, which is shocking with your wrestling background. But then the announcers are like, man, this kid is sick. And they're calling you a kid just because you're newer on the scene. 33 years old. You take it on short notice. And that I thought was the time with you where it's like, okay, so wait, what are we doing again here? He's shorter. His reach isn't even close to some of these other guys, the heavyweight class. Like he's kind of this stout, but it doesn't seem like he's naturally going to carry like 250 and be as big as some of these other dudes. And again, Bigfoot looked like he wasn't even from this fucking planet on top of everything else. I mean, he's scary. You don't have to fight him. And you were so quick around him. You were so quick. And then you get him with the uppercut. And I don't know if that was a moment because it was short time. You're a massive underdog in that spot where, you know, I'm sure there's plenty of times you're like, OK, I'm good now. I'm just wondering what that fight meant to you as far as confidence. I was there. I was there. He had just beat Fedor. Yeah. That's why I didn't go on the ground with him because I just watched him destroy Fedor. And I'm like, he's so good on the ground. When in reality, he wasn't. He probably wasn't. He probably wasn't. He wasn't as good as I made him in my mind. You wanted nothing to do with him on the ground, which is so shocking to watch that because of you. Yeah, I know. But then when he tried to take you down the sprawls, you're like, oh, here he is. Here's the rest. That's a little bit different. Right. Defensive wrestling. But I made him so scary that when I fought him, he wasn't. And I was like, oh, my God, I'm ready. I think I knew when I was ready more than ever was the next fight. I fought Josh Barnett in the finals of that tournament. And I had only been fighting. I mean, I fought him in 2012, April. I only started fighting in September of 2010. Nine. Nine. I hadn't even fought three years yet. I fought Bigfoot Silva in less than two years of fighting in my career. and Josh had been a UFC champion. I fought him for 25 minutes. He cut me. He elbowed me. My face was cut. My head was cut. And I was like, man, if I can get through this, I can fight just about anybody in the world. And that's what I knew. It hurt bad though, Ryan. It hurt bad, man. I remember being after the fight, I got this belt and I'm taking pictures. I'm the man. and uh the moment i walked into the room my mom was sitting there and i finally made some good money i started crying my baby she said my baby i'm oh he tried to kill me he tried to kill me i had blood i had cuts here my eyes were all cut i was like he tried to kill me and then my mom just like made me feel better i was always like that kid that when i got around my mom i would start breaking down man that was a mama's boy i grew up in louisiana man you got some experience in louisiana you know how people are it's like i just love my mama i i love that fight so much against bigfoot because i can see all your boys are in the crowd oh they were so happy they're going nuts and they have all that early like they have like the great outfits from back then too like i think there's a guy decked out in the all-white cap and i'm like this is yeah right right Tommy Hilfiger and so i the reason again like to that fight because there's there's a sequence where he throws a bunch of combinations in the cage and you duck all of it and then you kind of like laugh like shit did i just get away with that and then you catch his leg and then there's this spinning kick and you're kind of putting together all of this stuff where i think you're like okay this is just going to be if you go with the traditional matchups of like you know when the guys stand next to each other in the cage sometimes it's crazy even at the lighter weights we're like hey this guy's 185 that guy's one even like that guy looks so much bigger than this guy um it was just you were too quick you were too quick for the for so many of the guys you went up against well growing up growing up down in the south it's like you're we're constantly outside like always playing sports whether it was football wrestling basketball baseball tracking field we just were always playing sports so while i may i didn't look like the greatest athlete right little bit soft around the belly shorter like He said stocky. But I was always able to move. I was so much faster than the heavyweights. Khabib said this one time. Khabib goes, you look at him and he looks like he's just fat guy, right? He goes, but he's like bear. You grab this guy, he's like bear, right? Because it was like muscle and strength. And it's like, yeah, it was funny. That fight gave me a little bit of a false idea of what fighting was going to be at the highest level because it was so easy and I beat him so bad. but I learned very quickly once I got into UFC yeah but that's the thing like when you look through the record it's the two losses to Stipe at the end it's the no contest with Jones and then the other one you know you go man that an incredible run because you can go like alright well look I don know how you felt about the steeped ones at the end if you felt like I was done you were done right money was too good though I was done did you know even the first one you were like I shouldn take this fight well my back I remember remember when I was fighting Derek Lewis in November the year before I sneezed and my back went out on the day of the fight I sneezed while I was running and my back went out. So then the UFC team came and we did therapy and we did a stem and ice and we massaged and I was able to go fight. But then the next month I went to practice and I kicked Cain Velasquez and he checked it and it just shouldn't shock all the way up my leg to my back. And I ended up having surgery on my back. And then I was gone until August of the next year, right? But I was never the same. I could recognize that I was never the same. But then I just felt like I was better than Stipe. Honestly, even that second fight, I was beating him three rounds to zero. I was killing him. And then I got tired and he finished me. And then the last fight, I mean, the UFC was good to me. So when they said, hey, do you want to fight him the third time? We're going to still pay you as the champion. We're still going to give you pay-per-view. I'm like, absolutely. And then I got COVID three weeks before the fight. I tested positive for COVID until like 10 days before I fought Stipe. so but i was done i was 41 years old so when dana goes out and goes i thought dc retired too early i'm like bro you're gonna wheel me out there i was done the the jones fights i remember after the second one i think what did you say you were like hey there's no rivalry right um if he wins them all right and joe which is a really odd dynamic because usually like the media just gets shit because we're not as cool and yet joe's your partner but then he's interviewing you after the kick and then he got all sorts of shit for interviewing you after that that time it's like i don't know man these guys are like i bet you dc's not gonna have any problem with joe so why are we gonna all like get really but maybe it was kind of like a really cool thing that people in the fight community were so protective of you you know that they were like hey why are you doing this to him but i think specifically like that matchup with with john i i could probably guess again i don't know you but as a fighter you're not gonna be like oh yeah cool i have a ton of pride in the no contest after the fact i don't i don't think that would necessarily be the case but there's probably a part of you that it's still kind of pissed well yeah it's upsetting because i feel like i feel like like a lot of decisions he made affects your legacy and that sucks outside if you'd have beat me the second time hey man the guy got me right i've lost wrestling matches i've lost in the olympic games like i can deal with loss it's just the other stuff like and those losses too historically you're like right it's a cuss yeah yeah just give me a shot give me a shot of doing this thing the right way. That's what sucked. And that's why when they called me, man, I'm like in Hawaii with my family on vacation, right? Trying to decompress and Dana's calling me. I'm like, I'm like finally out of the house, man. Dude beats me. It's like July. Three weeks I'm in, I'm at home because I always deal with loss very bad. Like very, very bad. Which is a good sign, by the way. It's a good sign. Yeah, I don't. I think you should be miserable, depressed, ruined. these fighters today they go to social media when they're in the locker room wasn't my night so then everybody that loves them go you're still my champion whereas me I don't want to see social media I want to go live in a dark room so I don't deal with this no more I finally get up they convince me to Hawaii Dana calls me as soon as I'm checking into the hotel next thing you know I'm back in the room for six hours crying because now I know what's going to come with them giving me that belt back but yes I didn't mind the interview. I thought Joe did what he had to do. And it changed though, because now we don't interview guys that get knocked out. But let me tell you how the world works, right? I wasn't the one doing the wrong thing. This company, Anderson Ord, is the company that sponsors me with all my golf apparel and everything. The guy called me on a blind call to start a partnership because of the interview with Joe. He goes, because I could see, because I'm crying in the octagon because I'm so, I am so hurt by losing because I put so much of myself that you saw me at my, my, my core, like it destroyed me. And he was like, your passion. He goes, it was your passion that made me relate to you. And now I've got a partnership with a company that I love that I've been having for years now. So it's like, it, things happen for a reason. And Joe interviewed me because he had to, because it's going to lead to me getting the relationship that I have today. You know, it's like that, that's how things work. And I love you and Joe and Anik. It's like a really good combination. It's hard to do that, man. It's hard to pull off with three people. And I know you mix it up every now and then, but like your stature, your resume, Joe's passion. And then also the fact that he has a combat background, you know, but he's not, but he's also not one of those guys that thinks like, Oh, you know who knows when i was 30 i could have yeah he's the first guy to tell everybody you're not tough and then anik who i knew right after college and his first on air gig was with us it doesn't feel like you even have to prep i mean i know you do because the fighters and everything but it it's this is the part of the partnership paramount that i'm excited about for you guys because again, I'm an, it is such a close friend, but that's an unbelievable, like group that figures out how to educate and also how to get out of the way, but then also have it be natural. Cause there's nothing more natural than losing your shit. When somebody else knocks somebody else out, it's the best. Let me tell you, I loved some of the calls that we've had where people like, Oh my, there's this one meme of like, Joe's like this, my head's on his shoulder. John's like, it's like when Benil Darush is fighting. But the one to me that mattered the most, I'm pretty sure you're right. When Amanda Nunes lost, dude, I made a sound. I made a sound that I did not know that I was capable of screeching at that pitch. But the whole time, dude, seriously, we're hand fighting. You don't even realize I'm hanging on Rogan's arm. Like, Oh my God, she's about to lose. And John's like leaning into the table. Like he's like, John's hands are like on the table, grabbing at his papers. Cause we're watching a woman that's a minus 800 favorite. Look like it's about to happen. And Juliana Pena is doing exactly what she said she was going to do. She goes, I'm just going to be a mean. And that's going to be enough. And you're watching the greatest female fighter of all time. Just melting. Juliana, she's punching Juliana, but Juliana was like punching her back. And then she bulldog chokes her. She grabs her on the side and chokes her like you're choking little brother when you try. Dude, me and we're hand fighting. I'm like grabbing him. He's grabbing me. John's like screeching at the papers. And then I go, Oh my God, she's going to lose. I was like, this is, it was, it's like, and when you're a fan. That's what it is. It sounds like three guys that are incredibly educated, but are also like the biggest fans. And when you love what you do, it's not work. It's not work. We're getting to hang out with like our friends. Yeah. and do a job that is just awesome. Well, like I said, I'm biased because Annick's my guy, but I think you three guys are like, you know, you think about football booths and basketball broadcasts and all these different things, and I'm like, I actually think this might be the best booth in all of sports. Thank you so much. Hey, John is like our parent. He keeps us in line. For him to operate as professional as he does in that situation is crazy, isn't it? Sometimes Joe and I will talk for five straight minutes and they're like, let Annick in. But that's the thing is you need like he's ready to go. He's probably using less than five percent of his prep because I know he's a freak when it comes to prep, which is one of the like the core things that made him so good. But he also is not remotely like egotistical. He has no ego. Right. He's like, I know. I know. But if I need to get in there and fix something or if I need to get in there, give like a little bit more. His instincts on it are incredible. That right there. Yeah. So if like sometimes we get quiet, right, because we have so much energy early. Middle of the fight card. you might take a John will ask a question but DC what if he and then all of a sudden bam I'm back in the game exactly and like look fights are fights like there can be you know just an undercard where your second round minutes ago and you're like oh this is a dud we're sitting here yeah John will hit you with a question it's like oh wait prompt I'm back no he's got incredible instincts and I'm glad that we're having a love fest for Anik my last question for you did you really turn down an LSU scholarship for football because I wanted to wrestle yes dude it's it's it's it's hard though right because it had to be hard to be a louisiana kid and not necessarily first off i had bad grades and back then there was the clearinghouse and all that right yeah somehow that all went away yes it's just gone no more standard do you remember can we can we do this for a second i remember when huggins used to get shit for those cincinnati basketball teams on their graduation record yes somehow literally no one cares about i need to do a segment on this that used to be a thing it's like oh cincinnati's rank number one and be like what's their graduation rate and like People used to talk about this kind of stuff. So I just because with your Juco thing, I meant to be like, granted, maybe since the basketball players are leaving so soon. But the football thing, like, did everybody just get smarter? They were just letting them go to school. They're just everybody's getting in. It's crazy. But they don't do them anymore. They don't take the test. They don't take the clearinghouse. No, they don't do none of the clearinghouse. Because it was the Prop 48 stuff. I think it's coming back, though. I think. I'm not exactly sure. I'm not educated enough on it, but I think we're like. And so when I was going to junior college, it's like, well, junior college wrestling sounds a lot better than junior college football. if you can't go and play football here. Also, I was having a ton of success in wrestling. I was a state champion. I had made the United States under 16 team, and I was good. And then I was by myself. Because in Louisiana, wrestling is not huge. So I'm running by myself. I'm doing all the things that I need to do to go and become a guy that got third in the world when I was 16 years old. But then I come back to football, and while I'm good, My team's bad, but because everybody thinks they're freaking Kevin Falk. You're not Kevin Falk. Very few of us are, right? Kevin Falk, and I would say this in the locker room after my junior year, I'm like, guys, I say, not all of us are going to go play football at Mississippi State or LSU or any of these schools, right, that we're talking to. Kevin Falk did because when we couldn't score, we're fourth and one and we go for it and they stop us. Kevin runs a 99 yard quarterback sneak. That's why he's better than us. That's why he's going to the NFL, not the rest of us. Like, so when all that was weighed, right, I'm like, I don't want to be responsible for 10 other guys or 11 other guys. I want to be able to go and run and train and lift and wrestle and do the extra work. And if I do everything I'm supposed to do, it's going to lead to me being a good wrestler. And that's why I wrestle instead of playing football. And there's too much pressure to play football in Louisiana. It's crazy, man. These coaches are out of their minds. You like the solitary part of it. I like having the ability to control my destiny. And that's what I did. And every loss is on me that I've had in fighting, in wrestling, and everything else. It's always been on me. That's why I can live the life I live today. And the overall record tells you it doesn't happen that often with yours. Thanks so much for letting us get to enjoy your careers, fans. And thanks for today, man. You are the man. Thank you so much for having me. Thank you. You want details? Fine. I drive a Ferrari, 355 Cabriolet. What's up? I have a ridiculous house in the South Fork. I have every toy you can possibly imagine. And best of all, kids, I am liquid. it. So now you know what's possible. Let me tell you what's required. Life advice, life advice, rrgmail.com from ESPN, from ESPN radio, Michelle Smallman, unsportsmanlike morning show Monday through Friday, 6 a.m. Eastern time. Early, early starts were here on the West Coast. She's here with Kyle and Suri. It's great to be reunited again. I know, Kyle, you don't feel a little like this was this was our crew for a while. I got to say, without the Chinatown dinner last year, two years ago, I think I might have just like begged off of this one. But she really made me feel like I'm not stepping on any one toes here. So this is no lie. Michelle just like randomly text me like Kyle's like low key hilarious. I'm like, it's not low key. Like Kyle's like life advice. So I would text Ryan when I would listen. I'm like, I think I'm Kyle's number one fan. So that's great. We were the crew before, but I'm your number one. That is true. pal's been getting venmos from random people so he might not be his number one fan but you're up there how much i don't want to say okay is it substantial yes or no no it when i first started getting venmos it was substantial but at this point no it's not it's not making as big a debt as it used to but it's still really nice to i got a pity one this morning somebody was like hey don't hope you don't feel left out here's five bucks like respect i'll take what i can get sure you never get any venmos um i never mind i had to make mine private because i kept getting people requesting to be my friend on venmo dudes that i did not know see this was my issue is i didn't like it as a way of communication that's why i didn't like to acknowledge the venmos because i didn't like that you could get to me that way but he made me feel bad for not saying thank you that could have got out of control with you is what this is the point i was trying to make but i love money so that would be denied them uh like you know so like hey how'd you guys meet oh we met on venmo everyone's stories this could be a life advice email yeah like hey there's this girl i've been ben mowing with she said we totally we totally get along she lasted all my there's not really a lot of discourse on there though uh so look here's our guy that's his in his other end did you listen to our most recent one i did not that's okay sorry i was traveling here i was flying here no but that was a good one for you because that's why you're here we need we need to buff out maybe some of the rough edges every now and then it's generally a male perspective on the show. So we have a couple kind of, I don't know, they're not all dating ones, but we did have a dating one from a guy who had met a girl. He started teaching her how to snowboard. He said that she wasn't texting back as soon as he was texting. He also said he had been a bit of a rut, which made me wonder if like you were hyper texting because you were just in such a great mood. You met somebody cute. They spent the day snowboarding together, realized they lived kind of close to each other. And then she was like, Hey, I'm not a great texter. And then didn't text for like a day apologize for the delay which is fine it's a bad texter which i understand but then she said something along the lines of like maybe we'll see each other at the mountain oh that's it i'm not interested yeah thanks so much take care but it didn't make any sense because they she could have i guess she couldn't i mean they they had a one-on-one basically all ski data themselves and you know they were texting afterwards there were like other signs that would suggest that she was that like she was kind of interested in him and all of a sudden it was like actually no like i'll see you out there but have you ever just given somebody your number because you didn't want to have to say no because it's awkward yeah you're like i'll just ghost you later and then i don't have to deal with so in college i had a college boyfriend and guys used to offer to buy me drinks and i of course was poor i would not turn them down and this is i think this is still karma coming back to me today i'm not proud of this but i used to give out mike jones phone number right 281-330-8004 damn nobody caught that in college not one and that's why i was like you are not for me if you don't know i'm giving you mike jones phone number you're obviously not for me you could actually call mike jones for a while i did i think i think it's a voicemail it's still active i think it is i just talked about it recently i know i went to go see him in concert how was he not great oh yeah that hurts me deep yeah uh it actually led to like my own little conflict because there was somebody that was talking to and i was like okay whatever and then i called it was like hey i know i said i was like shutting it down i was like i'm actually going out last minute and then she's like well you lied and i was like i didn't lie i didn't know mike jones was playing seven minutes from my house and i recently was talking about mike jones again i was like i think i there was some somebody reached out about him coming on the show so i feel like i have to go see mike jones like this is and then she's like well you lied you said you were going to bed and not doing anything tonight i'm like again i didn't lie because i didn't have the full palette of information on what was available tonight and that was probably right above the bar that it would take to get you out of bed seriously that's probably right near the bar right almost under it i had just moved so i was a little bit more active but isn't this the same as me if i'm giving out mike jones phone number and the dude doesn't realize it that like maybe she wasn't for you because she doesn't understand hey when mike jones is seven minutes down the road i gotta go i that's what i you know that's a good point see michelle's good she's here she's just reading reading the map she didn't even need the uh the compass on this one so yeah uh then i went to go see mike jones and it again was not it was my my hopes weren't super high and yet it was still rap concerts are here a disappointment like very although i will say it was sort of over and then it wasn't i mean it was bad the all-time missed by you oh i know better than ezra is when you guys for some like little wayne was playing in baton rouge and you guys stuck around nothing against better than ezra shout out to them it was i don't remember how we got it did you get tickets yeah i got a ticket it was at like a high school gym uh who opened was it like little i can't believe i turned this down it was um um the remember the guy with the backpack on well who was it that opened also great little backpack but like i had an ezra little wayne at a high school gym in baton rouge that was that was an all-time missed by you michelle and i had a great time uh i'm sure you guys had a great time but it was it was my friend's bar kyle what about your favorite time from that weekend all right uh good transition then good transition let's get right into it then friend cheated on fiance oh no all right so we'll defer we'll let smallman go first because i think you should probably be able to handle all this okay let's do it six three two 35 no impressive gym stats but consistently go five six days a week great job that's a stat right there yeah mix of strength cardio ski one two times a week so here's the situation back in the fall i learned that a friend of mine uh larry names changed cheated on his fiancee sandy sounds like a terrible helpful anyway it's larry and sandy uh during the summer of 2024 for context larry proposed a year later in the summer of 2025 and the wedding is scheduled for september 2026 patterns after learning this information this past fall i still processing what i had learned shared it with my wife. It seems a little creative writing-ish, but we'll keep going here. As I learned this information came out, Larry was informed that I knew. You're spreading the news. Right, right. After speaking to Larry about it myself, one of the things that I encouraged him to do was talk to Sandy about what had happened so that she could make the best possible decision before getting married. Whoa. Fast forward a month or so, my wife and I were chatting about the situation. She told me that she would absolutely not attend the wedding if Larry does not talk to Sandy about what happened, that she feels it is morally wrong to support this marriage, knowing that we know, adding if Larry does talk to Sandy about it and Sandy's cool to go through with it, then my wife's fine going to the wedding. Being that my wife is a cool wife, as Saruti always labels his wife. Michelle, you can back that up. Maddie's the coolest. There you go. Also a fan. She told me that I could go to the wedding if I wanted to, but she wouldn't be going until we know if Larry has talked to Sandy. However, after sitting with his information for longer and hearing my wife's reasoning for not going, I now feel like it would be disingenuous to attend the wedding without her. I also don't want to be put in the position where I have to lie about why she's not there. To complicate things, family that are invited to the wedding are excited about going back and visiting. They're excited. He's giving away some locations here, so I don't even want to do that because I don't know if Sandy's a P1. Yeah. So basically just like travel stuff and like, hey, aren't you coming here? Everybody's excited to reunite. In my most recent communication with Larry, he shared with me that talking about this brings up a panic response and he doesn't want to talk about it. Sounds like he doesn't want to talk about it with Sandy then, buddy. I recognize that we may never know what happens with this information between them and it's not totally our business. However, having recently got him married. Bingo. Good job of not making it your business. However, recently got married. my wife feels that Sandy should know before making this big decision. So here's my question. One, how can I support Larry and him having this conversation with Sandy? I don't know if this is real. Knowing it's the right thing to do for Sandy. Two, if we don't find out if he had the conversation, what should I do about attending the wedding with or without my wife? Three, is there any way I can convince my wife to go? Okay. Just a quick context here. Is the wife good friends with Sandy or just no Sandy through the guys being friends? okay because that's huge here if it was if i was so i'm very good friends with steve's wife steve's obviously my guy i don't like where this fictional scenario i'm just saying it changes the dynamics if i am actually friends with that person don't you think she would have just cut out the middle man if that was actually if they were that close let's operate that they're not super close because they don't he would say that they are okay i just wanted to get that out of the way okay oh this one is so tricky because if the wedding is on the horizon things have been paid for this could really cause a big situation with a big ripple effect. You guys are married. You understand. I would tend to lean on the side of saying, this is not our business. Let the groom, soon to be groom, handle this. It's his situation. It's his relationship. Who are we to get involved? I understand wanting to be a girl's girl because I am one. I would be really mad if I was getting married and a bunch of people knew that my fiance cheated on me and they didn't let me know. it's a tough look that's a bad wedding time like you're getting married and everyone knows i mean give me a break that would be awful it would be but you might not ever find out super muddy yeah but also especially if they're not really good friends you also don't know the full dynamics of their relationship and you don't know necessarily everything that's happened behind closed doors you don't know what sandy's been doing and her extracurricular time do you know what i'm saying so you could be inserting yourself and your wife into a situation where it could blow up in your face because what if he tells Sandy and then she's like, well, I didn't want to know this, et cetera. So I would just err on the side of caution and err on the side of minding my own business, even though I totally respect the wife's position of wanting to be a girl's girl and making sure that Sandy doesn't walk down the aisle without all the details and enter a relationship that maybe she doesn't want to be in. Yeah, it feels like who's the closer friend? Like you're closer to Larry. So you make Larry is the one who did you make the rule. like it's your call and you and i would stay out of it 100 but like she's still not gonna go to the wedding though it sounds like so it's gonna be our guy just going solo and having to explain why she's not there you could just say she's sick or whatever i guess you could lie but it's to me it's your call if it's your friend it's less her call your wife's call even though she seems like she's inserting herself pretty aggressively into the situation i'm gonna take this in a little different direction um there was no part of this email where that's this guy was like i wish i just kept my fucking mouth shut well yeah sorry for cursing i wish i wish there was a little i hope there's a learning thing here where you're the big one to learn you could just deal with this information with i get wanted to tell your wife everything but i think if you're looking at like would your wife be hurt would this really was this super deceptive or is this just nice and clean and and like i'm sure he didn't think that his wife would be like well i'm not going to the wedding unless all this stuff happens i would tell my wife though but i know my wife wouldn't I know Maddie wouldn't like. So clearly bad read by this guy. If, okay. So. Well, hold on. What about option C? What if our guy facilitates a sit down between his wife and Larry where she can air out her grievances, yell at him, tell him how mad she is. And then maybe he'll be like, okay. On behalf of the bride. On behalf of the bride. I think maybe Larry would rather she just not show up to the wedding and go through this. Yeah. Because she's going to have a couple of vacasotas and be like, I know what you did. I just can't imagine caring enough about anyone's wedding unless it was like a sister or mine. Or I'd be like, I don't respect the agreement up here because you guys haven't been... I actually object. Yeah. What if she objects? What if she shows up and objects? I mean part of me whenever we get an email like this like if you living your life to this kind of standard then maybe you are doing better than me Like maybe things are really are working out that you like no no no Like this is the standard And this is like yeah this is not a contract We're talking about love. And like, are you fucking serious? Let Larry and Sandy be man. Like, and go see your relatives. Like what? You know, you, I know the dynamic of you, like your wife not being there muddies it up a little bit. but you're not in charge here. Yes. So why do you care about this this much? Unless they're friends, which is why I asked that question because that I can understand. If the wife is that close with the fiance, sure, but he never says that. Yeah. So, I mean, do they... Maybe the assumption should be that they are close because they care enough to be involved in all this stuff, but I don't know. I can't... Managing myself is hard enough. I don't I'm not in a hurry to add a bunch of people to the list of things that I have to be like giving you approval on I'm upset that's a heavy responsibility if you break up a wedding that's a heavy responsibility I'm upset at this guy I like to usually take our our email or you don't like this guy this is an assault well it's like she's like it's like she was like I would certainly tell my wife but my wife wouldn't have reacted like that so this guy either has a bad read on his wife or he's got a bad picker with what he should and shouldn't be telling so either way you this is almost all your fault obviously larry is the number one seed in the troublemakers here but you really are well it also sucks though too like if in fairness to larry on some of this though like we have so many emails where it comes along it's like i found out that so and so did this thing and now i'm in this dilemma where like my wife is mad i didn't tell her and you're like okay i get that like the idea is you're married and like i'm but Like, hey, guess what happened today? Drop your bag. Sometimes it's like, oh, how's Larry? Good. And that's fine. It's okay. Can you check in with all your honesty right now before we get dinner? So that one's... Honestly, it feels like you're making it more complicated than it needs to be. But any guilt, though, that we're letting Sandy get into a union with someone that cheated on her and she doesn't know? No, because you don't know. Maybe they were going through a weird thing. Yeah, 24 could have sucked for him. Yeah. They figured it out. They got engaged in 25. Quick turnaround. Doesn't even sound like they're going to be waiting. Yeah, what was the severity level of this relationship then? Well, 13 months later, they're ready to walk down the aisle. They get a reservation at the place. People are booking flights. I mean, Larry's conscious is fine, apparently. Yeah, Larry sounds like, as much as we may be frustrated with him, you keep living life to your level. Interesting that he basically claimed mental health when he's like, I actually don't want to talk about this with you, dude. It's freaking me out. yeah yeah anxiety okay like yeah pull a paul george like i'm just not ready for this uh all right all right here we go 5 10 180 looking to cut about 10 pounds aren't we all nice by early march or spring break oh he's 21 oh yeah chest and buys buddy i get it right before spring break um last year of college bench 245 times five that's pretty great look at that run a marathon sub 430 no training bad idea sore for a week no training shout out to you okay all right because with war gone gone you're a resident runner yeah i ran one marathon full full i did the new york city marathon this past fall i'll never do it again it was horrific awful my entire right leg seized around mile 18 i thought i was gonna have to call an ambulance i didn't think i would finish it so sub 430 you didn't train wow sore for a week he said all right 21 is crazy yeah player comp drew timmy at gonzaga i like to be creative around the rim because i've been this height since sixth grade so i'm not good at guard but i like to score and post and rebound that sucks when you're enormous in for basketball purposes just big for no reason right right but then also like you don't learn any guard skills and then you're like hey you're also full size and you're 10 yeah and so now you're not gonna play yeah you're not gonna play post buddy yeah you have to get real wide all right so i broke up my girlfriend in six months we moved fast we were long distance but visited a lot as i'm in college in arizona and she's in college back home broke up with her for a lot of reasons effort was a big one i'd send handwritten notes i know a stationary place north of San Francisco if you guys need any stationary. I know. I'd say handwritten notes. Flowers scheduled text for 713 AM. Our anniversary was 713. He was in deep. This is always a bad idea. I'd pay her sorority to buy her coffee and flowers as a surprise when I was at school in Arizona. I broke up with her because I was getting minimal effort back. Yeah, no shit. She's 21, buddy. And in a sorority? Right. Like, you know, great for this guy. This guy doesn't win in college with these moves. That doesn't work. That wouldn't work on sorority smallman back in the day. It did not. Okay. All right. Broke other because I was getting minimal effort back. She was distraught and handled the breakup terribly, even though I tried to let her down easy, blaming the breakup on me and taking blame, work on myself type stuff. After the breakup, she was Venmoing me, maybe people are meeting on Venmo emailing me sending me Megan Maroney songs break it right back unfamiliar huge blind spot in the music 0 for 4 I was leaning on you guys sending me TikToks I had to block her on every single app possible even the Bible app safe to say I dodged a bullet I've been nothing but respectful even though she said some heinous stuff that isn't true Hey, brother, been there. It's nice that she's been blocked on everything for a week. And now we can't talk. I even deleted my Instagram account because I don't want to be on social media. There's some context and it gets me to my question. Is it OK that I've told a lot of my good friends all these details of the breakup, specifically her saying doing wild things part? It's making me significantly easy to get over her knowing I dodge a bullet, but she was always hard to deal with in arguments anyway. But this has been a whole new level. How long do I have to wait to get back out there in the dating scene? I got four months left at one of the most attractive colleges that exists. Yes, he's not going to share it, but you're in a good spot. I'd love to find my wife here. Thanks, guys. I think that sentence told us a lot. Yes, I agree. I think you should join a church immediately. It seems like that's another one type of Bible app. Yeah, I mean, you just can't wait to get back to another thing. right before he's done with college and then going to move somewhere else. Right. We are like today is the standard life advice. Like people are living a very regimented standard. Know what you want. So like we get a college guy who's running marathons, no training, he's throwing around 245 like it's fucking nothing. And he wants to be married. Obviously. Right. So there's a way acting like a husband, scheduled texts, flowers, calling her scheduled FaceTimes. He's acting like a responsible and lovely partner that did not get reciprocity in this relationship yeah you're just not to your credit you're not going to be appreciated in this age group doing these things and if you are then maybe that's your wife because i promise you sorority smallmans like what time what day is it what time is it i need to buy a toga for tonight right i'm not that focused on the 7 13 a.m facetimes and no offense if she's at say arizona state she's probably on like a mandatory date with another like yeah there's fraternity right whatever happens in the water down there with females at Arizona State. Like, I just... Right, female women. Female women, yeah. I mean, there's one in here right now. She's not... She's trying to pick out the first guy she's going to divorce. Oh. Well, let's not go there. She's just trying to enjoy her youth? Sure. Fine, fine. But I'm just saying there's a mindset when you drop somebody off at Scottsdale where it's like, it's a little different. They're built different there. So what's the question? How long does he have to wait to talk to his friends? No, no. to get back to date. I think it's another high standard guy where he doesn't even feel comfortable telling his group of friends why he broke up with her because one, he said he wasn't getting enough effort back, but then also him saying, hey, she said these terrible things about me. And he's like, almost feels like he's defying their trust by even sharing some of these details. But you dumped her, so who cares? You blocked her on everything. Who cares? Be transparent with your friends as to why this relationship ended. You have no loyalty to her anymore. You just said, she's not my wife. So why do you care if your friends know that she wasn't responding to your texts and didn't appreciate your flowers. I will say this. He says, how long till I get back out there? I would encourage our guy to take a page out of his ex's book and take a beat and enjoy college. I know you are ready. He doesn't sound like that. I know you're ready to be booed up for life, locked down. Never said that on the show before, booed up. First time for everything, what's up? But you're never gonna be this age again. You will never be this age again. You said you have four months left at a great university. Why don't you take those four months and hang out with your friends and have a good time? If you meet somebody great pounds, dude. Yeah. Yeah. Get in the gym. Maybe get some abs. Maybe meet a girl there. Have some fun because 170 should have abs. You have the rest of your life to get married and be in a relationship. Have some fun. But isn't this like a total setup for another long distance unless you guys are moving to the same place? Great point. Especially you meet someone younger. They're still doing college. and now you're like interning maybe in a different city like that's like a bad time when you you got to break up with your high school girlfriend and you kind of have to break up with your college girlfriend not always but i just think those are like the worst times to be getting into something right when you're like fresh heading in separate directions like we got this because you probably don't got this no and he's 21 i mean i'm in my 30s 21 year old michelle i don't know her stranger i mean i am so different now than i was when i was 21 oh i tell maddie all the time if you met be in college we wouldn't be married exactly so you're in a rush to lock something down and enter this next chapter of your life but you still have so much growing to do right all right let's bang out a couple more here how should a 40 year old man dress this could help we have a question here it's michelle looked like she was we've never done that before answered one before we read any words i was ready to go but go ahead let's hear it five ten and a half closer to 170 than the 185 i prefer all right so this guy's going the other direction thinking about turning the home gym into a sports bar game room i think you should totally do it it would get used i'd like to have done that before the summer push-ups for now pony keg in there i'm 42 and i'm in the east phoenix metro area 10 years married together 20 and snipped well and not shy i'm sharing details scope drop for 10 years too this is going to go all the way um my wife and i both work corporate jobs from home but also still live like we're in our 20s with money not a ton of money but we're on track for early retirement. Don't have kids. My wife and I, sorry, my email thing's getting messed up here. I can definitely dress for the occasion, although that usually includes some last minute purchases. My question is more about casual wear. Some of my best friends are in their thirties having their first kids and they still have a ton of swag. I do all right without trying too hard. I also have friends in their fifties and sixties. I don't want to dress like a dweeb or like I'm going to a boat when I'm in the middle of the desert. Boat wear, though. I can go cowboy every day, even though a cowboy hat, a bolo tie is top tier, but it makes sense to me. So I end up in hoodies this time of the year, t-shirts year round, it's more stylish than others. Oversized, uncommon brands or off brands that I like. Shorts and pants are always a struggle. I usually have one or two pairs that I really rely on for a season or two or three. Shoes are either white Air Force Ones, similar to some other boot or shoe that fits well with bottoms and matches. I buy cheap shoes. Also, I'm bald. God. And I'm almost always wearing a relatively cheap snack bag, like a Bass Pro or something obscure that I found. Anyways, how should I be dressing? Am I crazy young at heart? But I'm also successful uncle and unk. The answer may be that my wife and I should just enjoy our youthful spirit and freedom, but I'd like to surprise people once in a while and stay ready for anything. Also, my wife dresses the same way. this email could have been hers probably not the bolo you never know maybe formal nights so i guess he feels like he's dressing down too much yeah too useful but what's he trying to accomplish exactly trying to impress this is all over the map i heard a lot of things basketball cowboy hat it sounds like you don't know what your style is so maybe and go to an uncle cracker show next week seriously they both work from home right so they're they're almost never impressing anyone at the office so i think that's the reward honestly like if you set up your life to have this kind of thing then you shouldn't care how you dress at all like i went from i'm just telling you i went through the cycles i was like i'm gonna wear dress shirts all the time and i'm gonna do this and do this and then the second i got like real comfortable myself i was like i don't care right yeah i don't want to be full-time sam yeah no i know uh i was dressed nice last night i thought you totally were thanks you what's nice what did you what were we wearing you had like a that that was it that like uh it's like a shirt that's also maybe a jacket yeah a shirt that's maybe a jacket yeah yeah oh that was a couple nights ago yeah that was the james first jacket yeah yeah jacket yeah yeah that thing last night i had some brunello on so i went for it yeah on a jean jacket i bought it in london i know you guys been in london anyway so the way you dress though now compared to like when we first met when you were on sap and riscilla and doing things like You were buttoned down, tucked in, sometimes jeans. You loved a Cole Hawn shoe. I remember I tried to sell them on Poshmark. Yeah, that's right. Oh, my God. Poor Michelle. We unloaded all the game-worn dress shirts. And Michelle's like, we're going to sell all these. Oh, I thought we were going to be so rich. Kyle, I was like, everyone's going to buy them. Well, there was some patterned jeans. Oh, yeah. There was a couple. Because he has a rabid fan base. I was like, yes, people are going to buy his game-worn night-out Rosilla button-downs. Not a bite on the internet. I think we sold one. and you signed it oh but so you wanted it to be game one you weren't accepting like buffalo exchange rates you wanted it to be like no he had worn them all he just didn't know what to do yeah but we weren't pricing them even bad they were like 30 bucks we were trying to get rid of them and you were like this is gonna work this is gonna work and then we cataloged all of them and i was like look i just want you to know that i can't believe you're doing this for me but yeah i'm gonna whatever the end game is like i'll hook you up on the cut right i just feel I just don't think I can throw them away. And it was, we sold one and it was so depressing because you come by the office. You're like, no one's biting. And I'm like, ah, it's early. And then like a week ago by like nothing. I'm like, how's it work? Like kids, you're like, dude, there's zero traffic. No one wants any of them. It's awful. And then you came in, you're like, we sold one lacoste one. And I was like, how much? You're like 30 bucks. I was like, well, I think right now you just keep the 30 bucks and we won't worry about the, uh, so it was a lot of hours for me to put in without any real return. earn and then i think we just ended up donating all the shirts and it sucked yeah you were like you could keep them i'm like what am i gonna do with all these shirts who knows they're vintage now that's maybe the maybe they went up in price that's true maybe we could send them to our guy maybe they're back in style too late i already gave them away yeah i know i know you get stuck with that you were actually if i didn't thank you enough i'm thanking you again great so do you have all right give me what you think this guy should be wearing michelle okay well first of all are you a cowboy if not why are we dressing like one what about south weekend yeah yeah yeah i don't know because as you get older i'm doing this bougie construction thing right now that i love that's a great way to put it i couldn't put my fucking finger on it yeah okay is this is this today i'm not getting that vibe today um today's i'm going to be here for six hours taping today correct but here's why i say that because he's obviously concerned about how he's presenting to the world. And if you're not a ranch hand, people may take it as a costume. They may be like, oh, that's Jimmy. He dresses like a cowboy. You know what I mean? You don't want that following you around. Here's what I will say. You need to be confident in what you're wearing. You need to look good, feel good, play good. So if you are not good at curating your style, call in an expert here. Okay. Get a personal shopper or have your wife take you out. Try on some things, get some pants. And when you put them on, they fit right. Get a shirt that you can wear out and you feel good and maybe a jacket or a blazer and just slowly go get some staples so that when you have a night out with your wife you're not panicking and being like it's it's formal but can i throw on the bolo tie the answer is probably not this is great i do think though like so he's 40 i'm 37 you do reach an age in which like you just walk in your closet one day and you're like is any of this style anymore like yeah and then it's like and then it's like overwhelming because you're like do i need all new clothes like ever like and but you got to kind of slowly do it and do your thing. And obviously now it's like, hey, buy more pieces that are like, you know, that will last longer, that are better made. Yeah. Because I feel like we kind of grew up to like little fast fashion era was like just a bunch of bullshit all the time that was like that would last you a couple of years to go away. So I've kind of been in this thing because, you know, I'll be honest, I want to be I want to be cool looking dad. Right. You know, I'm not think you're doing a great job. Yeah. Thanks, man. I appreciate it. This is great. Thank you. I don't know. Sometimes I feel like the quarter zip is like a boring thing, though. You know what I mean? Like I don't I don't. But it's a staple and you don't have to think about it. And I think that's where our guys right into trouble but i think he wants people to notice him right and i i think i could i i understand where he's coming from but it's like hard to be like what's the step like i don't want to look like somebody who's just trying to be a 25 year old either you know i like the personal shopper thing i really do like i'm gonna think i'm gonna have a tax guy for the first time i got screwed up with the new york california i was almost gonna push the button i was like i might might actually have to pay a guy this year and like it's one of those things where like yeah you could go through life doing your own fashion thing or you could spend the money one time and get a good baseline. Yeah. I really like that. I'm sure they're out there. Not harder, right? Like let somebody else take it off your plate and then you'll walk into whatever event or dinner with your wife and you're like, my stylist picked this out. No big deal. It gives you a little bit of added swag. Yeah. I'm worried. My tax thing. All my friends are like, dude, my guy's going to get you like 20 grand back. I'm like, now I think that's not the direction. He's not going to. You know, I think it's just kind of lame that you don't want to pay higher taxes because I'd heard recently that it was just cool. yeah anyway uh give back yeah just make sure i gotta give as much back all the extra money just means things are better uh all right let's see here um last one boom mother-in-law christmas gift right around the corner okay never too early unless it's probably christmas wasn't that long ago man this means like do i return it yeah right names change my wife and i just had a baby in December. We have no family in the state. So when the in-laws, Susan and Bob visit, they stay for three to four weeks. Oh man. Oh wow. My in-laws came for the birth of our child and left right after Christmas. The visit went. Do you stay on the property for three to four weeks? That's insane. Playing games, drinking and surviving the life of the newborn with no contention. For Christmas, they got our newborn a digital picture frame with a bunch of preloaded pics of the in-laws family. I crested the code to become an admin and be able to load pics took Susan over a week to reply via text so I figured out how to load pics anyway. Susan did not like that. She thinks she should be the only admin of picture frame and only load pics she likes. I none of my side of the family. Susan says it's a gift for her grandson so I should have no control I think it's in my house and we want to add pics from my side of the family to be clear I just wanted to add pics and leave the preloaded pics there I have no issues with Susan being able to control to load random pics as well also I think it'd be ridiculous to have a digital frame for one side and have to get another frame for the other get a bigger one to add another layer get a bigger one to add another layer as an interracial couple two frames for two sides of the family would look even worse what an incredible email am i wrong to think i should be able to add photos to a digital frame that's in my house or as a gift to a grandkid out of our control i i couldn't agree with where our guys head spaces anymore right now the fact that they're coming for three to four weeks every year means he has no control over what happens in this house i think yeah and i think he might even lose this one too no there's a clear-cut answer here your wife has to be the one to tell her mother we're adding the photos that we deem to be great for our child and we want to be able to add pictures from any trip with any side of the family it has to be the daughter right steve you're married you have kids yeah no i mean this would be like i'm trying to think of the equivalent of this like buying someone a coffee maker it's like you only use it when i come up when i come over i could only use it when i come over and it's like what's the point of me having this thing then so you can just control it i i i agree with you the wife is this is this is like hey this is these are your parents you need to figure this out because that's kind of like you know i there's been some in-law things here and there on both sides for my thing and it's usually just like hey you talk to them you need to figure it out yourself because otherwise like you don't want to be you don't put your significant other in a bad spot with their in-laws you know so or you're there for a month yeah those are like bad stats that stick with you it's like you remember that one time he was weird about christmas or what would you do is just being weird here yes yeah or will you just be really spiteful and just don't just like put it in a closet and don't have it out just be like hey if you're controlling it it's not going to be visible i still think the double friends in our house like we're not putting out i think history was made here on this email I think it's the first time somebody could use the race card and everyone would have his back think about it he goes to the wife and be like we can't do this honestly I have people coming over oh you want to see our black frame I agree Ruby Bridges was at the freaking game last night Black History Month just really puts it in perspective that's right I left my hat under the seat maybe that's the perfect time to nipples to bring up this conversation black history month yeah i know i just feel like we are doing our part i don't even know that we need anybody else's perspective on this one because i think it's straightforward i mean it's ridiculous it's ridiculous the mother-in-law saying to you i need to be the admin on the picture frame that's in your house and by the way it's a gift to the grandchild who doesn't know what is going on for a couple years so i would either hide it when they're not there but the three four weeks thing kyle that you said is right on because you're going if you're willing granted it's birth of a child and it's like hey we can't just leave for christmas sounds like they do this every time yeah it sounds like scheduling wise you kind of perfect stormed it here above conditions that were going to lead to something you weren't necessarily going to love but they kind of feel like they're in charge probably when they show up to your house a little bit more than anybody else so they're a little comfortable being in charge they're going to stay longer the next visit will probably be long so uh i would just hide it if if you can't get the code as i was reading this i'm like what is this picture frame i have one of them and they're actually pretty cool, and I'm bummed out for him that he can't. Yeah, it sounds like you're having a blast with this poor guy. Oh, yeah, I'll give codes to you guys if you want. I get a little bling, and I'll just tell you every once in a while. Who's checking in? He's just here solo. I'm on Steve's group family album. You are. It's Steve, Maddie, both of their families, and me. Yeah, for our daughter. Yeah, yeah. Well, we should have moved the seats around. No, I didn't realize. We're a family, you know. On Sportsmanlike, ESPN Radio, every morning, Monday through Friday, with Evan Cohen and Chris Canney. So check out Michelle and all the other stuff that she's doing as well. And you can Venmo her if you want, but I don't know that she's going to get back to you. Thank you, Michelle. Thanks for having me, guys. Bye.