Another Sports Podcast
Patriots, NFL, Bruins, Red Sox, UFC
All right, guys, I haven't done this one for a little while, but, you know, it feels good to get back on it, just catching up. Obviously, I think the last time I spoke was back when Max and Toporia fought. I think I did an episode right after that, that was basically a recap. But since then, I believe the Patriots have won two times since I last chatted on here. Beat the Jets in what was a bit of a nail-biter of a game, and then lost the Titans in what should have been a win. It went a very winnable game against a bad Tennessee Titans team down there in Nashville in overtime. They end up losing that one. And then they end up winning this past week rather kind of convincingly against a Bears team that looks just awful. So they're on a bit of a roll, two out of three, up to three and seven. They are tied with the New York Jets as far as record goes, ironically. The best meme that I keep seeing posted around is that meme of Michael Scott from the office, and he's shaking the guys. And that's ball put together, and it's the Jets' highest expectation they've had in 25 years. And they're three and seven in the Patriots, this is the lowest of the low that we've thought of them, and they're three and seven as well, so that's just funny. But yeah, you know, I don't know if this is a sign that things are trending upward. They've gotten some good play, obviously out of the quarterback, that's been maybe the biggest development this year so far has been Drake May bursting on the scene. That first game against the Jets that they won, he looked like he was about to probably have his best game, and then he got hurt. Well, got a concussion, really. A little bit more into that in a second, but Jacob Brisek comes in, they end up winning the game. He came back the following week, they lost, and then this week was his first true win as he played the whole game. He's definitely helped the team in the explosive factor, you could argue that for the amount of big plays he makes, he also does turn the ball over more than Jacob Brisek. Whether that's just a rookie thing or that's going to be something that's going to play him his whole career is something that we'll be able to see, that will be remained to be seen. But you know, so far I think you have to be satisfied by what you got out of Drake May. You know, the big play ability is certainly there, he has an elite arm, very mobile quarterback. Again, go into that in a second. You know, has all the tools physically of a very good, great elite quarterback in the NFL. You definitely see the Josh Allen, Justin Herbert sort of comparisons in him. And it's definitely far different than what you've had the past few years with Mac Jones and Bailey Zabe playing, who were obviously very physically limited. It's taken, you know, all of about three seconds to see that this is a different guy, just a different quality of athlete. And it's just sort of, it's just a matter of whether they can get him the talent around him to, you know, take advantage first off of this rookie contract that he's on. And, you know, and not ruin him, you know, how much, one thing that you can say is that he hasn't been ruined by the team yet, even though he's running around like a madman some days with the offensive line. He has, and he was getting killed in that game against the Titans. But, you know, he hasn't shown that he's making bad habits. You know, he's not getting sped up. He's not doing any of those things. I would appreciate if he didn't throw one bad interception once a game. I mean, that one against the Bears is past weekend. That's as bad of interception as you'll possibly see. And he's had a couple of those where, you know, he either air mails it or he just completely misses a guy. Doesn't seem to sort of, it doesn't go from bad, doesn't make the mistake and then he makes it again. He seems to adjust and not make the mistake in the game. So maybe going forward, that's something that you can look forward to, that he'll be able to just minimize those two. I mean, they're going to happen. They're going to happen. They happen. Everybody. But, you know, to minimize those in a season, throughout a season and not have one of those in game will be crucial in his development. But, you know, obviously the big thing, though, that I keep alluding to earlier on, you know, he needs to learn how to slide. He's already gotten a concussion. So, you know, you've already sort of opened the floodgates with that one. You know, once you get one concussion, it always feels like it's a little bit easier to get that second concussion. It's just like a fighter getting knocked out. You know, once a guy's been chined, it becomes easier to knock a guy down and knock a guy out. Same thing with this. And, you know, he gets the concussion and it doesn't seem like he's given him any pause to his game in the running. A, he's going to run, which is fine. I'm fine with that. I would prefer if he, you know, doesn't have to be your leading rusher, which he wasn't on Sunday. But, I would prefer if he is not taking unnecessary hits. And, you know, there's been a couple instances where, you know, he clearly has the opportunity to slide. He's got the first down. He's got all the yards he needs. And, he puts his head down and runs into two guys. And, man, that's a dangerous way to play. And, you know, you see to a tongue-of-eye lower down in Miami and, you know, you see what's happened to him. And, he sort of plays with that sort of same style. And, it's just hard to see that being sustainable. So, someone has to get in his ear or he needs to get in his own head and avoid taking those hits. Especially when he's getting killed by this offensive line anyway. So, he's taking hits behind the line as scrimmage as it is. But, overall, have they, are they trending upward? Hard to say when the two teams you've beat have been, you know, really not that great. I'll get into that in a second when looking at the landscape of the league. But, you know, it's good to see that they've been able to scrap together a couple wins because I thought we were heading on the path of, wow, this is going to be historically bad. And, they got some winnable games coming up. You got the Rams coming in who did not look good on Monday night and they got a short week, obviously. You know, Miami has their own struggles even though they've got their starting quarterback back and then they got Indy who quarterback who quit on them two weeks ago was now back in. So, you know, they've definitely got a chance to win another two out of three here and, you know, potentially be five and eight, six and seven, if they were to sweep all three, which I don't see happening. But, you know, you could look at all three of those games and say that's a winnable game. After the buy, it gets a little bit rough, but, you know, if they could finish with five, six wins. Hey, I mean, that would sort of be in the ballpark or where people thought they were going to be, right? So, I guess you could say it's trending upward in, obviously, you have the quarterback. You're not what you were last year, I guess, where it was just a complete dumpster fire and everybody knew that Bill was gone, everyone knew that Mac Jones was gone. Everyone knew that Bailey's app, he was gone, it was a sort of toxic environment between the owner and the coach. That doesn't seem to be the case this year. You know, you have a lot of young players that maybe aren't carrying their weight, so, you know, that's been a little bit of a disappointment, especially with the receivers. Bill and Polk, I mean, caught a touchdown the other day, but he's been not great this year, especially with the drop passes. You know, they've made some moves on defense, they got rid of Judon, they went younger on that defensive line. So, you know, I guess you got to say it's trending upward because you got the quarterback, but I don't know where else on the team you're really looking at and going, well, this is going in the right direction, including the coaches. And then it comes out today that Robert Kraft has been calling around the league about how to develop Drake May and this that the other and reaching out to, you know, offensive coaches around the league. And I mean, that just should tell you that writing is on the wall for Alex Van Pelt as the offensive coordinator, but maybe even to Rod Mayo at some point in time, or maybe it shows that maybe there is a little bit of a disconnect there between Mayo and Kraft. And if Mayo doesn't put together a respectable record, he might be on the outs as well. Definitely, it seems like Alex Van Pelt is going to get shown the door at the end of the year and I don't think anyone's going to be complaining about that. His play calling has been just, I guess you could say mind numbingly bad sometimes. I mean, it's just not really the way I would call a game with a rookie quarterback at the helm, but, you know, teach their own. I don't think he's going to end up working out. I think that he's pretty much a lame duck. He's going to be the fall guy and they're going to have a better offensive situation going on next year. I hope that this means that, you know, that in addition to getting a coach that they will spend some money on the offense, which I have to imagine is going to happen. So that's that, you know, like I said, good for them to get a couple wins here. I don't want, you know, this doesn't seem like the year to have the top overall pick, you know, so there's no real reason to be tanking. I don't want to tank, especially when you have the quarterback, you want to start building a culture. You have a new coach, you have a new quarterback, you want to build the culture, get wins. There's no real difference between picking first and picking fifth to picking sixth. I would rather take those wins and, you know, again, this isn't, this doesn't seem like the year to have the top overall pick. There isn't a quarterback that everyone's going to go head over heels for, you know, which I'm saying that as of now in November, things always seem to change after the college football season. I don't know how that works. I don't know how we spend the entire year with this guy is the number one guy or this guy is the number two guy. And then all of a sudden we get to the end of the college season and all of a sudden everything is flipped over, even though no one has played a game. No one has done anything. It just, I don't understand it. It's these nerds in these scouts that, you know, overthink themselves into a pretzel. But, you know, you've got the quarterback, you don't need a top pick. I would rather just win as many games as you can, try to build a winning culture, try to figure out who, you know, should stay here in the long term. And hopefully with the more games you win, the more likely you are to attract the players to come play for you. Obviously you're going to have to pony up the money, but at least you'll have a seat at the table if you're a respectable organization. So, that's that. As far as the rest of the league goes, and I alluded this to when I was talking about the bears and the jets, I can't think, and let me take a quick sip of water. All right, I'm back. Obviously whenever you're talking for a long period of time, I just hacked up my lung. Hi. Okay, so when it comes to the rest of the league, I can't think of another time that there was this many bad teams. I'm just going to go on tankathon.com, and I'm going to read off the top 14 picks in the draft here. It is so far right now. Jacksonville, the Giants, the Titans, the Browns, the Raiders, the Patriots, the Saints, the Jets, the Panthers, the Dolphins, the Cowboys, the Colts, the Bengals, the Buccaneers, the Buccaneers. And that's the top 14 teams on the draft board. How many bad teams did I just named there? Jacksonville is a train wreck and is going to fire their coach any day now. And they just gave a whole bunch of money to their quarterback who doesn't really look that great. The Giants are a train wreck as well, and they gave another team that gave a whole bunch of money. Now, at least Trevor Lawrence had shown that he had promised of making that money, but Daniel Jones never did, and they gave him a huge contract. That luckily for them, it doesn't tie them to as long as Trevor Lawrence does, but still, they spent $40 million on a quarterback, and he can't play. Tennessee is a mess after all those years where they were a pretty good organization, pretty well-run organization. It seems like the GM ownership has completely nuked that whole operation, fired Mike Rebel, traded AJ Brown years ago, just again, just a total. They had everything going for them, and they screwed the pooch on that one. Cleveland, you know, I don't have to get into the whole quarterback situation, the fact that they gave him the largest guaranteed contract. This guaranteed contract in NFL history, and he has more sexual assault cases than he does touchdowns, I believe, in Cleveland. And maybe even games play it, I have no idea. The Raiders and other team, that's just, you know, deprived of talent, sort of. They don't have quarterback. Now they don't really have any receivers with Devonta Adams out of there. You know, they suck too, and don't have, you know, that creative coach either. The Patriots, we've already gone into them. Obviously, they have maybe the major building block there, but that's about it. The coaching staff really kind of sucks. The offense sucks. The defense is, you know, so-so. But, yep, again, another craft team. The Saints, another team, they suck, two-and-oh, out of the gate. Two impressive wins, and then lose seven in a row, I believe it was. Yeah, because they just won this past weekend. So, yeah, they lose seven in a row. So they were a total fraud those first two weeks. The Jets, who are maybe the biggest laughingstock out of this whole thing. They finally, you know, they get the quarterback, they get Aaron Rodgers. Obviously, last year, it gets hurt, cares as Achilles. And this year, as they've somehow been worse than they were with Zach Wilson, despite having Aaron Rodgers and having Devonta Adams in the middle of the year. And, yeah, they are just, and someone wanted me to talk about this. They wanted me to talk about how bad the Jets were. Yeah, the Jets are a complete joke. The, it, God put that team under us to be a laughingstock. It really, it's unbelievable. It really is. It's unbelievable. And, you know, now Rodgers is going to nuke that organization on the way out. So, you know, good for them. Caroline, that they smell, they have no talent. They're awful. Miami, not a bad team. Obviously, lost their starting quarterback, and then now he's back. I wouldn't say Miami is a bad team. I would say that they are probably a pretty mid team. Dallas, sort of the same ideal. You know, I can't believe they kept Mike McCarthy on as their coach during the off season when they could have had Bill Belichick. But, you know, Jerry Jones doesn't, needs to be the star of the show down there. So, which he's been the biggest asshole of this, this whole season. Every single week, it seems like he's in the media saying something he probably shouldn't be saying. But, you know, he needs to be the star of the show there. Indianapolis, they're only four and six, but they suck too. Their quarterback is, you know, obviously tapping out of games. And they had to get Joe Flacco's corpse to go out there and play. And then now they just bench Joe Flacco. Indy was sort of my like wild card sort of, you know, don't know who they were at the start of the year, but yeah, they kind of suck. Cincinnati is, if it weren't for Joe Burrow, just what a complete mess of an operation is going on there. You feel bad for him because it seems like every week he's putting up big numbers, but his defense sucks and his receivers are assholes. So, you know, he, I, and his owner is a cheap steak, cheap steak. So I don't know, you know, I feel bad for the, feel bad for the guy. He's having like an MVP quality year in terms of, if you look at his numbers, let me just, you know, pull his numbers up. I mean, he, he had like a couple bad games at the start. So he was kind of going down with, with them. But ever, all the games that they've won, he's been carrying them on his back. And they, I mean, they've been losing games. He's got 24 touchdowns and four interceptions this year. He's throwing 60, he's completing 68% of his passes. He's got a 108 rating and they're four and six. His, because his defense can't stop a nosebleed and his receivers can't get on the same page. So there's that Tampa, you know, not exactly a great team, but they've had injuries. So I'll give them a bit of a pass. But yeah, how many teams did I just name that just, they just suck? I would say 12 of those 14 teams are just awful. I can't think of another year that there was this many bad teams where you're just like, wow, that team's got problems. Yeah, and it's, I mean, look at the bears are here at 17. You know, and their, their offensive line might be the worst offensive line I've ever seen in my life. You know, giving up nine sacks with the Patriots on Sunday. It's, yeah, I mean, the fact that Denver is in a wild card spot right now tells you all you need to know. And, you know, I don't know. I can't, I can't remember there being this many teams that, I mean, and there's been some years where I was like, wow, there's a lot of teams that suck this year. It feels like it's special. And definitely the quality of the games have gone down because of it. I mean, it feels like a bunch of games are just, they're right. The blowouts or, you know, they're just sloppily played games. I just don't know how to say it. When you watch around the league on a week to week basis, it doesn't feel like there's a lot of quality football being played. And this year, it seems like it's more than ever. And I don't know if it's the padded practices, the lack of padded practices, the lack of a preseason, the real lack of a training camp. The fact that the first four weeks are treated like a regular, the preseason. It's, yeah, if Kansas City just rolls through the rest of the year, even if they, even if they lose, even if they, you know, lose the Buffalo's week or lose to Houston in a couple weeks, even if they don't finish undefeated, if they just roll through the entire season and then get it win another championship, I think that this has got to be like the worst year for football in the NFL in it ever because just what an, what an is interesting conclusion that would be to an uninteresting season. Yeah, there's just, there's a lot of crap. There's just a lot of crap going on in the league. And I don't know how they fix it. Doesn't seem like it's getting better. It feels like it's getting worse. And with all the precautions that they have regarding practicing, I don't see how it can get any better. So I don't know. I don't know. But this, this league this year just really feels like it's worse than it's been in a while. It feels like there's a lot of teams that are just underachieving. You know, you got Sam Fran, they are, they're underachieving. Obviously the Jets, the Cowboys, the Dolphins, the Bengals. You know, some people thought New Orleans could be a good team. Cleveland, obviously, you know, with their, all their problems. And then you look at it's like how many teams are really overachieving. It's like, okay, well, no one really thought Washington was going to be as good as they are. Pittsburgh, probably Minnesota would be an obvious one, even though they look like they're starting to come back down to Earth. But, you know, Arizona's kind of sorta overachieving. You know, six and four. I wouldn't know if that, if I'd qualify that one. I mean, definitely didn't think they'd be first place. But I kind of thought they'd be a borderline playoff team. But other than that, it's like really who is, like, shocking you. You know what I mean? I don't know. It just doesn't feel like it's been a quality year. It feels like there's more underachieving teams and overachieving teams. And, you know, it's not, so it's just like, it's just the underachieving teams are just sucking. It's not that the overachieving teams are really surprising people. And that's why the underachieving teams have bad records. No, the underachieving teams just suck. They just suck. That's all. So, yeah, that's my state of the NFL. And I'm going to move on to the Bruins. I'm going to move on to hockey. Now, they haven't killed me yet. They're not, um, they seem to have straightened the ship out just a little bit. They surprisingly are for one in one in their last six games start off the month of November, which is, you know, a decent, a decent record for six game stretch. It doesn't feel like it's all put together, though. And I mean, obviously last night, they get down to nothing. They looked awful the first two periods of that game against the Blues. They end up coming back in the third. They finally played a good third period for what seemed like the first time this year. And they end up winning it in regulation on goals from Geeky, McAvoy, and Poshnock in the third period to eke out what seemed like a season saving win. If they lost that game and regulation, you know, after the way that they lost to Ottawa, after the way they lost to Toronto, two games before that. Man, I don't know. I think that Jim Montgomery's was sort of playing a borrowed time anyway. But it seems like every time he's about to get fired, they seem to save his job. So, um, I don't know. They haven't really been able to, uh, carry these games over. Any of these good wins, they get a good win, and then they, um, seem to go back to playing and wrap the next game. And so I don't know how they'll look tomorrow. They're playing a good Dallas team. Um, I don't have high hopes for it. They'll probably end up dropping that one as well. So, we'll see. But if they could get a big win tomorrow, that'd be, I think that'd be huge because, honestly, you know, like I said, they're 4-1-1 in their last six games, which is, which is good record-wise. But they haven't, they don't really have a lot of quality wins. They look at their, at the teams that they've beaten. Um, I mean, they're below 500, technically. Obviously, with the NHL, you get the bonus points. So, they're 8-7 in 2, um, which is, you know, if you're doing the math, that's 8-9. But, you know, they're best win, honestly. I mean, they beat the May Police, obviously, a couple weeks ago. Um, you know, over time after they blew, they blew the lead in, in the third, in the third period. And, you know, almost gave the Leafs that game, but, you know, you had beaten them, um, you had beaten them your last seven regular season games. So, I don't know. I don't really count that one as a qual, as all that quality of a win. That game was sandwiched in between two, two game losing streaks. Um, honestly, I think that their best performance was that game at Colorado. Um, who, a Colorado team who I think was 0-4 or 0-3 at the time and were sort of desperate, and, uh, they've sort of straightened it out a little bit. But, uh, I think, honestly, that was their, their best performance. Other than that, I mean, I can't really think of, you know, they had those two back-to-back shutouts, you know, at Philly and against the Seattle Kraken, but, you know, those are two sort of, not good teams. Those are teams that probably aren't going to be in the playoffs. And then last night, you know, you're playing, again, a St. Louis Blues team, it's not that good. You beat them. They beat Calgary last week, um, in overtime. Maybe sort of Calgary is a decent team, but, you know, yeah, they don't have a lot of quality wins on their, on their resume. Um, maybe the Kings in that first week that they were playing, but, uh, yeah, I don't know. Or I think that statistically that would be their, probably their best win, because the Kings are first in the Pacific, but I just, uh, yeah, I don't know. I think that, um, they have some issues with some of these good teams. Um, obviously, the penalty kill is what's killing them. The penalties and the penalty kill, they have, uh, three of the top 10 minor penalty takers on the team. Um, I took a screenshot of it earlier. Yes. They have Zidorov, who leads the league in minor penalties. He's got 13. Um, just behind him, a few, uh, couple spots back as Brad Marshawn, he's got nine. And then Posnock has, uh, seven and it's all stupid sticking infractions. It's all stupid penalties. And they seem to take them in the worst possible times. They take them back to back to, they'll, they'll kill a penalty and then they get put on, and then they take another penalty 30 seconds later and they're back on the penalty kill. And it completely sucks any, uh, you know, momentum that they had from killing the penalty. Um, in the first place to begin with and they end up giving a goal. And if you look at their five on five stats, they're really not that bad. Five on five, five on five, they have not struggled. They, they struggle on the power play and then they struggle on the penalty kill. They're fourth in goals against five on five. So five on five, they've been pretty much pretty fine. Even though there's been long stretches of time, um, sometimes in games where they go without taking a shot on net, which can get infuriating. Um, and that carried over from the playoffs last year. But five on five, they've honestly been fine. It's been the, the penalties and the penalty kill, um, which has never been an issue. They've never had problems killing penalties. Um, so that's been the most concerning development. Is what are they doing differently? That killing penalties has now become a problem. It's been such a staple of their organization. Um, really since I was a kid, I can't ever remember them being a bad penalty killing team. And they're, they're atrocious. I mean, it feels like they're giving up two, three goals a game on the pen, on the power play. Um, and, you know, that's gonna, that's gonna kill you over the course of the season. Anytime you take a penalty and a couple that with the fact that you're a stupid team. Um, you're, you're just asking for trouble. And you can't score. You can't score on top of it. Um, you know, you clearly lack talent in the forward department. Um, you know, none of your defense men are your kale macar or, you know, Eric Carlson type where they're going to put up 80 points, 70 points a year. So, you know, you don't have the forwards and a lot of your good players are starting to age out, you know, all these guys that have been staples of your organization for years and years and years. Charlie Coyle, Brad Marsh on. Um, they're starting to get old and they look old. And, um, yeah, it's definitely concerning for the postseason with how these guys are looking. I'm gonna cough again, just once I can feel like as I'm talking, like, I don't know, it feels like this pressure, like going up my nose, like all the hot air, like all the pages just like going up into my nose and it's making me like cough. But anyways, you know, yeah, your, your top end players that you've had around for all these years are getting older. And you don't really have any replacements for them. So, I think it's definitely a little bit concerning a going into the postseason. How is, how is these guys bodies going to hold up if you make it to the postseason. And B, what is the plan going forward? I mean, you know, Brad Marsh on is in a contract year and there was rumors that it was going to be a three year deal. He shot those down. You know, coils got a year left after this. Yeah, I mean, I don't know, as far as the future goes, they really did, they really might be in trouble. And I never really thought they would be like that because I always thought they kind of had like a good staple, even if they weren't. I mean, they're not going to be terrible, but, you know, you do sort of worry. I mean, they do have like a good staple of guys. But, you know, Lindholm hasn't really done them much. Elias Lindholm, you know, he was a younger guy that they signed. You know, you'd figure he'd help in that bit of a transition, but, you know, that free age of signing hasn't looked great. So, Doroff hasn't really looked that great, even though he's sort of left out to dry out there with how much pressure they're giving up the other way because the forwards are turning over the puck all the goddamn time. Definitely going to be well suited for the playoffs, I would imagine, if they get there. But, yeah, hopefully, you know, I was a little concerned with, you know, some of the things you heard about them saying like, well, you know, we've won all these games in October, in the past, and what has it really done for us? And I'm just like, you know, guys, I believe Charlie McEnway said that, and I'm like, you know, guys, you're not, you haven't won anything. You're not good enough, and I get the sort of sentiment, but it's just like, you're not good enough to just turn it on when you feel like it. And, yeah, I don't know. I'm interested to see how the rest of the season goes. I'm hoping that they've seemed to have turned a corner that they've won four out of six and they're like, okay, we can keep this pace for the rest of the year. And then, you know, they are in third in their division, so they're in one of the division spots at the moment. So it'd be nice if they can just, they don't have to be the number one seed, they don't need their correct, they don't need all that. I don't need all these regular season wins. But I would like it if you're not like, you know, digging for a playoffs spot at the end of the season. So, you know, if they can just keep up this pace of like, you know, winning four out of six, whatever it is, they'll probably be enough to get it done. But we'll see. Maybe they've turned a corner. All right. Moving on, I would like to mention just quick news story. Obviously, we got the Red Sox. Obviously, in on one Soto, allegedly, I don't see them spending them $600 million or whatever the heck it's going to cost. They get one Soto. But nice to see that they're at least attached to some of these big names. Again, I do think they're going to spend on at least one guy, maybe two. You hear about this Garrett crochet in Chicago, who was an all star of this past year. I don't really know too much about him. Obviously, on the White Sox didn't have a great record, but, you know, he was able. He had a respectable ERA. I think it was in the 3.3 area. They desperately need pitching. So, they could use a bat and they could use pitching. I don't think they're going to get one Soto. I think that that's going to be out of their price point. I mean, I would hate to say he doesn't really fit in their lineup, but, you know, they don't really need a left-handed bat. They need a right-handed bat. But, I mean, if you're going to get one Soto, you might as well live with whatever you can get as they take another sip of water. But, it would be nice, though, if they could just spend some money this offseason. Be interesting. Go for it. You know, it's a joke that they're consistently one of the biggest revenue generators in baseball. And they have, like, the 12th or 13th or 14th highest payroll in the sport. Under no circumstances, should that be acceptable? They should be spending relative to what the fan base is spending. And they should go out and they should sign one of these big name guys. There's that Japanese player that I heard about that he's almost kind of like a situation where he's basically like what Otani was. He's not really a posted player. You could get him for cheap. You could get him for basically nothing. And have him under team control for all those years. Because he's basically just like signing a drafty or a minor league player. Yeah, they should be in on these guys. It's been a long time since they have been. And, you know, it would make baseball around here interesting. And after the Yankees just went to the World Series and the Dodgers just won the World Series, you would think that the ownership would see that and be like, "Huh, maybe we should spend some money on this team." But, you know, I don't know. Maybe it's wishful thinking. I hear Liverpool's doing good. I had to look that up yesterday because his hockey team has been atrocious. And they actually just lost while I was doing this whole thing. But at least Liverpool's doing good. At least Liverpool's doing good. So, I don't know. We'll see if John Henry and Fenway Sports Group open up their pockets for this one. All right. And last thing, UFC 309, obviously this weekend at MSG, high profile card. Maybe the... I'll have to look it up. Maybe it might be the, you know, least MSG feeling card that they've done. I would say probably that Derek Lewis, Daniel Cormier, one that they did didn't really have a big MSG feel to it. But, yeah, you know, it's an OK card, but it's not, you know, what we've come to expect whenever they show up at MSG. Oh, it seems like MSG is a little bit of an afterthought now. It used to be sort of like when they first started going there, it felt like that was like a V card. But it's kind of turned into an afterthought. It's like now they got that Abu Dhabi card that they do in October. That seems to get more publicity, I guess. And it seems like the MSG card has sort of been the beat of, regulated to beat here. But nevertheless, we get a big main event. Obviously, John Jones coming back, defending the heavyweight championship against Deep A. Miochic. Same venue, same time as what they were supposed to fight last year, supposed to fight an MSG. John ended up pulling out. He tore his pectoral muscle and was on the shelf for a bit. Steep A chose to just sat and sit and wait for John. He waited the whole year. It's caused a little bit of a controversy. I think at that point in time when that fight was made, I don't think there was as much maybe backlash against it as it feels like there is now. Back then, a year ago, it didn't really seem like there was a clear contender. If I remember, I don't think, no. If I remember, Aspenal had just beaten, I'm going to have to look this up now. And I hate when I do this because I hate it comes off as so unprofessional and unprepared. But there wasn't a real push for Tom Aspenal to, I believe even people wanted to like Sergei Pavlovitch over Tom Aspenal. But I don't think there was really any qualms about John Jones fighting Steep A in MSG. It was sort of looked at as like, well, that's a big fight and, you know, John's deserved that sort of recognition. Steep A is almost inarguably the heavyweight goat for the UFC. So you might as well have them fight in a super fight, but now it's pretty clear that Tom Aspenal is the guy. He's won the interim title and then he defends the interim title, which is kind of funny. So I think that there's a lot of people that are not looking forward to this one because this fight this weekend because of how they just feel that the UFC is treated Tom Aspenal and how John Jones is treated Tom Aspenal. And it's put a little bit of a dark cloud on this fight, but here we are, we'll ask we're here. We probably, maybe we won't have to talk about this again after this weekend. I can't really give you a great breakdown of it because Steep A hasn't fought in such a long time. I have no idea what Steep A to expect. I would imagine he's probably going to be pretty close to the same. But you never know at 42 years old how much he's dropped off physically. Obviously I don't think that fighting in his time off has been his priority either. He just kind of like disappeared off the face of the earth and seemed to be doing his thing with firefighting and all that stuff. And then so we haven't really seen him, you know, physically. It sort of was like an out of sight, out of mind situation. So yeah, I don't know what to expect from Steep A this weekend. Obviously heavy hitter, very technical striker, good all around. I do think John is going to be able to take him down though. I mean, if DC was able to take him down, I would imagine John is as well. That's sort of my pick. I guess I think John is going to win a decision. I think John's going to probably end up taking him down a few times. I think Steep A is going to prove to be tougher than Sirogan was. But I don't think, I can't imagine Steep A at 42 years of age is going to come off the couch basically and beat the greatest fighter of all time in John Jones. And so I'm just sort of leaning that way with John by decision. And obviously the betting line is slanted heavily in John's favor. I believe he's minus 625, so there's really no money to be made there. I don't know what it is by decision. That would be my pick though. I don't know, I mean Steep A has obviously been finished before, but they were sort of like big heavy punches. John's not really a big heavy puncher. So I'm going to go with, I'm just going to go with decision. I don't think he's going to submit him. I'll just go with the decision. In the co-main event, another big fight at lightweight. We have Charles Olivera fighting Michael Chandler. And what is maybe the funniest matchup of the year, just based off the circumstances. Rematch from a fight a few years ago, they fought for the title. That was when Olivera became the undisputed champion. And what was a crazy two round fight, as you can imagine. I mean, this fight's going to be fireworks. I believe it's five rounds, it is five rounds. I don't think it's going to see a fifth round. Both guys have immense finishing ability. I will say though, don't sleep on Michael Chandler. I feel like a lot of people are sleeping on Michael Chandler when this fight come made. I kind of had the same reaction where I was like, well, you know, Charles finished him the first time. I feel like we all forget that Michael Chandler was really only like a couple of strikes away from winning that thing. And now Chandler has the added motivation of Conor McGregor just sitting around with his finger up his ass for the past two years. And pretty much screwing him over. And so Chandler's going to be definitely motivated to take his frustrations out. And Charles Olivera is going to be the one that's locked in the cage with him. Now, I think that Charles Olivera is a more technical fighter. He's probably the better fighter. He is definitely deserving of being the favorite. You know, I don't know how much he's, if there's really been a fall off. I mean, he's technically lost two of his last three dating back to the first Islam fight. You know, he looked great against Binaud Dariush. But, you know, he did get taken down against Dariush. Did spend a good majority of that first round on his back. But, you know, in Charles Olivera fashion gets up, head kicks, head kicks a guy, and then, you know, drops him and finishes the fight. Against Armand obviously came wicked close to finishing a guillotine at the start of the fight. I'm always a crazy grappling fight, but I think a lot of people think, you know, I mean, there's some people that think he won that fight. But, I mean, I got it just saved by the rules of judging. That's our ukean, probably won that fight. So, you know, I don't think there's really been a drop off from Olivera at all, but, you know, it's something to keep an eye on when a guy loses two out of three. Chandler's going to come in motivated. I wouldn't really touch this fight if I was betting. Obviously, I'm leaning Olivera, but, you know, I'm not all that confident in it. How could you be all that confident in it when you know the way Charles Olivera fights? He always seems to, you know, get dropped, get taken down, or whatever, seems to find himself in trouble. And then he, by the grace of God, seems to come away with the finish, but, you know, by the law of averages, how sustainable is that? So, you know, always, always nervous if you bet Charles Olivera, and, you know, I really, I wouldn't sleep on Michael Chandler. I wouldn't sleep on Michael Chandler. I mean, Spite, never underestimate the power of Spite, and he's going to go in there with a whole bunch of it after the way he's been treated the past two years, which, you know, I feel bad for the guy, but, you know, it is what it is. It should be an exciting night of fights, I would say. I mean, obviously, regardless of how you feel about the whole zone, steep a fight, whole situation, when the two of them are in the cage together, it's going to be a bit of a cool moment, you know. I mean, obviously, it's definitely a year late, but, you know, even really, I mean, it's about four years too late. I mean, four years ago, you told me that John Jones's fight's deep image, that'd be like the biggest fight they could possibly fucking make. But, yeah, no, I just, it's a shame, it's a shame that two legends are kind of fighting each other and it's being looked down upon because it is kind of cool, it is kind of cool, but it is a little bit of a joke. It's a joke at the same time as it is cool, because you just, it is a sport at the end of the day and the fact that there's a guy defending an interim title while you sit around and wait for your super fight to happen. I mean, I don't know, it wasn't really a fight that like I really had to see either, but it'll be cool, it'll be cool when it happens, it'll be cool when they're in the cage, it'll be a nice anecdote when both of their careers are over that they did fight each other. So, you know, people shit on it now, but they'll be excited on Saturday night and then obviously between Michael Chandler and Charles Oliver, you're going to get an exciting fight between, you know, those two are in the pound for pound, just bleed Hall of Fame. Chandler's just ability to fight with reckless abandonment, which gets him made fun of a lot of the times by people in the MMA community, but fuck if it ain't fun. And then Olivera's just ability to weather a storm is never out of a fight, it's endearing as an MMA fan to see a guy like that fight so I'm excited, I'll be looking forward to the fights. And obviously there's some good ones is Paul Bonickel and Paul Craig, earlier on the card, a lot of veterans like Jim Miller, Chris Weidmann's on the card, definitely a lot of old heads on the card if you're into seeing some crafty veterans but Alright, I'm going to leave it at that, it's been almost an hour, I can't believe I was able to talk that long and I only coughed a few times, I almost hacked up my lung, but thanks for listening guys, take care.