The Peter Attia Drive - #44 - Jeremy Schaap, ESPN journalist: upsets, doping, triumphs, and the importance of sports

Episode Date: March 11, 2019

In this episode, Jeremy Schaap, preeminent journalist at ESPN, discusses two of the most incredible upsets in boxing history, both of which Jeremy has expertly covered during his illustrious career, most recently culminating in the 30 for 30 special, 42 to 1. We also discuss his infamous Bobby Knight interview, his coverage of the doping scandals in baseball and cycling, as well as the pressures of following in his father’s enormous footsteps who taught him the importance of fairness in journalism. Additionally, we discuss the deeper meaning of sports, what it teaches us, and how he uses sports as a platform to bring light to greater societal issues.    We discuss: Jeremy and Peter’s shared obsession with boxing history [5:15]; Cinderella Man: The incredible upset of Max Baer by James Braddock, and the rise of the great Joe Louis [9:00]; 42 to 1: Buster Douglas beats Mike Tyson for one of the most unlikely upsets in the history of sports [23:30]; Contrasting fighting styles from “destroyers” to “artists”, and comparing the auras of the all-time greats [36:30]; Mike Tyson’s take on the Douglas fight, what went wrong for Buster Douglas following his victory, and other incredible upsets in sports history [45:30]; Ranking the greatest boxers since the 1960s [54:00]; Jeremy’s famous Bobby Knight interview: A career defining moment [57:00]; The pressures of following his father’s career path, and what it means to be a fair journalist [1:01:30]; The meaning of sports: how it brings us together and gives us a platform for bigger discussions [1:11:00]; Jeremy’s biggest regret in reporting, the 1998 home run chase, and the doping scandals of baseball and cycling [1:17:30]; The biggest and most underreported stories in sports [1:26:45]; Best 30 for 30 episodes: Jeremy and Peter pick their favorites [1:31:30]; Baseball: Steroids and the hall of fame [1:34:30]; Final thoughts on what makes sports so special [1:37:45]; and More. Learn more at www.PeterAttiaMD.com Connect with Peter on Facebook | Twitter | Instagram.

Hey everyone, welcome to the Peter Atia Drive. I'm your host, Peter Atia. The drive is a result of my hunger for optimizing performance, health, longevity, critical thinking, along with a few other obsessions along the way. I've spent the last several years working with some of the most successful top performing individuals in the world, and this podcast is my attempt to synthesize what I've learned along the way to help you live a higher quality, more fulfilling life. If you enjoy this podcast, you can find more information

on today's episode and other topics at peteratia-md.com. [♪ OUTRO MUSIC PLAYING [♪ Hey everybody, welcome to this week's episode of The Drive. I'd like to take a couple of minutes to talk about why we don't run ads on this podcast and why instead we've chosen to rely entirely on listener support. If you're listening to this, you probably already know, but the two things I care most about, professionally, are how to live longer and how to live better. I have a complete fascination and obsession with this topic.

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us directly by signing up from monthly subscription. My guess this week is Jeremy Shapp, one of the permanent journalists at ESPN, and a wonderful guy. We spend a lot of time in this episode talking about sports, obviously. Jeremy has done a lot of amazing work and he's written the book Cinder Eleman, which is an incredible story of James J. Braddock, who many of you probably have not heard of, but I think by the end of this episode, you'll understand why the story is so beautiful. We also talk a lot about his most recent project, which is directing a 30 for 30 special, called 42 to 1, which is the story of the Buster Douglas upset of Mike Tyson. We get into a lot of

things that go beyond sports, or at least are associated with sports, such as why these things matter to us, what they teach us about life, and the challenges that he faced following in his father's enormous footsteps, and ultimately coping with his father's early death as a result of a medical error. This episode could have gone on for a really long time, but we kind of had a time limit on it, and we had to draw it to a close earlier than either one of us would have liked. But with that said, I think you'll really enjoy

my conversation with Jeremy Shab. Hey Jeremy, thanks for coming, man. It's my pleasure, Peter, thank you for having me. First trip on the second subway, huh? I guess it's been a couple of years now. I mean, they've been building it since 1929. It was nice to, you know, I went out of my way to get a chance to see the 72nd Street station.

It was pretty impressive. Not having been in New York that long. I don't appreciate the morass of like nonsense. Oh, you know, by the year 2400, it should extend a little bit farther downtown. I would expect. Apparently it's going all the way to Tribeca. Yeah, and then there's the LIRR extension to Grand Central.

You know, the city is always improving, just sometimes very slowly. So there's so many things I want to talk about on the sports front, but I also realize that maybe not everybody wants to hear all this stuff, but I want to start with something in boxing, because you and I have something in common which is we are both completely obsessed with the history of boxing and we were talking about over dinner a few months ago. I don't think I know anything that has happened in boxing from about the year 1996 forward. If you asked me to rattle off one champion and one division. Well, that you're probably coincides with the beginning of some new professional endeavor or, you know, once you start building a family and your career and all that, it's harder

to be as obsessive about these things. And boxing itself has, let's face it, lost a lot of its luster over the last several decades. I'm certainly not as up on the sport as I was when I was covering it for ESPN on a regular basis. I was a ringside reporter for some time. I wrote a book about boxing history, but that didn't have anything to do with the contemporaries work. My assignment for about 10 years was being like the Mike Tyson reporter. From 1995, when he got out of prison until 2005, when he retired, that constituted a lot of the work that I did.

His last fight was against Kevin McBride. Kevin McBride, the clonest colossus. 2005 when he retired, that constituted a lot of the work that I did. His last fight was against Kevin McBride. Kevin McBride, the clonus colossus, unforgettable clonus colossus in Washington, D.C. And I guess I sort of, I'm exaggerating a little bit. I still followed it enough. I mean, I would remember Kevin McBride. Yeah, the fact that I can remember the Kevin McBride fight tells you I was still someone paying attention.

But I had an almost ridiculous obsession going back to about Jack Johnson. Okay. So from Johnson to Dempsey to Lewis to Marciano to Ali. All heavyweights. Yeah. And of course, you know, Robinson, Armstrong, like it's hard to put in words how much I obsessed over that stuff.

Like I knew every detail of every one of their fights at one point. That goes way beyond me. I mean, I had, but you wrote about product, which I'd love that stuff. Like I knew every detail of every one of their fights at one point. That goes way beyond me. I mean, I had... But you wrote about Braddock, which I'd love to just... Yeah, I mean, I immersed myself in the 30s and the book that I wrote about Braddock in Bear. It really was also kind of a primer on the first 50 years of the heavyweight division as well, because those stories for me like you are just so fascinating.

These guys were such big stars and so many of them were outsized personalities. And there was nothing else in sports that even approached the significance of the heavyweight championship of the world. That was it. I mean, you know, the middleweight champion of the world, man, I remember there were only eight divisions and you know, middleweight champion. And one champion per division. One champion per division.

And there's something mythic about it. And it always fascinated me. And I grew up in the 1970s. I was born in 1969. I grew up in the 1970s. Obviously in the sports business, there was a lot of interesting stuff going on, epic stuff going on in the heavyweight division.

My father was very much dick-shap, very much a part of that. And I remember, you know, being six, seven years old, I still have it. This encyclopedia boxing champions just just sitting there, memorizing it, whether it was about Stanley Ketchle, the great middleweight or it was about the great heavyweights from, you know, the guys you named, Dempsey and Johnson and Sullivan. There was something that always attracted me to those stories as well. So you chose to dive into a really interesting story that is, I think, honestly, without your work, would be a footnote, right? So most people wouldn't even know who James J. Brattick is, were it not for the movie Cinderella

Man starring Russell Crowe, which, of course, was based entirely on your book. Well, it pains me to disabuse you of that misimpression, but I feel obligated to do so. The movie was actually in the works before the book. Oh, I didn't know that. And the movie was in the works before the book. Just I'm taking all that back. Take all that pro would have made everybody know. Yeah, yeah. There had not been a book written about since ever really a big Max Bear book and not since the 30s that anyone read a book about Braddock and I decided to make it kind of a dual biography as they are on this collision course

towards this heavyweight showdown in 1935. And so let's give people a little bit of a sense of that because for me, I've always, like I liked it, all of those heavyweights to me, the entire lineage from Sullivan to Johnson to Lewis, et cetera. I mean, every one of those guys seemed like a god. They didn't seem like they were mortal. They just, there was nothing about them that seemed normal.

Bear was like, first of all, like probably the most good looking guy I've ever seen in my life. Like, it's hard to imagine a more handsome, beautiful, stunning human being. And his career gets off to a kind of a weird start when he kills this guy with Frankie Campbell. He kills Frankie Campbell in the ring. And it has been about 15 years since I wrote the book. But if I recall correctly, Frankie died in a couple days later, you know, a couple days later, it was in San Francisco. Frank, it was 1930 and bear was

from the Bay Area. I think Frankie was from the Bay Area as well. He happened to be the older brother of Dalf Khmilly who would end up being an excellent first baseman in the Major League, the MVP of the National League, and I think 1941 for the Brooklyn Dodgers. And there's an inquest. I mean, there is a criminal investigation because of the way in which Campbell was battered in the ring and then died.

Yeah, of course, all of the stuff I know about these things are from watching old documentaries and reading about it, but I read that bear was never the same since after that fight. First of all, apparently he was just devastated by the fact that Campbell died. I remember reading something that his son wrote many years later that said, look, my dad was, he was a showman. I mean, he was not in this to hurt people. He sort of took that as his job, but to have this guy die at your hands was, he was never quite the same.

By all accounts, it really did shake him. And it affected the way that he approached life. It affected the way that he approached his opponents in the ring. A few years later, he would be blamed for the death of another heavyweight, Ernie Schaff. Yeah. Although that one's a bit controversial because I believe there was an autopsy done that suggested he actually had meningitis. And he hadn't recovered from sort of a chronic meningitis at the time that he actually

died because he died in the ring at the hands of another fighter whose name I'm blanking on. That's right. And it's been a while. I think it was Karnera. Oh, you're right. It was Primo Karnera. You're right. It was Primo Karnera.

It was at Madison Square Garden. Although Karnera ends up administering the blows in the fight in which Shaft dies. But it was a very gentle blow. It was almost a jab that killed him. He both said it was the beating he took at the hands of bear that had made it possible for that. So all of this is to basically say, when Max bear finally beats Premo Connara, which he does in ridiculous fashion, I think there was 10 knock downs. It's a laughable laughable fight. Yeah, yeah. Bear looks invincible. And he'd already beaten Schmelling, correct? He'd already beaten Schmelling. Yeah. And there was no way that he was going to give Schmelling a rematch given what was going

on politically. Again, it's been a while, Peter, but my recollection is nobody was interested in giving Mac Schmelling a rematch against bear just because he wasn't really considered washed up finished. I mean, when he beats Joe Lewis in 1936, he's considered washed up and finished. He wasn't even part of the discussion. Yeah. So they decide to take a tune up fight, fight basically with this guy who can't possibly win, right?

Well, what happens? Jim Brattick has been out of the fight game. He's hurt. He had been a light heavyweight contender in the late 1920s. He'd lost his one shot to Tommy Lachran, who was a great light heavyweight. And at that point, Braddock's entire personal situation really falls apart and is professional situation. Not his personal, really his professional situation. It breaks his hand. He can't fight anymore. He can't make any money.

The depression hits. He is working on the docs across the Hudson River from Manhattan. He's desperate. He goes on relief, which at that to welfare, which at that time, in Braddock's mind and minds of a lot of people, that was a kind of humiliation taking government assistance, especially a guy like Braddock who had been so successful, he fought for the Light Heavy White Championship, which was a big, big deal in 1929, in a way that it's not now.

And everybody thinks he's through. He's finished, he's done, totally kaput. But the interesting thing is, by doing the work on the docs, because he doesn't have the money for bus fare or cab fare to get from his home to the docs. He's walking every day, 20 miles, ridiculous. He's working as a stevedor, hauling, hauling giant bails and stuff like that,

even with a broken hand. He builds up this strength, especially in his left hand. He had never had a left hand before. The right hand is broken. So he's building strength. All of these things, it sounds like some kind of fairy tale or something, may prepare him in a way he hadn't been prepared to seize the moment. He gets the shot against an up and commer named John Griffin, John Corn Griffin, on the undercar of the bear carnera fight. Right. And he was not expected to beat Griffin. He was just an opponent.

He was the guy who was going to be a stepping stone for Corn Griffin on his way to fighting Max Bear. But Braddock is a different Braddock. And he delivers against corn Griffin, stunning the promoters, the people who had, you know, these high hopes for for corn Griffin, whose name is still in boxing circles, kind of

stands for guy who couldn't get it done stepping stone. It's almost like a Wally Pipp thing. And almost exactly a year later, at least 364 days later, he beats a couple of more impressive fighters on the way. He sets himself up for a showdown with Max Barer for the heavyweight title, which... But nobody gave him a shot.

I believe it was eight or nine to one on. It was a huge underdog. Eight, nine, ten to one underdog, depending on who you ask, which at that time was, I think the most lopsided odds ever in a heavyweight championship fight. Of course, we're going to come to one that's a little more lopsided in a minute. And Braddock is this guy who's fighting for his family. He's got three little kids. He's got the wife.

They're living in poverty. They're living in poverty when this rise starts. After he wins one of the fights on the way that year, he goes back. He shows up at the relief office. I mean, it almost sounds like it has to be apocryphal, but everybody said it really happy. He shows up at the relief office and returns the money, $35, whatever that he had taken on government relief. And he becomes the people's hero. But nobody thought he had a chance against Max Bear, who looked utterly... Yeah, I mean, Max Bear looked like an executioner, and he was 20 pounds, maybe.

And he's a specimen. We just saw Deonte Wilder fight for the heavyweight championship not long ago at 211 pounds. You know, it ends up being a draw with, uh, with high security. And he's six foot seven Deonte Wilder. I think six, seven, six, six, max bears six, two, and he weighs more. And he is caught. Oh, he is. You look at the pictures of him. He does not have enough.

He is, he is ripped in a way that athletes were not ripped like that in that. And he's 250 pounds. He weighs more than Deonte Wilder without being tubby. And Jim Braddocks, you know, a former light heavyweight who somehow gets all the way up to like one ninety two one ninety three something like that for the fight. It's not a good fight. It's a pretty boring fight in Max Barrett's clowning his way through it.

He doesn't seem to be taking it seriously. It's his first title defense. For some reason, he's seen, well, there are a lot of reasons why he was ambivalent about the sport. We talked about Frankie Campbell and Erie Schaff, but he doesn't show up in Bratic. Bratic wins pretty easily. Yeah, and it is a beautiful story because, again,

and maybe it's, my recollections not there But but I remember reading that leading up to the fight Braddock said I'm not losing this fight Like there is no way I like he was fighting for his life his honor his family like he was fighting for something much more beyond him And you don't get to see that often no it literally was I mean You don't often have in aweight championship fight. A guy who is that where the the scent of desperation is so recently in his nostrils, you know, I mean, if you're fighting for the heavyweight championship of the world, you're probably doing pretty okay for a while at that point. You've been making money on other fights. You've been getting bigger and stronger.

You've been accustomed to success and only success. And Bratick was a guy who had been broken. I mean, broken. And there was no chance he was ever going to challenge for anything like the heavyweight championship again. I mean, impossible. And this would be everything to him. And he inspired so many people.

There were so many people pulling for him. But nobody really thought that he had a chance against Max Bear who was five years younger. Yeah. him. And he inspired so many people, there were so many people pulling for him, but nobody really thought that he had a chance against Max Bear who was five years younger. Yeah, by every metric was, yeah, and should have, should have won the fight. And then, of course, I think it was by that point, Schmelling had had upset Lewis, which was, you know, in 1936, that's right, 1936. Yeah. And I think at that point, bear did have a chance. I mean, you could have argued he should have fought Schmelling, but by that point, the war was really starting

to ramp up in Europe. And again, maybe this isn't true. Maybe this is just sort of revisionist history, but he had a choice to fight Lewis versus Schmelling. And the logical choice would have been Schmelling, right? Because he had beat Lewis. But the sort of more American choice was your going to fight. Oh, that's a bad, Bradx choice, right? Yes, sorry, Bradx choice, that's right. So had beat Lewis, but the sort of more American choice was your bad Braddock's choice.

Yes, sorry, Braddock's choice. That's right. So, so he fights Lewis. And I mean, we all know how the story ends, which is Lewis wins, and that goes on to create the most dominant heavyweight in the history of the sport, 12 years champion, 25 final defenses. But the fight was more compelling than people expected. I mean, Braddock put up a better fight.

Well, as I recall, he knocks down Joe Lewis in the first round. Yeah. You know, that's really, he would fight one more fight after Lewis fight. But he won and then retired. Which he won and retired. But the thing about Jim Braddock, what I think he embodies is this idea, whether or not you buy into it, that there is something noble about that sport and about the commitment required and about the dedication and about its code,

whatever that code, you know, the code of courage, personal courage, of total commitment, of believing there's something honorable about fighting until you've got nothing left. None of that stuff mattered to Max Bair. That's the contrast to Max Bair thought this was show business.

And it was a way for him to make a buck. And I think after he killed Frankie Campbell and had a hand in the death of Ernie Shaft, it was kind of like, I'd like to make some money. I'd like to be in movies. He was in movies. He was starring in Hollywood movies while he was champion. Before he was champion, getting good notices. And of course, moved out to Hollywood later. And Braddock really felt, you know what, I'm going down like a Roman Centurion on my back. If he's taking my title, Joe Lewis, he's gonna, damn near, almost take my life. And that's exactly it. And you know, there's the story in the corner after, you know, Lewis almost rips off his head and he's battered and

bloodied and he's his corner wants to throw in the towel. And he tells Joe Gould, whose, whose manager is best friend. If the guy who's been there for everything with him, he says, if you throw in the towel, never taught you again. And I think he meant it. Now today we'd say that's just silly, Jim. That's Joe Lewis.

That's 23 year old Joe Lewis get out of the ring. But then it meant something. And you're so right about Joe Lewis. I mean, it does break my heart a little bit today when you see people talking about this sport without an understanding of what came before, like what did it mean to be Joe Lewis? Let's not even talk about the political and social side of it, which to me is just as beautiful as what he could do athletically, but when you go back and look at the film of him, including his rematch with

Schmelling, which to me is one of the most remarkable fights ever, he breaks his vertebrae. He breaks one of the bones in his back in the first round in this revenge fight. Everything he went on to do, you know, bringing it back to Max Baer. I remember reading that after, so Lewis fought Baer two years later. So now Lewis's champion bear is not and Lewis beats him badly, but bear finishes on a knee. So you can, there's a very famous image in boxing where Max bear is on his knee, clearly looking like he could get up and gets counted out.

Yeah. I mean, what I remember though is that bear did not want to go into the ring. I think he had a hand injury. He did. Should not have been in the fight. That's absolutely right. And so at the press conference after one of the reporters says to bear, Maxi, it looked like you could have beat the count. And he looks at him and he says something to the effective. You know, bear always had a great way of saying stuff, including the his last words before he does. That's right. But he said something to the effect of, if I'm going to get executed, you're going to

have to pay a lot more than $35 to see it or whatever the ticket price is. That's exactly right, which is kind of the summation of everything he felt about the sport. Yeah. And he died young, which broke my heart, too. I mean, he died at 50, right? He had a heart attack. 50 and the famous line, you know, you know, these things sound too good to be true.

We're so nerdy to be talking about this. You gotta be skeptical, but you know, he's staying in a hotel in Hollywood, I think, and he calls down. Yeah, he's having chest pain. And chest pain. And they, oh no, there's two lines. The one line is, we'll send the house doctor.

And he says, I don't need a house doctor. I need a person doctor. That's right, gummy. And then they send somebody up and then, you know, this is actually bringing it back to sort of my world of heart disease. I mean, you didn't have any tools to help somebody having a heart attack back then the way we do today. So once someone's going down that path, they're gone.

And by the time they did get the medical folks up to the hotel, he had a second heart attack and his last words apparently were, oh, here I go or something to that effect. This is it. I'm here I go. Yeah, he was a great, he was a fascinating figure. He was a colorful character. He loses the title fight and then he fights Lewis and he didn't have any interest in the fight game anymore. Is it a coincidence that you've written the New York Times best-selling book that describes the entire story of what we just described. And then you go on to make one of my favorite ESPN 30 for 30s, which is 42 to 1. The parallels between Buster Douglas and James Shabrett are comical, right?

You couldn't make it up. Right. They're the two greatest underdogs in heavyweight championship. He's the one. He's the one. He's the one who rose for a moment. I mean, that's right. Yeah. You know, they're the two biggest underdogs, but they were bigger underdogs than all those guys

who lost the fight. You know, they're underdogs who win the fights, who sees the moment. And I've always loved the Buster Douglas story. To me, you know, as I said, I was born 1969, I'm 49. I've seen everything you could see in sports. A lot of it, I've seen in person, you know, other stuff I've watched on TV. And night of that fight it was nighttime here in the US

It was the night of the slam dunk contest in the NBA. I remember this like it was yesterday It was that night and it was afternoon early afternoon in Tokyo and I Found out the result that night. I couldn't find anywhere that had regular HBO to watch it. I wanted to watch it. I tried to locate regular HBO. I happened to be in Hanover, New Hampshire that night and I couldn't find it but somebody told me later in the night that you hear what happened. Just like millions of people around the world, did you hear what happened? Did you hear

what happened? No, can't be. It can't possibly be. Could not have possibly occurred. And then my mother sent me a VHS. She had recorded it off HBO. And watching it even a few days later in my apartment in college, it was still so thrilling, so exciting that it's such a great fight. It really is. It's such an incredible fight. And for Buster Douglas to rise the occasion, as he did, again, when the stakes were so high cannot have been higher, 22 days after the death of his mother, when nobody thought he had a chance, when Mike Tyson looked utterly invincible, there's nothing else quite like it.

I obviously watched it as soon as it came out, and I think I'm going to watch it again with you tonight at the screening but I had not seen the fight in about 15 years, right? So I watched it probably a million times at the time But I'd forgotten a lot of it and I'd forgotten the ninth round. Oh, I'd forget I completely blanked on that round You don't see those kinds of rounds in heavyweight fighting. No, you put that in the category of round 10 of Riddick Bow versus of Andrew Holyfield round 10. You put that in the round of Hagler Herndt's round one,

which was by the way, that's what got me into boxing. So Hagler Herndt's round one, April 1985, was when I decided I wanted to be the middleweight champion of the world. That was, that was, luckily I chose another guy. But no, the Douglas fight was unbelievable. And I don't know if you've ever heard it. Blank on his name, Teddy Atlas was on Joe Rogan, I don't know a while ago.

And Teddy Atlas made a really interesting point. He said, you know, Tyson's never won a fight in his life because every fight he won, you know, won technically, the opponent was beat before they got in the ring. Every fight he lost is because the guy came in and wasn't afraid and Douglas was in many ways the most impressive of those because he was the first one to beat him. And then of course Holyfield would go on to do it twice and then Lewis and then ultimately McBride. I think those were Tyson's five losses correct. Yeah, it was Williams McBride, Tudah Holyfield and Lewis McBride,

Tudah Holyfield and Buster. Yeahide, Tudah Holyfield, and Buster. Yeah. But the Douglas one is at different level. It's a different level because it's the first. And because he gave us not only the blueprint, but because it was Mike Tyson at 23, not Mike Tyson after prison, not Mike Tyson at 37. It was the Mike Tyson who had annihilated Michael Spings and humiliated Larry Holmes and remember his previous fight to Douglas if I recall wasn't it Frank Bruno who he had obliterated.

The fight right before it was I think it was Frank I'm getting mixed up now there's Carl Williams. Oh, you're right. No, no, no, you're right. You're right. You're right. It was Carl Williams in July of 89 was the previous one and before that was Frank Bruno. Right. Right. Right. And before that was spinks. Right. He was 37 and 0 34 knockouts. He got Tony Tucker had taken him the distance, but it wasn't a close fight at all. No. And then bone crushersmith had taken him the distance. That's right. And basically clinching the whole way there he'd gone the distance twice before a quick Tell us took him the distance three of them. Yeah, yeah, it was three of them right and so it was a sense Maybe some big guys could give him some trouble, you know if they approach but those guys weren't in those fights Those fights were not close fights. There was no one who had stood up to him and who had matched him

Punch for punch. And Buster Douglas did more than that. The thing about the Buster Douglas story, why I really wanted for this to be given this kind of treatment, is because I've known Buster for a long time. I did stories about the 20th anniversary of the fight, the 25th anniversary of the fight. And this moment for me as a young person, it was just so, it was such a transcendent sports moment. I said, and people don't get it.

They don't want to give Buster credit. They want to say it was a one hit wonder or you got lucky with a punch or that he wasn't, he didn't deserve to even be in the same ring with Mike Tyson. Buster, everything people thought they knew about Buster Douglas was really wrong. Buster Douglas, of course, you know, dominates that fight. I mean, it is an epic performance. He doesn't get lucky. It's not a Sim Rockman in South Africa,

against Lennox Lewis. It's not one punch. It is a butt kicking. It's an ass kicking by around three. Yeah. If you go back and watch that fight, knowing the outcome, which of course now we would all do, you're not blinded by the way you are,

the first time you saw it live, which is, you're in denial. You're in denial.ed by the way you are the first time you saw it live, which is you're in denial. You're in denial. Or you just think something's going to happen. Yeah. Didn't two of the three judges have Tyson ahead at the time of the knockout? Yeah, I think that's right.

Which is like those people should be removed from the sport. In my co-director went to Japan and interviewed one of them and he said, yeah, that's what it looked like to me. But that speaks to the aura of Tyson. That you could have had Tyson winning one goddamn round besides round eight. Or the Orate Donking. Yeah, yeah.

So, but you're right, it's a total ass kick. And Tyson's eye is swelling shut by the third round. Even the eighth round where he knocks Douglas down, I mean, Douglas still dominated that round. Yeah. And then the ninth round, he almost takes Tyson's head off his shoulder. I mean, that's you glint in the corner. You know, and that's that we didn't know. ninth round, he almost takes Tyson's head off his shoulders in the

corner. You know, and that's that we didn't know. It also speaks to how tough Tyson was. Yeah, we didn't know Mike Tyson had a chin. We had no idea until that fight. Nobody had ever challenged him. And I mean, the beating that he took, I think the people who thought Buster were going to win, and there were about four of them thought that he would win because he would be able to keep his distance, use his jab, and Tyson wouldn't know what to do after four or five rounds, that he would just kind of get frustrated and de-cue himself or just fall apart physically from the exhaustion. And instead, Mike Tyson, I mean, he's in there for 40 minutes taking an epic beating, an epic beating from a bigger, stronger, more athletic man.

I mean, you know, you could say everything and look, Mike Tyson was a phenomenon. What Mike Tyson did from 1985 up until that moment in Tokyo, it's pretty impressive. And it's pretty special. It doesn't look as special now because we know the next chapter of the story. But of course at that time, you know, for Buster Douglas to, you know, Buster Douglas is a bigger guy. He is a stronger guy. Maybe stronger is not the right word. He was a more focused guy and he was a better athlete. And he used all of his advantages and he marshalled all of his talents.

And that's what's so fascinating about the story to me is that here's a guy who had been considered an underachiever at best and a quitter at worst. And by the way, I gotta tell you, you guys made a great point of that and the thing, I guess I have a different view. He was beating Tucker handily, right? And then he basically fails to answer a few punches

and the ref stops it. I'm not sure I call that quitting. I mean, I'm not sure I do either. I just don't think that was always a very unfair label but totally unferregate. It's totally unferregate. Look, boxing is a cruel sport. This is another reason why I want to tell this story.

Boxing unlike other sports, right? Here's a guy bustered Douglas who, at that point, when he gets into the ring with Mike Tyson, right? You know a guy, Buster Douglas, who, at that point, when he gets another ring with Mike Tyson, right? You know, it fought for the heavyweight title. He'd fought big tough guys. He'd beaten Greg Page, he would be a heavyweight champion. He'd beaten Oliver McCall, who was gonna be a heavyweight champion. And yet people thought of him, not as just a guy

who's not Mike Tyson's peer, but as a bump, you know, but only in boxing, right? No, there's that quote that you guys have in the movie where what did the Don King say about him? He's a dog. He's a dog. I mean, he's a quitter and he's a dog. Like Don King, if anybody would know a dog. I mean, it is something, but that's the way I think the average sports fan and even boxing fans talk about boxers. I've said this before like if you're the 15th best left-handed picture in the national league, you're getting a contract for like $110, $120 million maybe. Maybe that's a slight exaggeration. $85, $90 million guaranteed.

And you're an all-star and people want your autograph and people say, oh, he's so effective and he can do that. If you're the third best middleweight in the world, but you're not the best. Nobody knows your name and it's like, oh, he lost that fight, he's a bump. You know, you hear that all the time. And Buster Douglas, the reputation fairly or unfairly

had been established in that fight against Tony Tucker when he's winning, he's five rounds away. I think it was a 15 rounder still at that time. You're right. That would have been the last of the 15 rounders. I think it was 87. I think it was still a 15 rounder. I can't remember.

It was May of 87. I mean, Mill's Lane did the right thing. It was time to stop that fight because Buster is standing there. He just wasn't returning them. Yeah. Six or seven massive. I mean, Tony Tucker was a good fighter. No, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no,

no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, No, no, no as a big guy. He's pummeling Buster and Buster's not doing anything. So the fight had to end, but to call him a quitter, you get in the ring and take some of those punches from Tony Tucker. Yeah. The other thing I remember at the time was when Douglas's mother died two weeks before the fight. And I remember that getting like small news.

Remember this fight wasn't getting that much news because this was, the people are already talking about the Holyfield fight that was supposed to happen in June, I think it getting like small news. Remember this fight wasn't getting that much news because this was the people already talking about the Holyfield fight that was supposed to happen in June. I think it was already a contract. So and I remember thinking, oh man, they're going to have to postpone the fight and he's never going to get his shot. And I remember just feeling kind of sorry for Douglas. Like I at least wanted to get paid.

You know what I mean? Like at this point, it's like at least you deserve a couple million bucks because you've been through all of this stuff. There's only 1.2 but that's 2 million today. So yeah. Yeah. There were people who thought, I mean, you saw in the film Bruce Trampler, the Hall of Fame promoter and matchmaker who knew Buster from the time he was a little kid because he

was his father's manager. He said, I thought he should pull out. I didn't see how he could possibly have enough focus after his mother's death to get in the ring. That's how his brother kind of thought. Buster said, no, let's go, let's do this. And there's something you did that was really beautiful in the film, which was after one of Buster's fights.

He's, I don't remember which fight it was, but he's standing on the left. His mom is in the middle and the dad is on the right. The interview, I forget who it was. It wasn't. It's Albert. It's like a young Albert. Big Albert.

I barely recognize it. So Albert seems to his mom. Something to the effect of her, you proud of yourself. That's not because you look old. That's not why Peter said that. You were wearing a strange suit. Yeah. And your hair was a bit darker.

And he says to the mom, are you proud of your boy? And you know, you initially, his mom didn't want him to take, go down this path, because she knew he was just a gentler soul than her husband, who was like a hard ass. And then you see in this moment how proud she is of him and you see his face. It was this beautiful look on Douglas's face

as he looks at his mom saying, how proud she is of him. And I think at that point, someone basically makes the comment, might have been in the narration that he was just always closer to his mom. Like he was really his mom's child. It's Bruce talking and he says, you know, that he favored his mother. I think those are the exact words. His disposition was more like his mother, little pearls. He was not the stone-cold killer that his father, Bill Douglas, was in the ring. And that's the contrast to, of course, you know, Bill Douglas was not a world champion. Bill Douglas was not Mike Tyson. He was a guy who many people thought deserved title shots and didn't get them because he could do so much damage and upset the apple

card. But his approach was Tyson like any fault with the same style, the same commitment and the same determination to not just win, but to destroy. And that wasn't buster. On a little segue that I want to come back to, the boxers who have fought with that ethos. Sunny Liston, Jack Dempsey, George Foreman, Mike Tyson. There was a really interesting article in Sports Illustrated and I believe it was March of 88. So it was even before Tyson Futspinks. If I recall, Larry Bird was on the cover. So it was a very nondescript article.

And I wish I could find it because I, you know, I used to have every Sports Illustrated ever. Wow. And my mom, like, 15 find it, because I, you know, I used to have every sports illustrated ever. Wow. And my mom, like, 15 years ago called me, you know where this story is going, it's just gonna break your heart. I had the first. I had the Eddie Matthews on the couple one. I mean, I had every newspaper clipping you could ever have on this stuff.

And it was boxes upon boxes upon boxes. And my mom calls me like 15 years ago and she's like, look, Peter, do you want to come and get these things? And I don't know. And she's like, look, Peter, do you want to come and get these things? And I don't know. I just was like, no, you can pitch them. And like, it's like top three shames of my life. But nevertheless, there was this. Can't blame her.

She asked. Yeah, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no something. So it's this, again, March 7th, 1988, throw away article of Sports Illustrated, just before the Tony Tubbs fight, if I recall. Remember he fought Tubbs in Tokyo. In Tokyo. In like March. First event of the Tokyo Dome. That's right.

March 21st, 88 or something like that. Not really good. Two round knockout, Tony Tubbs looked like, he looked like nothing. The article makes an interesting point, and the point was this. Now remember, Mike Tyson is three years into the reign of terror, and he looks utterly invincible. And the author says, you know what?

The flames that burned this bright burn out really quick. And the author went back and said, look at Dempsey. This is how bright that light shone, and then it was gone. And look at Liston, and look at Fraser, and look at Forman. And they're like, if you put Tyson in that bucket, this is not a guy who's gonna have a long career. He is going to implode. And I remember reading that as a 13 year old going,

or 12 year old, whatever the hell I was, thinking, this guy's an idiot, he doesn't know what he's talking about. Tyson's gonna be the champion till he's 40. Like, again, which, of course, Mike didn't even think he'd be alive till he was 30. Yeah, yeah. You were going out on a limb. So you just sort of think like,

how much does history repeat itself? Whereas when you look at the guys like Lewis and Ali, the ones that have had their really, really long careers, you know, there's something different about it. There's just something different about their ethos. They're a different type of person. They're not killers. And it's not to say like they're gentlemen versus killers, but it's just their artists

in a way that I think some of the most destructive and feared fighters were not. Yeah, well, there's no doubt about that because if you fall in love with your right hand and the knockout in particular you're going to get lazy and you're going to get one dimensional and you're going to get exposed eventually and there are enough good fighters out there who can box who bring other skills to bear and if you've got some kind of deficiency they're going to locate it. They're going to find it. They're going to wear you down.

It is one of those interesting things, though. Those guys, those destroyers, the dempsies and the listings and the Tyson's, and you know as well as I do. There are similarities and there are a lot of differences also when we talk about guys like that. But if you are being hailed as the destroyer, as the guy who can do everything and can get it done with one punch, you're not gonna be listening

the same way to your trainer to Kevin Rooney or Teddy Atlas or Aaron Stowe, the way if you've had to box. You've had some challenges. I mean, the interesting thing about, I've been talking about this a lot the last couple of months and The thing about Tyson right is that He's the heavyweight champion. He's concerned invincible. He has this aura about him that no one has had Since Dempsey so I was gonna ask you about that because I just

It's hard to extract that from the literature. Do you believe that Tyson's aura was greater than that of Foreman's and Listens that from the literature. Do you believe that Tyson's aura was greater than that of Foreman's and Listens at the respective times? Yeah, I mean, I guess I'd have to go back and look, I mean, after Foreman does what he does to Joe Frazier and all that, but I think so because, you know, there's just more of it, too. And at that point, he had taken on all comers.

He, there was nobody, and there was more of it., the fashion which he did it to so many different guys. I think it was bigger. I think it was more impressive with Tyson at that time. It was also his own way of speaking about things, his story where he came from, the kid from more forms. Anyway, there are similarities to with Liston, but I think it's not a parallel really with Lewis because most people would tell you and I'm going to assume you're one of them that Joe Lewis is the greatest heavyweight champion of all time.

I was going to ask you what your thought was. It's certainly between Lewis and Ellie. Right. So let's say it's Joe Lewis, right? But Joe Lewis, before he becomes champion, as we earlier discussed, has already lost a fight. Yeah, he was knocked out, knocked out, humiliated against an older guy that everybody thought was over the hill. So when he becomes champion, he doesn't have that aura that Tyson has. He builds a different kind of aura and he builds a different kind of championship record with that blemish from the Schmelling fight already behind him. Now, if he doesn't have that

moment with Schmelling, right? Maybe it's a different story. The fact that he had that moment, that more than a moment of adversity, he had that huge setback to his career. It was a year before he would fight again, wasn't it? Before he would get the Bratic fight, and it was no sure thing that Bratic would fight him. I mean, remember at this point, it's been more than 20, it's been 22 years

since an African-American has been allowed to fight for the heavyweight championship. And there was no guarantee that in 1937, that the boxing establishments would permit it, or the public would demand it. It looked like it was heading that way until he lost his spelling. And then it was like, well, you don't have anyone who has an excuse. Yeah, exactly.

Right. But Braddock gives him a shot and it's part of a business deal where he gets a percentage of Lewis's earnings for 10 years. Someone with great business deal. You wonder, you know, ethically about the deal. But anyway, I don't remember exactly the point I was making, but Lewis is different. Dempsey, I think, is similar.

Dempsey, you know, he was a destroyer and there was this cloak of damage. Did you guys ever meet Dempsey? Because Dempsey didn't, I mean, he lived around for a long time. He lived on 1983, had a restaurant here. He lived for a very long time, Jack Dempsey. And apparently, I mean, I'm not sure

about the very last years, but up until, into his mid mid 70s, I mean, I know that he was all there. And it's remarkable. This isn't a guy who just had all of those knock down drag out professional fights. I mean, he fought hundreds of fights as basically a semi pro in mining camps in Colorado and the toughest possible atmosphere you can imagine. I mean, a lot of it was bare-fisted and no holds barred. And I mean, I can't imagine the kinds of, now he was great. So I don't know how much punishment he was taking. But when your young guy coming up there, you're getting hit. Oh, but to look at the Dems, he fights are some of the most amazing things you can watch. Remember though, when he becomes champion, right? I mean,

he goes three years from 1923 to 1926 six without defending his title he is such a big celebrity he's making so much money just off the championship and its significance that he doesn't have to get into the ring finally you know he gets on the ring in nineteen twenty six and he loses to gene tony in sesquist centennial stadium in Philadelphia and then they got the rematch a year later which is still arguably the biggest sports event in the history of the world. Dempsey, Toney, Two, and Soldier Field. I'd probably make a case that's the biggest sports event

in its moment of all time. And he loses again. That's the long count. This one's the long count and all that. But it's funny, the two biggest sports events of all time in my book are Ali Frazier 1, March 8th, 1971, in Dempsey, Toney 2, 1927, Soldier Field, and the guys that we always talk about are the guys who lost those fights. Ali in Devsey, not the guys who won him, Toney in Frazier.

There's a beautiful picture I once saw of Ali that morning walking in Central Park in the snow, and it's sort of amazing. I mean, that's part of what I think what makes New York such an interesting place is the history. And I think the whole Atlantic city in the 80s and Las Vegas, it's sort of taken away a little bit from how remarkable it is to fight in Madison Square Garden and what that would have meant, like how anticipated that fight was. And of course, when Tyson fought Spinks in 88 in Atlantic City, most people who knew enough about the sport said, look, this is the most anticipated fight

in the heavyweight division since 1971. I mean, this is a really big deal. And of course, at the time that was only 16 years earlier, which seems kind of amazing. It's crazy. To me, given what an eternity 16 years is when you are 16 years old. Well, you young, yeah, whatever.

Oh my God, that was the dark ages, whatever it was. So one question on the 42 to 1, 30 for 30, did you guys even try to interview Tyson? Yeah, so it's interesting because some people felt dissatisfied that we didn't have today's stuff from Mike. We made a decision I went to talk to Mike, Mike declined to take part in the process.

I had interviewed him in 2017 though and asked him a lot of questions about the fight. And we hadn't used that, I think, anywhere. And at one point, we had a cutoff film where we had a lot of it and we had a few bites from it. And we made an artistic decision essentially at that point that we wanted to see Mike only in context from the time of the fight, who he was then. Because seeing him now with the tattoo and the way that he's changed, you know,

he can be very quiet and low energy. It's such a stark contrast to what we're showing you of him then that it's almost jarring. And everybody knows the Mike Tyson story. I've done, no one is to more Mike Tyson stories than me literally, you know, on TV anyway. Interviewed him more on TV than I have, I would think long form stories about him, all that. I just felt this is Buster's story.

People know the Mike story. People hear from Mike all the time. We still hear from Mike all the time. The more you put Mike in it from today, I see your point of view, detracts. You detract a bit, yeah. And what did Mike talk about in 2017 when you interviewed him about that fight specifically?

Cause I've never really heard him talk much about that fight. You, there's so much about him and Holyfield and the men's that's been made and all of the other things, but what is the recollection of that? Probably the best fight we had from that interview is something like where he said, look, was Buster Douglas a better fighter? That morning, that afternoon, yes.

Does that mean that he's a better fighter than me? No. That's a fair point. He certainly entitled to make that point. But in terms of like, what happened, he said I was living my life too fast. I was doing crazy stuff. I was this, I was that, you know, it was,

and people said, well, that's making excuses. It's like, well, I asked him what happened.. I mean whether it's an excuse or not. I mean That's the truth I think in his mind. I think he feels if he had approached that fight With full commitment he would have won it, but of course he's going to think that and that does not diminish What Buster Douglas did because I mean if we're gonna If we're gonna say well it doesn't count then, then you know, nothing counts. Did the Soviet team really approach the American kids in the Olympics the way they would have approached

the Czechs or something like that? No, or the Canadian All-Star team or the NHL All-Star team? No, but if you're gonna say, well, then it doesn't count, then nothing counts. It's a silly. No, in the end, everything counts. That was a great line, by the way, with the bookie in Vegas. I love that part, by the way, of him actually talking about the bets.

And, you know, he was like, look, people say that the Miracle on Ice is the biggest upset in sport. It's not even within a country, my all that that was the biggest upset in sport. Is there ever been Vegas odds bigger than 42 to one overcome? In a heavyweight championship fight in any sport? Oh, I think so. You know, a lot of people say, well, Lester City's a bigger upset because they were 5,000

one or something to win the Premier League. Oh, yeah, of course. How could I forget? That's a pretty amazing example. Yeah, but to me, that's totally different. There wasn't a single game that season. I mean, I don't know what I'd have to go back and look at the picture. I bet there wasn't a single game

that was more than four to one or five to one. You know what I mean? And a season long thing. That's a very good point. Yeah. You know, in every year, there's somebody who wins a conference or who wins a professional league or a championship who was, I think, these single

of his rams were 300 to one. That's right. So, to, I mean, look, even the New England Patriots, the first year they won the Super Bowl. But all of that stuff is based on teams I think these. Yes. Those rams were 300 to one. That's right. That's right. So, to, to, to, to, to, to, to, to, to, to, to, to, to, to, to, to, to, to, to, to, to, to, to, to, to, to, to, to, to, to, to, to, to, to, to, to, to, to, to, to, to, to, to, to, to, to, to, to, to, to, to, to, to, to, to, to, to, to, to, to, to, to, to, to, to, to, to, to, to, to, to, to, to, to, to, to, to, to, to, to, to, to, to, to, to, to, to, to, to, to, to, to, to, to, to, to, to, to, to, to, to, to, to, to, to, to, to, to, to, to, to, to, to, to, to, to, to, to, to, to, to, to, to, to, to, to, to, to, to, to, to, to, to, to, to, to, to, to, to, to, to, to, to, to, to, to, to, to, to, to, to, to, to, to, to, to, to, to, to, to, to, to, to, to, to, to, to, to, to, to, to, to, to, to, to, to, to, to, to, to, to, to, to, to, to, to, to, to, to, to, to, to, to, to, to, to, to, to, to, to, to, to, to, to, whatever you want to say, nobody knew who that team was. That wasn't the team that you would see in the previous season. So it's in the single event that's still kind of unusual odds. Well, it was great. You know, the other thing that was nice to see was for me at least, because I hadn't seen much of Buster Douglas in many years,

because I remember in 95 when he was almost dead. I mean, five years after that fight, he's in a diabetic coma, 380 pounds. Bigger than that, yeah. Really, I mean, yeah, it was kind of nice to see him. I like Buster very much. I've spent a lot of time with Buster over the years. You know, I'm always cautious about saying this,

he's this or he's that, when by the standards of my profession, I've spent a lot of time with him, you know, three days here, two days here, a dinner here, a dinner there. Is he somebody that I've spent like a work colleague where he's spent years around them? I don't know, but I like Buster. I think he's a good guy. He's a good person. He's

not been a self-promoter, which I think has hurt him financially over the years. I think his feelings have been hurt because people for so long have tried to diminish this victory. And there's so many avid mightis and fans. Who always wanna make excuses for him, who always wanna discredit Buster, whatever reason it is, I felt like he had not been fully appreciated for the magnitude of this. What do you think went wrong after Tyson? Why do you think he didn't show up in shape for Holyfield? Because on paper, he should have given Holyfield

a hell of a fight. I think Douglas was a better fighter than Riddick Boe. I mean you could certainly make that case. I mean Riddick had some great moments most of them against the Vander Holyfield, but he was, Buster was a very skilled boxer and he was a very good athlete and he was schooled in the sport and when he was fully dedicated and committed, which we saw only on a few occasions, he was very tough to beat. And I don't think anybody, I don't give his Jack Dempsey or Gene Donnie or John L Sullivan himself would have beaten him in Tokyo that day.

I really don't think so. But after he defeats Tyson, everything is just so chaotic. It's the typical story we hear, you know, too much, too fast, too many people pulling at him. He's in court with Don King. He's in court over the long count in the eighth round. All of this, as we would say, misogyses, you know, driving him crazy. He's getting rid of the people in his camp who had made it possible for him to achieve these great heights. He's got a new team in there. And he signs at the time for $24 million to fight Holyfield, the largest...

Largest person, yeah. In the history of sports. Nobody had ever gotten to check like that in the history of sports, which is like $48 million now. And even after the taxes and paying out Don King and paying off his team, he's still got like $9 million in cash, like $18 million today, something like that. And I think his motivation was gone. And I think the reality of his mother's death sunk in

when she died, he had the fight to focus on. And now he's got this complicated, weird relationship at times with his father who's now like going to Don King's party when I think Buster is still suing Don King. I mean, there's all kinds of crazy stuff going on. He doesn't, I think Buster would be the first to me.

He doesn't show up for that fight physically, mentally, motivationally, didn't care. There's something about boxing that I guess this is part of what attracted me to it as a participant and then eventually always just as a fan. And maybe I have a slightly different insight into it because I've done it, but the ring is a really lonely place. It's hard to put in words what the fear is like when you get in the ring. And again, maybe it's just that that was just who I was and maybe there are some people who get in the ring and they're not afraid. But even Tyson, I remember once said, anybody who gets in a boxing ring and who is not scared senseless is lying or crazy.

Yeah. My thoughts. Yeah, I don't think he was scared by the time he got in the ring against Buster. I don't think Mike is. Yes. But you have to have a relationship with fear. You have an even if you feel like you're going to win. Like, I mean, I think anytime I stepped into a ring, I felt like I was going to win.

I mean, there are no words to describe that anxiety. There's nothing I've ever experienced since. No professional thing I've ever done that has put that much adrenaline into my body, that borders on the point of being like you're on the verge of it being unproductive. And the audience can sense that. I mean, for me, I said, you know, I've seen a lot of great things in person. By the time they fight in 2002, Lennox and Mike are both over the hill. They're 36 years old, 37 years old, something like that. And yet, people have called it, you know, the last great fight, the last big fight. I was covering that fight.

I was, wasn't far from, did you see that beating being that bad? That's what I thought. I really did think so and I was working with a lot of people who thought I was crazy we thought that Mike was gonna win I think Mike was the favorite in the last one. Oh my god. I thought he was gonna lose no question but I didn't expect to see him beat up that bad. I'd seen Mike fight a lot over the previous seven years I'd seen Lennox fight more and yeah I yeah, I didn't see how he would beat Lennox.

Lennox Lewis, top 10 heavyweight to all time. No off the top of my head without going back and looking at those two losses to McCall and Rockman, which they count. Yeah, I guess he's probably somewhere right around there in the right around the 10, 11, 12, something like that. So asked another way from Muhammad Ali until today, who are the three best? Larry Holmes, let's give you Larry Holmes, right? He's gotta be in there.

Yeah, Larry Holmes has gotta be in there. Lennox has gotta be in there. Put Clitchko in there? I think, yeah, the question is which one or both. You know, I mean, two pretty impressive guys who did impressive things. After Lennox fights, Vitaly in 2003 and Vitaly performs well, but he doesn't win the fight and he gets a cut and you know, all that.

After that, I kind of stopped paying as much attention to the heavy weights and they, you know, they took the belts off to Germany and we never really saw much of those fights and there were a lot of guys they were fighting who were kind of unknown entities so I'm a little reluctant to talk too much about the careers of either clinch go brother I don't know quite how to measure them but there was a sea change right I mean I think there was an introduction of athleticism to the heavyweight division that I don't think you saw before. And I think that it was going to be a prototype of the Lewis, the riddock bow, the razor rottex, the clinch goes. I mean, there's just a different level of athleticism size and they are so big. So they are so freaking big, which is why it was so amazing to me to see a guy like Deonte Wilder who is still undefeated

at this point after the Fury fight. And you know, maybe he's the guy who fights Joshua. Maybe it's Fury who knows whatever it is. There's a guy who's 212, 512 pounds, who's arguably the best heavyweight in the world arguably. Because we saw these guys getting 240, 250 and they're gigantic, they're mountains, they're primo-carneri-size these guys.

But with skill, right? I mean, carneri-no-no-no-no-no-no-no-no-no-no-no-no-no-no-no-no-no-no-no-no-no-no-no-no-no-no-no-no-no-no-no-no-no-no-no-no-no-no-no-no-no-no-no-no-no-no-no-no-no-no-no-no-no-no-no-no-no-no-no-no-no-no-no-no-no-no-no-no-no-no-no-no-no-no-no-no-no-no-no-no-no-no-no-no-no-no-no-no-no-no-no-no-no-no-no-no-no-no-no-no-no-no-no-no-no-no-no-no-no-no-no-no-no-no-no-no-no-no-no-no-no-no-no-no-no-no-no-no-no-no-no-no-no-no-no-no-no-no-no-no-no-no-no-no-no-no-no-no-no-no-no-no-no-no-no-no-no-no-no-no-no-no-no-no-no-no-no-no-no-no-no-no-no-no-no-no-no-no-no-no-no-no-no-no-no-no-no-no-no-no-no guys, let's go brothers. I consider you're in talk about boxing forever because it's not often I get to talk to somebody who sort of thinks about it the way I do, but there are a few of the things I want to talk about and sort of one of them is your most famous interview, with Bobby Knight. So you don't have to say anything good or bad about him, but having never met him, he just strikes me as just a deplorable human being.

I don't know what it is about him, maybe truthfully, maybe there's a part of myself I see. I have a really bad temper and I look at him and I think, God, I hope I've never done one-one-hundredth of what that guy has done. I hope I've never hurt anybody the way he's hurt somebody. Did you see the 30 for 30? I did and it only solidified in my mind how much I despise him. Yeah, my friend Robert Abbott.

Oh, it's one of the saddest ones I've ever seen. It is so goddamn sad to me how many people's lives have been destroyed by him. Here's the thing, I knew Bob Knight. I mean, again, you know, I say, you know, somebody, you know, how well, my father was a friend of Bob Knights. I had spent time with Bob Knight before that interview.

I was one of those people who appreciated his talents and he had this... His quote-unquote genius. Quote-unquote genius. And his sense of history, his sense of loyalty. Look, there are good qualities there. There are other people who can... You can watch the film. Talk about the dark side of Bob Knight.

The interview was a challenge. How many days after he was fired was the interview. I want to say it was 72 hours later. He's. It might have been 48. I can't remember exactly. Why did he give you that interview? Well, I think he gave me that interview because he thought he could steamroll me.

And he'd known me. And so, he's- What year was this? This was 2000. 2000. So your dad was still alive. My dad was still alive. What did your dad tell you going into that interview?

You know, I spoke to a lot of people the night before the interview and the day of the interview because it's one of those situations. And I was young. I just turned 31. And this is the biggest thing that's going on, not just in sports, but in America period at this moment in time, it really was. And I knew I had to get it right, I knew the stakes were high for me. And so I spoke to a lot of people and I'm trying to remember what my dad told me. I really don't remember what his advice was about the questions or this or that.

I spoke to a lot of people who told me, you know, it was important, of course, to ask him the tough questions and not back down. And I think that's what I did. And that's what people said at the time. They said, you know, Shaps stood up tonight. He didn't let the bully bully him. I asked the right questions.

I got to the important points. And I think perhaps most important because there was a moment of peak when I think he revealed himself in a way that he wouldn't often in a live television interview that that really kind of said who he was more than anything else. And so people still remember that interview.

It was what do you think is the most memorable exchange of that interview? Well, that's indisputable because people remember it very well. We're having a discussion. We're having a talk about the zero tolerance policy, which is ultimately what led to his termination, ultimately what led to his termination. And he's explained to me how he doesn't know what zero tolerance meant and nobody ever defined it for him. And he was put in a lose, lose situation, whatever the exact words were. And he says in the real victim here is Pat. His son was one of the assistant coaches. The real victim here

is Pat because Pat is going to lose his job. And I feel it's my obligation at this point to point out and say, Bob, but Pat wouldn't be losing his job if you had behaved yourself. If you had done, you know, what you were told to do. And that's what he got. Angry, very angry. And he looked at me and he said, he glared at me. And he said, be careful here.

You've got a long way to go until you're as good as your dad. And I said, I appreciate that and moved on. But that's the exchange that everybody remembers. And my friend, Willie Weinbaum, producer, I work with a lot. He's one of the guys I talked to before, the interview, great journalist, great interviewer. And he said, you know, just remember, he's probably gonna invoke your dad at some point or compare you unfavorably, use that as

a weapon in his arsenal. And I don't really remember if it registered or didn't register, but I remember Willie did say that. And of course, that's what people remember. But at the time, for me, it was like a, you know, kind of a career-defining moment all of a sudden. It was like, welcome to the big leagues. So what is it like then with a father who's a legend?

And it's not like you decided to become a dentist or an anesthesiologist. You decided to do what your dad did. And that means subject yourself to constantly being compared to him and living in his shadow. What did your mom say about that? You know, maybe I'm just getting old. I don't remember. I don't remember ever having really a conversation about it. Not only not with my mother, but not really with my father. I mean, I grew up, especially when I was very young, before my parents divorced, like at his side. I mean, going to sports events with him, going to the, I remember on the weekends, you know,

what I did was I went to the office with my father in the morning while he prepared sports stories and sports reports on NBC back then, and I hung around the office and I read sports books. It was almost like my entire life had been an apprenticeship in the business. So, and you weren't worried about the shadow. Maybe I should have been, but I don't think I ever gave it a second thought. I know that sounds ridiculous. No, no, it doesn't actually.

It's remarkable. I mean, I don't do anything that my dad does. My dad, you know, he runs quarries. So I couldn't be further from what my dad does. But yet in many ways, I do compare myself to his work ethic, right? I mean, like even a few weeks ago, I was sort of complaining to my therapist. I was like, God, you know, I don't think I can work

as hard as my dad and it's deep down it makes me feel a little bit ashamed. That, you know, my father's never been in a bad mood. He's like the most upbeat, positive, optimistic, immigrant that ever lived. Tomorrow's always gonna be a better day and he can... Where'd he come from?

From Egypt. And he can will his way into the world. Like, what he wants to happen will happen. And, you know, as a kid, I never once saw my dad even in bed. You know, he was coming home after I was asleep and he'd be up and gone in the morning. Like, he never slept in on a Saturday and anything like that. So, you just had this view of like, is like a Superman and of course me, you know

I'm different. I can be lazy at times and I can get into you know a Fudge still a very productive person. You're just measuring yourself against an impossible Standard right, but don't we all do that? I mean, oh, I do it compare ourselves to that's what I'm saying is at least for me I can keep the distance between what we've done professionally. So, so I really can only compare myself to my father in terms of work ethic, sacrifice, and just general disposition. But now you have all of those things to compare yourself to plus, you know, being on the sun of one of the most legendary sports casters of all time. Well, I think I'm just going to go lie down on the casters. We can tell me how you really

show. You're right. I can tell me how you really show. You're right. I gotta say that it really is a testament, I guess, to my naivete or just stupidity that I got into this business without really thinking about that. And I just knew that I wanted to be in the media. I wanted to work in TV. I wanted to be a writer.

I wanted to work. I wasn't sure if I wanted initially to be in sports or news I started out working in news at a local TV station here in New York and Transition into sports, but I'd been in sports so that was kind of the tension wasn't was I gonna be in the media It was like what exactly am I gonna do for me? That was the question and Of course when I made the decision to do sports and not to do news going to do for me? That was the question. And of course, when I made the decision to do sports, and not to do news, not to do something else, then of course, I was walking right into my father's field. And I grew up around a guy who I really think

was the best at what he did. He was a great writer. He was a great journalist. He was a great TV storyteller. And I figured, well, if he could do it, I could do it. That's amazing. I do remember reading an interview very recent, actually, maybe it was maybe a year ago,

but someone once asked you about lessons you learn from your father. And I remember you saying, I'm going to have to paraphrase it. The gist of it was, what it means to be fair as a reporter. What fair journalism means, which means you do have to ask hard questions and you do have to probe in areas that are uncomfortable, but you've got to have a bit of empathy. You have to be able to put yourself in the shoes of the person you're speaking with. And I don't know.

I feel like that doesn't exist all that much in journalism anymore, does it? I mean, maybe it doesn't. I'm just not aware of it. And we see so many exceptions. But anyway, the way you described it, I thought was very beautiful. And you really attributed it all to your father. Yeah. And I think he did operate in that manner.

It wasn't just idle talk. It was what informed his, his body of work. And I work in a business where there are people who are all that access and they never ask the tough questions and then I work You know with people to who? Work with or there are people in the business. I don't really I can't think of it in colleagues We're like this, but you see it happens like they're tough for the sake of being tough Yeah, yeah exactly they're antagonistic just to be antagonist And I think I've built a reputation

30 years of the business of being the guy who does ask the tough questions and doesn't shy away and is willing to sacrifice relationships for the truth. And that's important, but fairness is the underpinning of everything, right? It's not just about being fair to the subject, it's about being fair to the audience. it's about being fair to the audience,

it's about being fair to the story, and fair to the truth. And it seems like it's a pretty simple principle, really, to, I think, it's not like I'm a Scotty Reston here, or, you know, but, I mean, I work in the world of sports, or the toy department, but it's a pretty simple principle, but I can't say that it's always applied. We were talking about this a while ago, but it's sort of hard to believe your father died in 2001, because it feels a lot more recent to me. And maybe that's just a sign

that we're all getting a little older time starts to travel faster, because 2001 on paper is a long time ago. But it's interesting because I believe his last broadcast was the Sunday after 9.11 and he actually talked about the insignificance of sport in the context of what had happened, what five days earlier. He would go on to have an elective hip operation a couple of weeks later and one one complications slash medical error after another and ultimately he died.

You're young, you're 30 at the time? 32. 32. How hard was that? Oh, it was devastating. On two levels, right? I mean, I'm asking, it sounds like an idiotic question, right?

It's not hard to lose them, but it's one thing to lose somebody when they're old enough that you just expect to lose them. It's another thing when someone goes into the hospital to have a procedure done and mistakes get made and they don't come out of the hospital. It was devastating. I was extremely close with my father and we had been, you know, for a long time at that point, there had been a period, you know, in my teens and my parents divorced where the

relationship had frayed. I mean, it felt like a million years at the point when it was happening but it's probably 18 months or something like that and then, you know, I went off to college and then I went to the business and we were doing radio shows. I mean, we probably spoke once or twice a day and saw each other frequently. They lived in the same place and connected by the business. Worked for the same company. I mean, you know, so there's the personal anguish seeing your father go through something like this and he's in a coma most of the time.

You know, you can't communicate with him. There's nothing. When he goes under, they put him in an induced coma to let him heal. You never get a chance to say goodbye. And 13 weeks in ICU, you know what that takes out of family and the guilt like, are you there every day? You're not there. I mean, all of that stuff.

And then for it to also be playing out, you know, it's a public story as well, people would happen in Dick's shop, what's going on, how sick is he, he's going to recover, is he, you know, that doesn't make it any easier. And this is all against the backdrop of this national calamity, which had taken place a few miles south of the hospital in which he was in the intensive care unit. So there is that surreal grief stricken moment as well in the history of the city in that country. So it all feels like a bad dream.

Everything that was going on in the fall of 2001 for me. And then there were moments also, it's made even more painful by the moments where you think they're telling you, oh, he's made a turn for the better. I mean, literally, I think within two or three days before he died, it seemed like he'd suddenly recovered and they were making plans to take him out of the coma and slowly wake him up again.

And, you know, but you got to remember, you know, I remember having a talk with one of the doctors like, you got to understand your father's going to be, he's recovering, but he's not going to be the same guy. He's going to have to go to rehab facility for a while, you know, strength back and this and that, but he's going to be back. I mean, and then all of a sudden it was like, and I don't even, you know, honestly, I don't remember what happened in those two or three days after that. I mean, I remember what happened.

I remember being there when he died, but I don't remember how it went from so hopeful and optimistic to over very quickly. So it was very hard on several levels. Was there anything about that collective experience, meaning the loss of your father, which is, I mean, literally superimposed on 9-11, that made you revisit your connection to sports? Did you ever go through the phase of, oh my God,

I'm devoting my life to a game versus, no, wait a minute, sports is an amazing substrate for metaphor for life. Like how did you go through that thought process? Well, I mean, I remember very vividly having a discussion, I don't know if he remembers, but having a discussion with Keith Oberman during the baseball playoffs that year. And we were, so this is a few weeks after 9-11

with my father in a coma in the hospital. And we weren't talking about that. We were talking about 9-11. And Keith, with that time, was still working in sports. I think it Fox sports at that time. Keith's a very smart guy. Friend of mine. Smart guy.

He was telling me like, we can't be in sports anymore. Everything is over. Everything we've known has changed. Everything, nothing will ever be the same. The country's going to be under constant attack. I mean, there was a, you know, he's saying, you know, get out of sports now because nobody's going to care about sports anymore. And I remember not being able to really even in that moment process, what are you saying? But it certainly made sense. It's how we felt at the time as a country, like everything was discombobulated. We didn't know where we stood anymore in some regards.

But for me personally, I remember having that discussion, but I don't remember that being a moment where I say in myself, I want to get out sports. I want to do something different. I had had those discussions a few years before that, people at ABC News about maybe transition. I remember I wanted to go. I had a meeting up there, one point where I said, you know, I don't wanna work at sports anymore.

I wanna transition. I wanna go cover the war on the Balkans or something like that. And they're like, no, we don't want you to get killed over there, something like that. And I wasn't qualified. But no, I don't remember reassessing my relationship with sports in that moment, except I did have an immediate

reaction to the whole idea that sports was going to make everything better. And if the Yankees won the World Series, which they went, ended up losing that it was this, that it would be this incredible moment of catharsis or something like that. I thought it would be a few minutes of catharsis. What do you think today, many years later, right? We're already, we're back in the swing of things. What do you think is the most important thing that following sports as a spectator, as a fan does for us?

Because in many ways, what people like you do is you provide a narrative that gives us who don't know as much a nuanced understanding. Again, just even to me, like, you probably won't find a bigger ESPN 30 for 30 fan than me. Like there might be two I haven't seen, but I love that type of deep exploration, the story behind the story behind the story. What do you think that does for people outside of the obvious, which is teaches you about a sporting event? Well, I think that there's a greater appreciation now for sports as something more than the toys or the toy department when we cover it, that, you know, it's not just tribal.

It brings us all together, right? I mean, I travel all over the country, I travel internationally a lot. You can have discussions with sports with people anywhere. And it's, you know, in a lot of ways it's gotten harder to have discussions about other things as we know. And sports can be divisive as well. So there is the sense that it is this lingua franca, right? Some guy I don't know, I'm sitting next to on a plane.

We could have a four hour discussion. You don't wanna talk about religion or politics. And yeah, there are too many things you can't talk about anymore. There's that. And we just like talking about sports too. We like sports. And sometimes we overlook like the physicality of it. How much watching just the remarkable way that athletes use their bodies and their minds, we sometimes lose appreciation for that. There's so many things about sports that can be edifying. And also, for me, I've used sports as a platform to tell stories about other things going on in the world that transcend sports, about societal issues, about cultural issues, about crises of sexual abuse, homophobia,

whatever they are, I mean, a lot of the stories that I've done over the years, sports is a starting point. It's a hook and then it's about something bigger. And sports does that in a way, right, that other things don't because so much of us are interested in sports. You know, there's a reason why Jackie Robinson breaking the color line in 1947 is one of the most important moments in the annals of the civil rights struggle. Why that's a watershed moment. There's a reason why Muhammad Ali refusing induction is a watershed moment, whether you agree or disagree with him. Sports touches us in a different way and it touches society in a different way. Title IX, which wasn't just about sports, we see mostly through the prism of sports

when we talk about equality for women. And the way in my father's lifetime that the emergence of the African-American athlete was, I think, the big story. In a lot of ways, for the last 40 years, the emergence of the female athlete, the empowerment of the female athlete has been the big story. And sports is usually, I'm not going to say always, but it seems usually to be in the vanguard. You know, when we're society is going, you see it first happening in sports. Now in some ways, sports is old-fashioned and resistant to change. And there are plenty of examples of that as well. I mean, we could talk about golf clubs and that kind of stuff.

But sports has sparked change and it's drawn our attention to issues. And I did a story about Al Campanis on the 3th. I guess it was the 25th anniversary of the time of his infamous nightline interview where he said, Blacks, Lack, and necessities to be coaches and general managers. And I interviewed Ted Coppel and Ted Coppel told me, I mean, Ted Coppel, the greatest television newsman, I would argue of the last 50 years, the guy. You know, he said, the one episode of Nightline, the one edition of Nightline he gets asked about the most

is the Al Campanus episode, where he was so great in that moment and he was so fair but persistence and tough and you know, but my point is that that moment it sparked a discussion about a lot more than coaches in the NFL or whatever. So Jeremy, you've reported on a ton of stories in sports and again, I'm a fan of many of them but has there ever been one that you've done where in retrospect you look back and you feel you made a mistake? Yeah, you know, I'm not sure if I would characterize it as a mistake and it's complicated, but I was the guy covering the home run chase in 1998 for ESPN with Mark McGuire. Wow. So I was there, I saw, I think 20 of the 70 home runs

he hid in person. And I dipped in a couple of times early in the season to do stuff when he was on a great pace, I think. But I really picked it up in September, I think, when he had that crazy September. So does that mean you interacted with Maris's family as well? I never interacted with Roger Maris's family. No, but I was there when he broke that crazy September. So does that mean you interacted with Maris' family as well? I never interacted with Roger Maris' family. No, but I was there when he broke the record,

when he hit 62. I mean, I was there, I think, for every home run from 52 to 70. Well. And there had been the story that summer about the Andro and the Locker, which now seems like, I don't know, if it was a red herring that

he was planting or, you know, if it's in the right way to put whatever it was, but looking back now, of course, 20 years later, or even five years at words, I wish I approached that story with more skepticism. Do you think you were just so caught up in the moment like you couldn't believe this was happening? Well, you know, it was funny because of course, it wasn't as if it wasn't out there in the ether. You know, people were talking about steroids.

People had talked about them with him going back, you know, years before. But the subject was kind of taboo. The Andro story seemed to put everything to rest like, oh, he's not doing steroids that are against it. Yeah, it's an interesting dion, which at the time was a supplement that was basically legal. Right. And question became, well, maybe it is legal, but you shouldn't be using it. And the guy was trying to end. I certainly didn't say voucher and say he's clean or anything like that. But in the absence of evidence that he was cheating, we just kind of bought the story. And I wish I'd been more skeptical because I don't know what I could have expressed at the time. And I'm not letting myself off the hook. It was the

entire national media. There was nobody expressing any skepticism. Everybody was celebrating this. Everybody was so excited about the home run chase and Sammy and Mark and all that. I was around Sammy too, but not the way that I was around Mark. I was covering Mark every day for like a month plus. I wish I had been more skeptical. Now, because everything I saw was fake, was all fake. It doesn't mean anything anymore. You know, I saved the newspaper with Mark hit 62. I'm like, wow, I saw something really historic in the whole country was, I mean, you would have thought that, you know, he'd landed on the moon.

So I wish I had approached that with more skepticism. Later when I covered cycling, and I covered the Tour de France, and I covered Lance Armstrong's last two Tour de France victories, and then I covered his comeback as well. I did ask the questions, as I recall, you know, I asked them. Lance, you know, how does anybody do this without being on EPO or where I, I mean, I asked the questions,

but again, after he's denies it, there was great reporting, there was some great reporting being done by David Walsh at the London Times. He got sued. The London Times lost a million pounds, I believe. So I'm sure they've got back more in space. Right. Yeah. Going after him.

So I asked the questions, but it was kind of like everybody else, asking the questions, but not digging deep enough to get to the truth, which was that Lance was cheating too. And some ways it's a bit sad. I've always had a soft spot in my heart for Roger Maris because he's sort of a footnote to this story. But in some ways, you could make the case, he's still the home run king. And in that sense, that to me is where,

and I'm probably biased, but I find the cycling, quote unquote, scandal to be less upsetting because it really was a uniform playing for him. It was everybody doing it. I mean, you couldn't be a GC contender between 91 and 2010 without being on. The protocols were too good. Yeah.

Yeah. Yeah. Whereas we do tend to forget what Mickey Mantle did and what, I mean Mickey Mantle, he's in a different league because he's so loved, but Mara sort of gets forgotten in a way. And when you think of that season, when he hit 61, and how hated he was trying to do it and chase down Babe Ruth's record,

like, I don't know, I just have to, this softest spot in my heart for this guy. Oh, you know, and then that phony stuff with McGuire and sociapant tribute to Maris's family at the time, I mean, that now we look at it, and it's upsetting. This was Roger Maris's legacy, that record, the 61. And it was stolen from him.

And I think that's a fair way to characterize it. And look, a lot of guys were doing it. Now the counter argument, which again, I think the counter arguments are reasonable. One is, hey, the pitches were also doing it and the pitches were harder to hit off and does that normalize it? Does that equalize it?

Well, the evidence, of course, is that it didn't normalize it enough because the offense would explode. The offense would explode. And it's not just, it's the magnitude. You're the doctor, you understand this stuff. Just because they're both using it, doesn't mean that it's as beneficial to the pictures

as it is to the hitters. And we saw that. Well, that's interesting because when you think of it that way, and I can see why in hindsight, you know, and I've actually had this discussion with Lance, which was, I actually believed Lance was clean until, and this might make me sound like a dope. Alp to us? Nope, because this is so fair.

You can do the math and justify on a Watts per kilo. You could say look, given what he did in 93 as a world champion in Oslo, like the stuff that he would say back then. Yeah, I was a world champion, you know, before. But even doing the numbers, like you look at the watts per kilo then and the watts per kilo in the climb, when it became clear to me that he absolutely had to be doing this was when when Tyler Hamilton came out, because Tyler Hamilton was the first guy that came out that I thought was truly believable. I don't know, there's, I don't know Tyler, I've never

met him, but he just struck me as so credible. And when Tyler basically spilled his beans, and that's when you realized how ubiquitous it was, because prior to Tyler, you could make the case, man, not everybody's doing it, but when Tyler came out and said, oh, no, no, no, we're all doing it. Well, also the stuff with the Andreus, it was, frankly, I remember thinking at the time,

well, why would they be lying? I mean, the position as I remember it was, they were compelled to testify to tell what happened in that hospital room. They didn't volunteer, they weren't selling books, they weren't doing anything like that, they were asked under oath, what happened? What was the conversation?

Because Lance was getting sued, and they said, he had done steroids. And so it was easier's here for me to dismiss that because I always thought Betsy had a little bit of a different agenda. I thought deep down Betsy was more pissed that Frankie had done these drugs behind her back. I always thought there was something going on there. I just didn't see why they would lie under oath. I always thought Betsy kind of wanted to be in the limelight more, but to me, Tyler was the most credible cyclist

to come forward. And everybody who was covering it, and I was there for three summers, if you'd asked them, your life's at stake, what's the right answer here? The later the tire likes, who said he's doing it? They're all doing it, he's doing it.

But we didn't have to prove. I mean, water couldn't bust them. The cycling federation couldn't bust them. The French couldn't bust them. The Spanish couldn't bust them. They had a very sophisticated, I mean, in some ways, very sophisticated and almost clownishly also brazen. In some ways, you know, they were so good at concealing it. And they were so aggressive about going after

anybody who questioned them. But we all thought, and I will say this though, Chairman, it really chaps my ass that those seven years have no champion, and yet you look in the years before and the years after, and there's a champion. I mean, to me, that is ridiculous. And this will be, there's a lot that's ridiculous. This will be the single most unpopular thing I'll ever say, I'm sure. I absolutely believe Lance Armstrong deserves his yellow jerseys back.

Because if you're going to take his away, you better take away pantonies, you better take away Ulrich, and you better take away Bjorn Reese, and probably Miguel Indoran. And you know, I mean, like, they did take away some of those. Did that come by wrong? No. No, it is ridiculous. Well, that doesn't, you're right. That doesn't make any sense.

It's, it's totally crazy. Well, and they certainly took way fluids. Yes, but then they gave it to the guy right behind me. I mean, it's so ridiculous. Well, anyway, no, I can see how, now, with the benefits of hindsight, and you feel foolish for having been swept up into it. We all do, right? I mean, we feel like...

Yeah. And at the same time, it's like, well, you ask the question, you get your kind of same response from Lance, you know, why would I do that? Why would I put that in my body? You know, and everybody was so swept up in the story, the redemption story, the comeback story, the survivor story. It was tough. I think it's interesting today to look at cycling because to be honest with you, I'm too far away from the sport and the numbers and they're still very concealed in what they do, but I still think there's something going on. I just don't know what it is. Me neither.

What's the most interesting story you think that's out there and that isn't being told yet in sports? There's so many stories that I think we don't pay attention. I mean, they're big issue stories. Obviously, the head trauma story is the biggest, I think the biggest story in the last 20 years in sports. That's a story that's still obviously in the news all the time. That is being covered.

Are you surprised it hasn't had a bigger impact? I mean, or maybe it hasn't, I just am not aware of the metrics, but I would say it's had a big impact. I mean, youth participation, tackle football, in certain parts of the country plummeting. And if that happens, it's a time question until college football starts to decline

and they've college football declines, then what does the NFL look like in 20 years? And that's the million dollar question, right? Like does football have an existential problem? Does it find a way to change the nature of what it's been for so long in a way that will alleviate concerns about the long-term effects of head trauma? Does it become more regionalized? Where we see it in certain parts of the country where people say this is part of what we do,

this part of our culture, and we reject the narrative that it's going to destroy the brains of those who play. We don't know. We don't know. I mean, of course, what we do know is that everything changes. When you're in the moment, it seems like nothing will change. The NFL will always be number one. Football will always be the most popular sport.

You know, that's probably how it felt to fans of baseball 60 years ago. Or to fans of boxing in the 1930s. Or fans of fantasy. In the 1930s or fans of harness racing in the first decade of the 20th century. But what we do know is everything changes. Is head trauma gonna be what changes

the way we consume football? Or is it only gonna change the way that we participate in football? is it only going to change the way that we participate in football? Does it decline in participation necessarily lead to a decline in fan interest and viewership? The other thing I have learned is not only does nothing stay number one and everything changes, but no one can see the future. I mean, nobody is good at seeing the future with anything. Those who can many just get lucky and they don't do it a lot or they'd be in Vegas or now New Jersey. I'd love to know what you think is the story that's not being told yet because I,

I mean, I think about it a little bit from my lens and one of the things that I find interesting is why drugs will always exist in some sports and why some sports seem relatively free of drugs because I think drugs would help any athlete in any sport. I mean, I can't think of a sport in which a drug, a performance enhancing drug, won't make a difference. And yet, there are some sports that are relatively clean, like swimming. If you look at the United States and Australia, the two most dominant, there are certainly countries that have had lots of cheating. But I do believe that I don't think history will prove me wrong, but it could.

I don't think that Australia and the United States have a doping program in swimming, and yet they're the two most dominant countries. But yet, if you look at other Olympic sports, I mean, I am convinced the track in field is always going to be full of growth hormone because it know, it's undetectable, right? That's the story I was going to say is the biggest story when she brought up drugs is that human growth hormone is undetectable. So when we talk about guys who are clean, we talk about female athletes who are clean, we really don't know what we're talking about.

Yeah. Because HGH is effective. It does work. It makes a huge difference. And they say they're tested, detected, but they really don't, right? You can test for its byproducts, but it's not like testosterone. If a person takes exogenous testosterone, you can look for pair molecules. You can look for epitastosterone.

And if that's not rising at the levels of testosterone, you know they're taking it exogenously. And you can look at other hormones that get suppressed when you take testosterone. So if you're taking testosterone exogenously from outside the body, the pituitary hormones that tell the body to make it, luteinizing hormone, follicle, something, they go down. Yeah, there's lots of ways, but no, I think human growth hormone, I don't have a lot of experience with it even clinically to know how effective it is, but I think it's used pretty rampantly.

My intuition is that that is certainly in most sports, got to be the drug of choice right now. And I think from my standpoint, the interest is, do we have any sense of what the long-term harm is? Which I don't pretend to know. Yeah, I don't either, obviously. Well, we've got to get to this thing tonight, don't we? We do, we do, we have to get there.

We've got about a mile and a quarter to cover. So in its rush hour in New York, we're gonna walk there faster than we're gonna go. Last question. What is your favorite 30 for 30 that you weren't involved in making? Wow, I'm not involved. Give me three. You would not even rank in them if you want. Just give me a few of your 30 for 30s that you know. It's an answer

I think a lot of people give I thought the eskabars the two eskabars. Oh, great. I thought that was a good show. It's so hard breaking Yeah, I was at that game at the Rose Bowl. You were at that game. I was 90 94 I remember that vividly Do you buy that if Pablo Escobar was still alive? Escobar would not have been killed? Do you buy that if Pablo Escobar was still alive, Escobar would not have been killed? You know, it's been about nine years since that came out. I don't remember my feelings. I don't even remember.

Was that the conclusion that was drawn based on it? I don't even remember if that was the conclusion drawn from the 30 for 30 or if it was just my conclusion post-hoc. And maybe it was like rejuvenated when I watched Narcos a few years ago and I got all reminded of everything in Escobar's life and sort of the weird sense of loyalty that he had. Like he was sort of this evil guy with a good streak in him and would he have, you know, I don't know, I wondered. Yeah, I thought that was really powerful and well done.

I thought the night show was really, really well done as well. That's a very recent one. There have been so many last year alone, there was the two bills thing. Oh, the two bills was pretty darn good. It's interesting, yeah. Those guys. Well, you know, one of the ones that I loved watching,

even when it came out, because it came out, so Bo Jackson, when I was a kid, like, that was my prime of my school. I couldn't say that when I was in that one. That's right. I'm disqualified for mentioning that one. When I go back and watch that, and my wife and I were talking about this

because we watched it for like a third time a year ago, maybe, we had that moment of, are you freaking kidding me? Like, I almost forgot how athletic that guy was. Like, you could make the case he's the greatest athlete ever. Well, my father said he was. My father voted for him as the greatest athlete of the 20th century in the sports century polling. And I think he had a great case.

It's interesting though. Recently, I was with somebody who played, I was interviewing Matt Millen, who was waiting for a new heart. Just got a heart on Christmas Eve. He's doing well at this point. I'm going to see him again next week. And Matt was telling me, you know, the teammate in Oakley

said, yeah, funny thing is, and he had teammates who said this like, Bo was obviously an incredible track athlete, incredible football player, incredible baseball player, but he couldn't dribble basketball. Interesting. And he couldn't, this was a matter of time, he couldn't catch the football. He, which, you know, because this was a matter of time I couldn't catch the football

He which you know because he was a pretty good defensive player in the outfield like he was not a good pass catcher I mean he didn't know the right technique to catch a football as a running back coming out of the backfield It was all hands and he didn't know how to use his body to catch a ball And he said I think he said you know the guys they tried it, he's when I say, so it's an interesting dichotomy, right? Because he's this incredible athlete with incredible hand eye coordination, incredible strength, incredible speed, could have won the Olympic to Catholic, I think, honestly, if he'd dedicated himself to that.

But they're also these kind of little gaps. Yeah, yeah, yeah. Which we're, when we talk about him, of course, then I also think about, you know what story hasn't been done yet because it's been done, but it hasn't been closed. I'm kind of waiting for Barry Bonds to just acknowledge the steroid use. Like I feel like aren't we past the point where this matters? Can't we just have an open and honest discussion about it and close the chapter? Well Sammy Sosa would tell you know I did something with me this year he certainly wasn't prepared to go that far.

I think from Barry's perspective, what does he have to gain? And Barry's always had, how do I put this, a complicated relationship with the media? Yeah, I think that's pretty good. And I don't think he cares. I don't think he has any interest in creating closure for us. I'm going to create a lot of enemies by saying this, but I wish that Barry Bonds could just acknowledge what he did and get into the Hall of Fame and be done with it. And we could acknowledge that that was the era that we were in.

A lot of people would find that a very controversial view, but. Oh, I don't think it's necessarily going to work either because Mark McGuire has admitted it and he's not in the Hall of Fame. Yeah, I know, I know, truthfully. Yeah, they're different. But Barry, you could make a much better case for Barry Bonds than Mark McGuire. You could. It's an interesting thing, though, I don't know. Truthfully, they're different. But Barry, you could make a much better case for Barry Bonson, Mark McGuire. No, you could.

You know, it's an interesting thing though, right? Like I've thought about this a lot, probably way too much over the years, the Hall of Fame and steroids and all that. And I've heard the argument many times, Roger Clemens and Barry Bonson are different because they were Hall of Fame players before they started taking steroids.

Although of course, we don't know when they started taking steroids. And this is based on the assumption that they did taking steroids. Although, of course, we don't know when they started taking steroids. And this is based on the assumption that they did take steroids. And it's hard to state that as just a fact, it's more complicated than that. But let's assume they did take steroids. And they should be in the whole thing because they were these kinds of once in a lifetime, once in a generation players before. I said, OK, I get that. But they're being kept out because they desecrated the record book and the minds of the voters by cheating.

They broke faith with the history of the game and the record book and all that. They made a mockery of these hallowed numbers, which means so much in baseball and not other sports. And nobody says, well, Joe Jackson, I guess a few people, Joe Jackson's not on the Hall of Fame. Nobody would dispute the fact that he was a Hall of Fame player before the 1919 World Series. You know, if you, it's like, well, he should be on the Hall of Fame

because up until the point that he participated in the fix or did not do anything to stand in its way, he was a Hall of Fame player. Yeah, three 56 career hitter. He's one of the greatest series of all time. Babe Ruth, I think, called him the greatest hit center of all time. He'd been around long enough He's got the career numbers and all that but you don't make the argument. Well Okay, but let's put him in the Hall of Fame because of what he did

It's what you did at that moment that disqualifies you These are such tough questions and for the sake of time I'm not gonna take us down the path of cycling which is another sport where I think you can't do grand tours without drugs. And we've had a period, there's a 20-year period from call it 91 to 2011, 2010, I would say, when the drug use was simply comical and what do we do with those years. But anyway, all that said, Jeremy, this has been, I think it will be the shortest podcast I've ever done, but that's only because we have this time. Can't we? No, we're going to have to do it again, but that's only because we have this time. Can't tell.

We're gonna have to do it again then. So I think we'll do it around too. But no, this has been super interesting and I just think that I have a complicated relationship with sports. Sometimes I feel guilty for caring. Sometimes I feel like, why do I care so much about this? Why am I not caring more about something else

that quote unquote matters more? But in the end, I think why I care about sports is they are basically the substrate for some of the greatest metaphors we have in life. And I think when I think about why do I want my kids to play sports, it's not because I think any one of them will ever be a professional athlete. It's because of what they learn about themselves in this quest. There's no doubt about that. And the other thing is, I mean, sometimes, I think most people are over this, but kind of the snobbish way of, you know,

sports is one thing, but the fine arts are something else. Or, you know, ballet or opera or theater are on some plane that's above sports. Look, I'll say this, there is nothing else. I mean, I'm a giants fan. I was at the Super Bowl, Super Bowl 25, when they won that game against the bills and last second when Scott Norwood missed that kick.

That kind of joy you, Fatty. By the way, that's another amazing. That might have been, that was good. The four falls above, fellow, is, there's nothing else. I am a fan of the theater. I'm a fan of the arts. I'm a fan of music.

You don't go to a concert or you don't go to a Broadway show or anything like that. In the end of it, go completely nuts. The way that, say, for instance, it's over all 25, I was going nuts. Or all those hundreds of thousands of other fans are going, I was at the World Cup final in 98 in Paris. I've been at three World Cup final games. I was only one, the one in in France in 98 where the home team won France wins its first world cup at home and that stadium in San Digny with a hundred thousand people

There's nothing else that gives us that kind of moment and that's universal I mean that's around the whole world So there's something special about sports that we've got to acknowledge I think your point about it being the Linger Frank is actually I've never thought of it that way But I think you're right. It may be the greatest Linger Frank of them all or as I said it incorrectly lingua Frank Maybe I'm saying it incorrectly, you're right. I think you're right. Well Jeremy This is awesome and thank you so much for your time and let's go watch 42 to one for me. It's only the 45th time It'll only be my second. You might still appreciate it.

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