LeBron is Back
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This is the Un-Undisputed, everything I cannot share with you during the debate show that is undisputed. Today, I will tell you why LeBron's insecurity, his injury secrecy, his media manipulation just amaze and amuse me. I'll tell you why in honor of March Madness, or I should say I'll tell you which March

Cinderella team was my all-time favorite in any sport and the sport and the team might just shock you. I will also tell you today why I love John Wick, but I did not love John Wick for the latest installment. And I will tell you why my streak of never missing a single day

of cardio, at least an hour, every single day dating back to May of 1998 just ended. But first up, as always, it is not to be skipped. Alright, bear with me on this. LeBron James has become my all-time favorite athlete to discuss and debate because LeBron James is endlessly intriguing and entertaining and all-time debatable.

LeBron James was made for debate shows, such as the three I've been lucky enough to be a part of, Cold Pizza, First Take, and now Undisputed. This is all because the king, as he calls himself, is also the biggest drama king in sports history. Ain't even close.

Somehow, there's always a backstory with LeBron. There's always a sub-story. There's always a side story. Or there's just a story story every single day and every single night that he plays a basketball game. Sometimes he just creates these stories. And sometimes they just create themselves. They spring from a story.

just an unparalleled force field that has always encircled this man. I always call him the most interesting man, not in the world, but in the world of sports. Yet, this is what hit me the other night. Michael Jordan, whom I got to know, whom I had the privilege of covering in Chicago, he never had anything like this exploding around him on a daily basis. From day to day, night to night, Michael Jordan mostly just

played basketball, and that was plenty enough. I did, I got to cover him in Chicago. And as I used to say, every night I went to watch him, I would sit back and say, "God, I've never ever seen that on a basketball court." That was the beauty of Michael Jeffrey Jordan. Yeah, there was some drama that was going on behind the scenes that wound up in books and in documentaries such as, you know, "The Last Dance."

off the 1998 season that I did cover and experience firsthand up close and personal. And yet, no, you got me on this. When Michael played, there was no social media. LeBron was made for social media or it for him because he is a master media manipulator, the likes of which I have never, ever encountered. That's he and Aaron Rodgers, but LeBron above Aaron far and away.

LeBron uses his social media platform, or I should say platforms, like they're WMDs. He is such a huge star, such a superstar influencer that he's constantly influencing LeBron fans, or as I call them, LeFans, or blind witnesses, to swallow the narratives that he creates and drives like no other.

And I just sit back often and laugh in amazement. Then of course, I get turned into the bad guy. I'm the evil one. I'm the sinister force who dares to question any or all of this. And it's because I do try to tell the truth about the quote unquote king, mostly because I'm told every day on Undisputed from across the table that LeBron is the GOAT, that he's actually better than Jordan.

when he clearly is no closer to Jordan than I am right now to the River Jordan, which happens to be in the Middle East. I am sorry. But LeBron can just be so mentally and psychologically and emotionally weaker than Michael Jordan. LeBron can be so insecure, he can be so vulnerable,

He can be so over concerned with trying to protect his image and his legacy while always trying to fool people into believing he's something that he's not. He's really great, but he's constantly trying to prove that he's also that and that and that and he's just not. This is the inferior opposite of Michael Jeffrey Jordan. This is what I call the phony goat. If you would please

Walk back with me through what LeBron just put us all through concerning his quote-unquote injuries Let's start with the fact that nine times in Michael Jordan's career. He played all 82 games nine times That's all 82 the full season another season He played 81 and yet another season he played 80 games only once as LeBron played all 82 and as you well know he recently missed one month and

13 games from which he returned last Sunday. And as he went into Sunday's game, he had played 48 of this year's 75 games so far. And that, of course, is a big reason, a major reason that the Lakers have struggled as a sub-500 team all season long. And yes, I get it. I know that LeBron is now 38 years of age in year 20.

But I have the highest regard for the shape he keeps himself in. And I've called him repeatedly on occasion Iron Man because I don't know how many times he's turned his ankle during a game when I thought, that's it, you're out. And he laced him back up and he shook it off and he ran to the other end and he continued to play basketball. And I was in awe of that. And I have nothing but respect for

for the many times LeBron has turned his ankles in games and continued to play. Yet, what in the name of Dr. Freud just happened to LeBron James? If you step back from it, help me out with this, it gets laughably inexplicably bizarre. Okay, so on what looked like a routine drive to the basket,

This against the Dallas Mavericks. So the last game he played before he was forced out for the month. LeBron somehow hurt his right foot. He later said that he had stepped on Dwight Powell's foot. Okay. But the video showed, I'm just talking about the game video, not Zapruder video. It's just your straight game video showed. No, he missed Dwight Powell's foot, did not step on it.

I always say LeBron has the highest IQ in the game today, has always had the highest IQ. And you're telling me he didn't even know for sure whether he'd stepped on Dwight Powell's foot? That just shook me. What? Okay, that came late in the third quarter of that game against the Dallas Mavericks. LeBron continued to play in said game. He played 10 minutes and 11 seconds of the fourth quarter that day.

And he scored 11 more points on five of nine shooting, one of three from three. What, 11 more points? Then afterward, only afterward, were we told that LeBron has a foot injury without any detail, no specifics. And LeBron left the game, left the arena in a walking boot. Huh?

Okay, but he played the whole fourth quarter and he looked explosive. He looked just fine. Was it another miracle? I don't know. Then the next day, LeBron's camp planted the story that he had an injured tendon in his right foot. Huh? Okay, so the way this usually happens is that a member of LeBron's inner circle, it could be Rich Paul's agent, Maverick Carter, his sort of CEO, maybe even his...

PR advisor Adam Mendelsohn, one of those three usually will give a "don't quote me on this" type nugget to a Woj, to a Shams, in which they report as coming from a source close to LeBron, which is the right way to report that because you want to obviously attribute it to somebody else and not report it as dead straight fact. But then the media world will immediately take that little nugget

And in turn, on to Twitter it goes, and then fans in turn. Everybody jumps to the conclusion that that nugget is the gospel, the unquestionable truth, when obviously it wasn't. So hold on just a second here. Earlier this year, we were told it was LeBron's left foot that was continuing to plague him and keep him out. But we never got full disclosure about

in which the Lakers detailed exactly what was wrong with his left foot. This is all in the name of just transparency. He's LeBron freaking James. He's the face of not only this franchise, but of the whole league. And yes, you could maybe argue that LeBron doesn't want opponents to know exactly what's wrong with either of his feet. But come on. He is LeBron freaking James. He is the face of this league and everything

He owes it to all of us, not to mention to gamblers, to keep everybody on the up and up, to know pretty much exactly what's going on with said injury. Okay, so you might remember that Michael Jordan had one bad injury in his career. It's out for six weeks. And immediately, this is back in 1984, the Chicago Bulls announced in detail that Michael Jordan had fractured

his navicular tarsal bone in his left foot. Period. End of story. That's all you need to know because that's enough and that's a lot. They said it would leave him in a cast for six weeks and that's exactly what it was. And he came back and never looked back. So why all the mystery surrounding these LeBron injuries? It just, it creates such suspicion, so much misinformation.

So, of course, the man I sit across from every day, Shannon Sharp. My man, Shannon, obviously huge LeBron fan, defender. So right away, we got into it about just exactly how hurt LeBron was. But I wasn't questioning that he was hurt. I don't doubt that something was wrong, but just tell me exactly what so that we had some transparency. It's not that complicated and doesn't need to be that big of a secret.

This is all because I believed and still believe that LeBron was so mentally worn out after going on that all-time incredible tear from his birthday, December 30th through February 7th, the night he passed Kareem Abdul-Jabbar to become the NBA's all-time leading scorer, that I didn't blame him for being mentally, psychologically flat-out gassed.

I still believe a big part of LeBron wanted to just take the rest of the year off, rest on his laurels, rest up, get his feet better, get his ankles better. And I said on Undisputed, I would not blame him if he took the rest of the year off. He had provided his Lakers with the all-time greatest distraction from a pretty miserable season that this has been.

What a mid-season sideshow passing Kareem was, though fittingly, on a night the Lakers lost at home to the Thunder? What? So it was that I got frustrated and I got on the phone and I started to call around to all the people I know in the medical community. This is in and around sports. And by chance, this could be by million to one chance, maybe just by pure luck,

I connected with a doctor who had just happened to have seen LeBron's more recent MRI. And he said, this doctor told me that the main issue with LeBron is his right ankle, his right ankle, that it is such an arthritic mess from all the times he's turned that ankle

that at some point it will require some cleanup surgery if in fact he wants to go on and play a couple of more NBA seasons. This doctor told me they can talk all they want, they can plant all the stories they want about other issues in the right foot, but he said, nope, trust me on this. I saw the pictures. The ankle is the root of all the problems. I reported just that the following day on Undisputed.

But I also began to say again and again and again how much I like these new look Lakers post-trade deadline. Since the trade deadline, they've only led the whole league in defensive efficiency. Defensive efficiency. I like all the new pieces because I love it that there's no more Russ, as in West Brick. There's no more Pat Bev, as in constant distraction for coach, bench, fans, for all of us.

I love it that they added D'Angelo Russell back, Jared Vanderbilt, who plays high-level perimeter defense, Malik Beasley, who can just flat-out shoot it, Hashimura, who can play both ends. Austin Reeves has been a revelation. Kid can play. Schroeder can play. Lonnie Walker can play. And that leads and brings us back to Anthony Davis, the biggest X-factor player.

in the potential postseason Western Conference playoff tournament, this side of Kevin Durant. I don't know what gets into Anthony Davis or doesn't get into him, but when he's right, when he's plugged in, when his switch is flipped, he's top 10, maybe even top five. So I started encouraging LeBron on air to suck it up and come back after a month off, revitalized,

and put this team on his broad shoulders and make a run at the wide open Western Conference playoffs with this freshly reconstituted team that fits him so much better than the Westbrook Lakers fit LeBron James. That was his fault. Okay, so I turned up the heat a little bit publicly on the King because he's the King and he deserves a little heat and a little nudge. Then...

LeBron's inner circle planted the story that LeBron was working out three times a day. What? Three times a day? Now, remember, there was a story planted, I don't know, I've lost track, four or five years ago that LeBron spends $2 million a year on his fitness. Media ran with it and continues to run with it, and it has become the widely known truth. LeBron spends $2 million a year

keep his body in peak condition. How can anybody know that for sure? Who's to say that Kevin Durant, the silent assassin, the off-radar workout warrior, who's to say Kevin doesn't spend $3 million? I don't know. Does anybody have any receipts on any of this? $2 million? I don't know. LeBron's in great shape, but $2 million? Three times a day? I don't know. Here we go again. It's more LeBron mythology.

Nobody else in NBA history has ever worked as hard or spent as much on his body as LeBron James. We can see how great a shape he is in. We can see how great he looks. We don't need him to plant stories to lead us to believe it's even more than we see. So, yeah, I was there with Michael Jordan. I was there in 1998. I know all about what was called the Breakfast Club, these sessions.

that happened at 6 a.m. the morning after games. I know for a fact they happened. This was with Scottie Pippen and Ron Harper at different houses. They sort of alternated houses. Led by the great trainer Tim Grover, personal friend of mine. I know all about them and trust me, they happened just as reported. But these sessions required no embellishment, no media manipulation, no mythology. It was three players attending.

And in the end, trust me, Michael didn't care whether you believed it or not. He did not need you to believe him because he was the most supremely confident human I have ever been around. So wait, LeBron's three times a day on an injured foot? Come on. So pretty soon, as you know, LeBron would make it very clear he has a torn tendon in said foot, a torn tendon.

When that happens, you almost certainly need surgery. And he was working out three times a day on a torn tendon in his foot. This is all a little hard for me to swallow. But apparently the LeBron loving media, the billions of blind witnesses out there who just blindly believe in LeBron and all that he says in posts, they swallowed this whole thing.

three times a day on a torn tendon. He's supernatural. He's a superhero. Then late last week, I loved it that the Lakers turned up the heat on LeBron by planting a story from their side of the table that LeBron will be back within a week. Wow. News. Breaking news. News flash. Obviously, the Lakers did not believe he's that hurt.

And obviously, they were growing tired of him taking off on their dime. So what happened? LeBron immediately fired right back on Twitter. I speak for myself. Translation, I control my own Hollywood scripts. So he's not ready to come back? Then you know what happened. Very early Sunday morning, this is ahead of a 12.30 tip-off out here in L.A. at the Crypt.

LeBron told the Lakers to upgrade him from out to doubtful, and the news went out. Then after he warmed up just a few minutes before that 12:30 tip, LeBron told the Lakers to upgrade him from doubtful to questionable. That meant he was going to play. News flash. News to the team, to the coaches, to the executive, to everybody.

And yet LeBron didn't want to start the game in the starting lineup, but he did wind up playing 30 minutes on Sunday, and he looked as explosive as he did before he passed Kareem. So all was well with LeBron? Nope. His postgame interview that was conducted in front of his locker was an all-timer. LeBron said that two doctors told him he needed surgery on the torn tendon in his right foot. Wow, two?

Yet he said a doctor he described as the LeBron James of feet told him he did not need surgery and he listened to the LeBron James of feet. And I guess he was still working out three times a day on a torn tendon that two doctors said needed surgery. He's Iron Man. He's a miracle maker. He's LeBron. So

Now, as I look back, we're to believe he scored 11 points in the fourth quarter of that Dallas game, in which he first got hurt, while playing on a torn tendon in his right foot. Only LeBron could have pulled off such a feat of the feat. I'm sorry, but I'm just having a little bit of trouble believing all or even part of all of the above. This was and is the drama king at his most mellow dramatic.

So what's the obvious hidden agenda here? LeBron James has perfectly planted the seeds of an excuse in case he needs it. With the pressure rising to lift a pretty good new Lakers team up through all that injured wreckage above them in the standings. With the pressure rising to, I don't know, I don't think it's too much to ask, to make a run to another NBA Finals.

LeBron got a little insecure and realized that if he fails to close some of these tight playoff games, the way he failed to close, by my count, 15 narrow Laker losses earlier this regular season, then he can say, well, I probably shouldn't have played. I should have listened to those two doctors who told me to go ahead and have surgery. LeBron can say, man,

It was harder than I thought trying to play playoff basketball on a torn tendon in my right foot. This is LeBron, master media manipulator. He basically controls a number of reporters by granting them access. He gives them interviews like one-on-ones, exclusives, maybe gives them a key story here or there in exchange.

for these reporters running with the myths that LeBron needs to make and the excuses he needs to plant ahead of time. High IQ, savvy, shrewd operator. Michael Jordan didn't need any excuses. Michael Jordan didn't need the individual reporters to help create narratives for him. He did want to look the part when he did the big group interviews. He was the first one

in NBA history to dress like he was going to the red carpet right after games. He wanted to project an image of class and professionalism. And yes, that image did help sell sneakers and movies such as Space Jam. But everything about Michael Jordan just reaped of supreme confidence. Everything about LeBron says, "Insecurity, something to hide."

needs to mislead media and fans. All this amazes me, all this amuses me, and all this makes me so thankful I got to cover and know the goat, the real deal, the original, the one and only 23. And all this makes me thankful that I now get to pop the balloons that the phony goat keeps desperately floating, attempting to make

All of us believe that he's something he's not and doesn't need to be. As I said from the start, Michael Jordan was the mentally toughest superstar who ever played any sport. LeBron James? Well, I think you know the truth, whether or not you want to believe it.

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at Indeed.com slash Bayless. Just go to Indeed.com slash Bayless right now and support our show by saying you heard about Indeed on this podcast. Indeed.com slash Bayless. Terms and conditions apply. Need to hire? You need Indeed. Let's get to your question, shall we? This is Brian from Pomona, California, who asks, why does your Twitter bio say maybe not what you want to hear but need to hear? Brian.

That has been my mantra, my battle cry, my reason for being since I first joined Twitter back in 2009. And it well may be my epitaph. Maybe to a fault, I consider myself a truth teller. I will tell you exactly what I see, even when I know it will not make you like me.

Sure. I like to be liked like everybody likes to be liked. Who doesn't? But I don't need to be liked. I need to be able to look myself in the mirror because I told you my truest, deepest feelings, as unpopular as they might be.

Just a few quick recent examples. I told you Aaron Rodgers was a blame-deflecting, finger-pointing diva. I told you that before that long-ago Super Bowl that he won. I told you that after he won that Super Bowl, which at the time was wildly unpopular. I told you Brady made Belichick. Told you that a long time ago and that Belichick would get exposed without Brady. See the last three seasons and 500 Patriot football.

I first guessed LeBron's lack of mental toughness long before he flamed out against Boston in the 2010 playoffs, losing games four, five, and six, and flamed out in games four, five, and six against Dallas in the 2011 finals, his first with the Heat, and then again against San Antonio in 2014 when he and his Heat got blown off the floor by a record finals margin. These were not popular stances, but I took them because that's just...

who I am and the only way I can respect myself, I first guessed that Russell Westbrook was making Kevin Durant's life miserable in Oklahoma City. Look at them now. I told you on draft day, Jalen Hurts would change life for the Philadelphia Eagles, and I hate the Philadelphia Eagles. I just believe you deserve to hear the truth as I see it without agenda. This is Yaron from Atlanta, Florida.

If you don't follow anyone on Twitter, how do you get breaking news when it happens? Okay, the truth is, I don't follow anyone on Twitter to protect myself from the opinions of other commentators, which might influence the creation of my opinions, which are obviously sacred to me. I've worked with a number of media commentators who got nearly all their opinions off Twitter.

which to me is a form of plagiarism. They obviously claim as their own original thought, the thought from, I don't know, Joe from Buffalo. And that's without giving Joe any credit. Joe's not going to fight back. He really can't. He could fight back in his own small way, but there's so many opinions out there that said commentators can say, no, I thought of that first. I want to form my opinions in a vacuum

Only I occupy that's why I don't watch games and sports bars or with friends I fly and I think solo my thought doesn't need to be provoked and as for breaking news I constantly check what's trending on Twitter and I'm constantly checking the sports news on numerous sports websites so I never feel like I'm out of touch and

And I never feel like I'm borrowing someone else's opinion. This is Gore from Sunrise, Florida, who asks, in honor of March Madness, what is the greatest Cinderella team in sports history? Okay, a couple of podcasts back. I warned you about March Madness. It is truly madness.

There are really no upsets because anybody can beat anybody, anywhere, any day, any night in this format. The only real upset would be four number ones, four one seeds going to the final four. You know the story. It's only five fouls instead of the NBA six. Games are eight minutes shorter than NBA games. They're over like a snap of a finger. Strange venues, strange shooting backgrounds, strange start times.

amateurish refs, shorter three-point line. As I always say, the more you know about college basketball, the worse you'll do at picking your bracket. I told you Brandon Miller was the best player in this year's tournament, and he was, but he melted under the scorching hot spotlight that he brought upon himself with the choice he made, as you well know, to take a teammate's gun back to him at a sports bar.

And you know the rest of that story. Brandon Miller scored zero in Alabama's NCAA opener. And then as they got bounced, he went three of 19 from the floor and one of 10 from three in the loss to San Diego State. Oh, what else is new? It's madness. Yet this year was actually and is actually too crazy for its own good.

Now we have a nine seed and a five seed and another five seed and a four seed in the final four. We actually have three Cinderella's and a Yukon, now the runaway favorite, but three Cinderella's and a Yukon that nobody really saw coming during the year when they had several losing streaks. Okay? FAU, San Diego State, Miami, Yukon. I'm just telling you the truth. I'm actually more excited about the women's final four than the men's.

Now, to Gore's question, greatest Cinderella team ever. Okay, real quick, you first have to make the case for this year's Fairleigh Dickinson squad pulling off the greatest NCAA tournament upset ever. I mean, Fairleigh Dickinson didn't even belong in this tournament after they went 19-15, but Merrimack from that conference, the winner of that conference, wasn't eligible because it's transitioning from D2 to D1.

So, 16 seed Fairleigh Dickinson knocked off one seed Purdue? Now that is a monumental upset even by March Madness standards. Okay, but now let me get a little deeper and a little more personal on three other Cinderella stories that I played some small part in because I was there for each of these in my own special little way. The first one is the most obvious one.

the all-time most publicized and acclaimed Cinderella team was Team USA shocking the Soviet pros at the 1980 Winter Olympics in Lake Placid. Remember, that team

of our amateurs, some of them on their way to playing in the NHL, but they played an exhibition game against said Soviets just before the Olympics at Madison Square Garden. They lost 10 to 3. 10 to 3? I've told this story before, I'll make it quick, but that Friday night, I'm there covering Winter Olympic sports and I'm out of gas and out of options and out of ideas. So I asked the press liaison,

"You know, our guys are playing the Soviets tonight, just down the street, Lake Placid Arena. Any seats left for that one?" He said, "Seats? I got a bunch of seats. Nobody wants to go because they think it's going to be an annihilation." I said, "Give me one. I'm going to go. I got nothing else." And you know the rest of the story. That was the semifinal, obviously. They had to beat Finland after that night to win the gold, which they did.

It's a great story. I was there in the front row. I experienced it. I feel blessed to have done that. But one that meant slightly more just to me occurred in 1983 at the pit in Albuquerque, New Mexico at the Final Four. On that Final Four Saturday, I covered a semifinal game between what was called Phi Slamma Jamma and the University of Houston squad.

against what was called the Doctors of Dunk from Louisville. And it was a flat-out NBA preview. And as you know, I'm a big NBA guy. It was up and down, right and left, dunk, bombs. It was just crazy NBA-style basketball. And I loved every last second of it. It was 94 to 81 Cougs. It was Olajuwon and Drexler and Michael Young and

Nisho, Alvin Franklin, Benny Anders. It was something. What a show Phi Slamma Jamma put on that day. And I immediately wrote in my Dallas Times Herald column for the next day that it's over, that poor North Carolina State is going to get annihilated in the championship game on Monday night, that they should basically just call it off and award Phi Slamma Jamma the championship.

I was there on Monday night, and what a sight to behold that was. An all-time Cinderella story. Jim Valvano's North Carolina State hung in because there's no shot clock, hung in, kept the score down and close, and in the waning seconds, Derek Wittenberg shot an air ball, shot an air ball with the score tied.

Lorenzo Charles spotted it in the air, timed it perfectly. For some reason, Akeem Olajuwon, as great as he was about to be in the NBA, sort of lost it in the lights, sort of lost his bearings. And Lorenzo Charles put it right in at the buzzer to win 54-52. You look back at that NC State team, they were six seed. They had one great escape after another along the NCAA trail.

It started out, they played 11 Pepperdine. It was double overtime in the first game. Played UNLV, a one-point game that they escaped by. Then they played the one seed, Virginia, beat them 63-62. It's just one thing after another. It was magical mystery ride to knocking off Vice Lama Jama. So I, just because I looked so stupid and so foolish, I somehow valued that Cinderella story a little even above Cinderella.

the '80 Olympic hockey story, which brings me to my all-time favorite. This will probably surprise you, but there's a personal punchline to this one. 1960 Pittsburgh Pirates World Series. You should go look up the scores if you're interested because you want to talk about Cinderella story,

They're up against the biggest, baddest team ever. To me, you could argue this, but it's one of those Yankee teams. This was the 1960 Yankees, obviously featuring Mantle, Maris, Yogi Bear, Whitey Ford, Elston Howard, Tony Kubik, Bobby Richardson, Moose Scouring at first base.

I wasn't a Yankee fan, but I was in awe. And if you look at the three games they won leading to game seven, it was by a composite score of 38-3 that they won those three games. They won 16-3, 10-0, and 12-0. It was a mismatch. But somehow, the Pittsburgh Pirates...

stole three games, three close low scoring games they stole. I don't know how they did it, but they did. This is back in the days the games were played during the day. I was in grade school in Oklahoma City. I was a huge baseball fan, but not a Yankee fan, St. Louis Cardinal fan.

That wouldn't start for another few years, their dynasty. But the point was, was I interested? Yes, I was interested. So game seven is played afternoon. I'm in third grade. And this is back in the day, you'd take your transistor radio and try to sneak your little

ear plug into your ear and hope that, in this case, my teacher, Mrs. Lowther, third grade, Mayfair grade school, didn't see it. She liked baseball, so she let me get away with it here and there. But for some reason on that given day, I got sick. I don't know how I got sick. I got the flu. I don't know what it was. It just came over me and I just felt terrible. So Mrs. Lowther liked me. And so I mentioned to her, I just feel terrible.

And then I'm starting to think, man, I'm probably getting pretty contagious. She said, go see the nurse. So I go and the nurse, of course, just sent me home. My parents worked. So I had to walk home. That's fine. And I thought, I'll just go home and try to go to sleep and sleep this off. So I'm on the couch. And of course, I turn on the World Series because I'm interested. It's game seven. And I swear to you, I'm not exaggerating this one iota. I turn on the game just in time for the bottom of the ninth. And I look up and the score is nine to nine.

What? It's 9-9? Because I thought it would be another blowout for the Yankees. I wasn't even that interested. So I'm lying sick on my couch, and the leadoff batter in the bottom of the ninth is the little second baseman Bill Mazeroski. He had homered 11 times that regular season. Not bad for a second baseman. He had some pop, but he's just a little second baseman. Ralph Terry whines, and he fires.

And Bill Mazeroski jacks it over the left field fence, over the ivy in old Forbes Field, over Yogi Berra's head out in left field. I'd never seen anything like it. It just knocked me right off the couch. I got to witness that because I got legitimately sick. I didn't fake it. I was legitimately sick. And because I witnessed it, it's the single greatest thing

shocking baseball moment to me in World Series history. And I was there for Kirk Gibson. I can go on and on. But this was against the 1960 Yankees. And seeing Yogi just look up over his head and have to stand there and watch the ball fly over the wall. The Bronx Bombers lost in the bottom of the ninth. That to me was the greatest Cinderella team story I ever saw. And I did see it. All right, suffer me this. My movie critic hat is on.

You know how much Ernestine and I love our movies. So last Friday, she and I did something we've rarely done since the pandemic hit. We went to a movie theater. We had to experience the fourth installment of John Wick in a theater, not in the living room. We had become huge Wick fans. And that was since that fateful night way back in 2014.

I was living in Bristol, Connecticut, working at ESPN. We went to the multiplex in Farmington, Connecticut to see something that we were only vaguely aware of. Somehow Keanu Reeves is going to play this character called John Wick. We had low to no expectations. Isn't it beautiful when you go to a movie and you just have no expectations? You really don't know what you're walking into and you get knocked out of your seat and you have one of those experiences that's

feels almost life-changing. That happened to us that night. It was just so new and different. And Keanu was John Wick. And it was just one scene after another. It got off to a little bit of a slow start, but it's like you get one of those John Wick karate kicks right between the eyes in a great way. And you sit back and you say, wow,

Here came the Russian mobster's evil son. And then there were dinner reservations. If you know what I'm talking about, you'll know what I'm talking about. And then there was Jimmy the cop at the door. And then there's the Assassin's Hotel. And then there are the vintage cars and the car chases. There's the Mustang. There's the SS396, two of my all-time favorite cars. There's the disco shootout. There's the church shootout.

There's the sauna scene to the song I like, "Kaleidos Think," as he's shooting out the glass after the evil sun. He was the boogeyman, as they called him, seeking revenge. Final scene, the vet's office, and then taking home the pit bull to replace the beagle who had been killed by the bad guys. We were hooked! Whew! Keanu just oozed, breathed, and seethed revenge.

It was such beautifully choreographed mayhem, all set to music. The body count was just laughably high, and John Wick does make you chuckle. It's all bullets, it's all fists, with very, very little dialogue. It was, to me, Clint Eastwood all over again as the man with no name. If you know the Spaghetti Westerns, Good, the Bad, and the Ugly, Hang Him High.

for a few dollars more, fistful of dollars, all those, it's that man with no name. It's High Plains Drifter in a different package, Keanu's package. It's Keanu dressed, black suit, black shirt, black tie, monotoned, monochromatic killing machine. Never seen anything quite like it. Had a friend of mine the other day say, he tried to watch the first one and he said,

Keanu's such a bad actor. Well, okay, I get what you're saying because there's very little dialogue, but you want to talk about presence, screen presence, the long black hair hanging, soaking wet. I mean, just takes over the screen. He doesn't need to say much because these pictures are worth a million words. In fact, I read the stats that it got less and less dialogue through Wick 2, 3, and 4.

In this final installment, he speaks a grand total of 380 words in about three hours. In the opener, the original John Wick 1, he spoke 484 words in about half the time because it's only about an hour and a half. So 380 in three hours versus 484 in an hour and a half. That's what happened to John Wick.

So, Ernstine and I were there for opening day, John Wick 2, John Wick 3, and then last Friday, John Wick 4. And I must admit, I had the highest hopes for 4, probably too high. It definitely has memorable moments, lots of great callbacks, there's lots of kung fu fighting, there's another disco battle, vintage car, motorcycle chases, there's a callback dog.

There's an astonishing high traffic battle at the Arc de Triomphe in Paris. There's actually one great new villain that I really liked who looks like Rex Ryan to me, if you've seen it, with a gold grill. And he presides over my favorite scene in John Wick 4. It's a card game with a hilariously inspired outcome. I have to be honest, after a while, the fight scenes...

featuring the monotone, monochromatic Keanu Reeves become monotonous. First three wicks averaged about 100 kills per movie for a grand total of, I think it's 299. John Wick 4 has somewhere around 150 kills. We actually, when we first sat down, we said, let's try to keep a body count. We lasted like five minutes because it goes so fast. I

I couldn't absorb the movie while trying to keep track of the body count. They're just impossible to count. But near the end, John Wick does use those dragon's breath bullets. So he not only shoots, but he burns his bad guys. But in the very end, without any spoiler alert, he ends up having to fight his way up a stairway. I think it's like 222 steps. He has to do it twice, killing dozens and dozens of assassins trying to kill him.

And, well, I finally just got tired of watching. John Wick kills bad guys the same way, the same way, the same way for two hours and 49 minutes. His signature move is to shoot them twice right in the face. At the end, he might hit them, kick them, and boom, boom, shoots them twice right in the face. Love it for a while, but for two hours and 49 minutes, then I read that the director...

Chad Stahelski, the original director's cut was 3 hours and 45 minutes, and that it pained him greatly to have to cut it down to 2:49. So this is all you need to know. He has fallen so in love with this character that he's lost all objectivity. I could have cut at least 30 or 40 minutes out of John Wick 4 and not hurt it a bit. Again, the original was an hour and 31 minutes.

You know why the original was so effectively great? Because early on, some thugs break into John Wick's house. At that point, he's a retired assassin just trying to chill in the Jersey birds. But they break in and they actually get away with surprising him and they beat the unholy hell out of him and they kill his beagle puppy. That John Wick was shockingly vulnerable. He was extremely human.

He had just retired, and that week, at the end of the first big disco battle, this is in the original, he loses the final fight to the baddest of the villains. Then he loses to that same villain again and nearly loses his life. And I got to tell you, Ernestine and I went straight home from John Wick 4 and re-watched the original for the first time since we saw it in the movie theater. And we were mesmerized by the story.

the character development. How much John Wick missed his wife, who had just died tragically of an illness. And when Wick unleashes his revenge, it was so much easier to root for him because he was still mortal. By John Wick 4, he's become this invincible, unkillable superhero. He gets shot at four billion times in John Wick 4. And obviously, I won't give it away, but he...

He does not get hit, though he does get hit at the very end. I'll leave that to your imagination. But by John Wick 4, he's somebody else that I found increasingly less appealing. And there is a scene at the very end, there's a surprise, you could call it a flip ending, a shocking ending. But to me, it's just deflating, it's disappointing. It doesn't really fit with the flow of the first two hours and 40 minutes.

So as much as I like John Wick 4, in totality, it's this amazing cinematic event achievement. I just couldn't love it. Maybe it was just too much of a great thing. Too much, I don't know, I used to love blueberry cheesecake. Used to be my favorite. I wouldn't eat it anymore, but it'd be like sitting down and eating four blueberry cheesecakes all at once. Obviously, that wouldn't sit well. John Wick 4 is almost twice as long

and about half as good as the original. In fact, I'll take "Atomic Blonde," starring Charlize Theron, over "John Wick 2," "3," and "4." And by the way, "Atomic Blonde" was directed by David Leitch, who co-directed the original "John Wick." I'm obviously glad I saw "John Wick 4" just because of what an event it was. We had fun going to it, anticipating it, but it just left me wanting less.

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Speaking of the Final Four and the looming NBA playoffs, please allow me to get this off my chest. There is a phrase I hear relentlessly from basketball announcers and commentators that grates on my nerves like fingernails on a chalkboard. I have no idea how this ever got started and, so to speak, got legs.

Now it has become the go-to basketball cliche and I just don't understand. That cliche is constantly applied to jump shots, three-point shots, sometimes free throws. That cliche is knock it down, as in he knocked down that jumper or she just keeps knocking down shots. What? To me, shooting a basketball is a beautiful movement.

the smooth release, the ball reverse spinning so perfectly on its arc through the net, swishing. To me, pure shooting is an art form. The last thing you do is knock down a shot. You knock down bowling pins. You knock down your opponent in the ring or the octagon. You do not knock down jump shots. There should be no such term as knockdown shooter. Rembrandt did not knock down

or knock out paintings. That cliche should be abolished. This is Howard from Forest Hills, Queens. How many of the 50 states have you been to? Which states haven't you visited? That is a random question that makes me stop cold in my tracks

And it actually makes me a little tired when I start to realize just how much I have traveled all for work, all for this profession, all for my passion in life, media. I have been to 45 of the 50 states in every case on assignment to cover a sports event. There was one exception. I was assigned...

just before Christmas one year to go to Fargo, North Dakota to cover unfortunately Roger Maris' funeral. That was on assignment. That's why I went to North Dakota. I have not been to South Dakota or Wyoming or Alaska and I have not been to New Hampshire or Maine. So how did I get to let's say Mississippi?

As a senior at Vanderbilt in Nashville, Tennessee, I covered my Commodores at Ole Miss in football and my Commodores in Starkville against Mississippi State. So to quote the Beatles, mine has been a long and winding road and I have loved every centimeter of it. Final thought. My streak finally came to an end. I told you in an earlier podcast,

I haven't missed a single day of doing at least one hour of cardio, that's running or exercise biking, since May of 1998. Maybe I jinxed myself by telling you this. It happened two weeks back, I'm sorry, two weekends back, and I'll admit I'm still a little shook over all that transpired. Shannon and I had that Friday off from Undisputed, so...

I scheduled a facial treatment that I try to go for maybe twice a year. It's called Thermage. It's a heat treatment that, I don't know, it freshens up my face a little bit, maybe makes me look a day or two younger. After all, I am on TV every single day. And after all, I do not sleep. I might get four or five hours a night because I am up at 2 a.m. every morning, weekday morning out here in L.A. to get ready for Undisputed.

So, the dermatologist that I do see usually just does Thermage on each of my cheeks. But she had some time and she asked me did I want her to try my forehead on top of my cheeks. I thought, okay, I'll give it a shot. Some people take nitrous oxide, otherwise known as laughing gas, when they undergo Thermage. I don't. It's not exactly pleasant. It does get hot.

I do have to lock in, concentrate, be completely ready to tough it out, but I've never had any trouble at all making it through one hour of Thermage. 30 minutes on each cheek. Then again, this was an hour and a half without a break. I stayed tensed up, fist balled, dead straight for an hour and a half. I was lying down on my back with my head tilted back and down past parallel.

Pretty awkward position. Not pleasant, but you just figure it'll be over before you know it. And the truth was it was. Now, know this. My neck has bothered me for, I don't know, 10 years. It just stays a little stiff and sore. Probably yours does too. Mine's probably from stress. I should probably get it massaged some, but I don't. It's just an annoyance, not a problem.

So I finished my Thermage treatment, happy camper, went home about 6 p.m. And when I arrived, I planned to finish a weight workout that I had run out of time to conclude before I had to go for Thermage. As I've told you before, I do not miss and I never do not finish. So I start lifting. It was a back day. This was all my back exercises, heavier weight for those. And I started thinking, man,

My head is really starting to hurt. Then I started feeling a little queasy. Me? Queasy? What's going on? So I pushed through the rest of the workout, but felt worse and worse. And I told Ernestine, my wife, I'm sorry, I'm just not hungry. She said, what? You just worked out hard. You got to eat. Tried to eat. Food had lost its appeal. I'm starting to feel sicker and sicker at my stomach. Do you say to your stomach? I grew up saying sick at my stomach.

Anyway, I started to feel dizzy. All of a sudden, my neck felt like it had a migraine in my neck. Tried some Pepto-Bismol. Haven't tried that in, feels like, 20 years. I went to bed. I thought, I'll just sleep it off. Slept for 10 hours, no problem. Thought I'd licked it. But I still felt weirdly dizzy when I moved my head too quickly from side to side. Eh, no big deal. So, I drank a protein shake. I ate a bagel.

I got on my exercise bike as always. I did okay for my usual hour. Got off, had another protein shake. Tried to lie down on the couch. Ernestine was there, a little Maltese hazel right there at my side. You could just tell that she was sensing something was off. And Ernestine says to me, you are as white as a sheet, meaning scary pale. That's when it hit me. I looked up at Ernestine and I said, you're not going to believe this.

And up I jumped, dizzy as I was, and I stumbled headlong toward the bathroom. I can count on one hand the times I have thrown up in my life. I just don't vomit. I don't know why. I guess I've been lucky. I just don't. That Saturday, I assumed the position down on my knees in front of that toilet, Hazel watching, saying, what are you doing? I threw up everything. And then I threw up some more. And then I threw up a third time.

I was dumbfounded. I was blindsided. Only later did it hit me. My neck had gone crazy because it was locked down in that position while I was so tensed up for an entire hour and a half. My equilibrium had gotten messed up. I was having balance issues. I was even afraid to take a shower. I was afraid I might fall in the shower because I couldn't really keep my balance when I stood up. Maybe there's some vertigo going on.

I have never, ever done well with motion sickness. Not that I ever vomited, but I get car sick very easily when I'm not driving. And that Saturday night, my neck was an all-time wreck, and then so was I. I vomited two more times. I couldn't keep anything. I couldn't keep water down. So when I woke up Sunday, it hit me. Not today. Sunday is my hard run day. Every Sunday, I run the hardest I run all week. But I

I just didn't feel like even risking climbing up on my exercise bike. I took Sunday off. I took a day off for the first time since May of 1998. My streak was broken. And I got to tell you, I was actually just fine with it. My dizziness went away the following day on Tuesday. My neck calmed back down. I did try taking a couple of cortisone shots to see if it would calm it way down, but I don't think it helped that much.

Now my neck is back to being its normal, just annoyance. I'm fine. So from here on, I'll only do a one-hour thermage if, in fact, I subject myself to any more thermage. No more hour and a half. Maybe I'll take a break even during the one hour just to work the kinks out of my neck. And finally, maybe this is too much information, but I am a student of the body. I was astonished by what

I learned about vomiting because I just haven't vomited that much. Forgive me if it's TMI, but vomiting is such a bizarre reflex action that you just can't control it. You can't stop it. I am a control freak. I want to control everything in my life. When I see vomiting in skits on Saturday Night Live, it's hilarious. Projectile vomiting.

But when you're going through it, there is nothing funny about it at all because you are completely out of control. When you feel it coming up, it cannot be stopped. Man, I hope I never again experience vomiting as long as I live.

That is it for episode 58. Thank you for listening and or watching. Thanks to Jonathan Berger and his All Pro team for making this show go. Thanks to Tyler Korn for producing. Please remember, Undisputed, every weekday, 9.30 to noon Eastern, the Skip Bayless Show, every week.