‘Ali’ With Bill Simmons, Chris Ryan, and Van Lathan

Summary

The Rewatchables: ‘Ali’ (2001)

With Bill Simmons, Chris Ryan, and Van Lathan
Date: July 7, 2026

Episode Overview

In this episode, the Rewatchables crew—Bill Simmons, Chris Ryan, and Van Lathan—dive deep into Michael Mann’s 2001 sports biopic Ali, starring Will Smith. On the film’s 25th anniversary, the hosts reflect on what makes this flawed but beloved movie so rewatchable, the towering legacy of Muhammad Ali as both athlete and political figure, and how Michael Mann’s distinctive style translated to sports storytelling. The conversation explores the challenges of dramatizing such an iconic life, the film’s critical and commercial mixed reception, and the legacy left by its cast and director.

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Key Discussion Points & Insights

The Challenge of a Biopic About Mythic Figures

• The Problem of Ali’s Cultural Weight:
  • Bill: “There’s the myth around the person almost made it like, ah, you can’t do a movie about them. They’re too famous. And they do this with Ali. And it mostly works. Right?” (03:12)
  • Chris: “Ali was the most famous athlete of the 20th century, which hangs over the movie.” (03:53)
• Comparison to Other Sports Biopics:
  • Films about lesser-known athletes (Cinderella Man, King Richard) aren’t burdened with recreating a living legend in quite the same way as Ali.

Structure, Style, & the Michael Mann Factor

• Documentary Style & “The Insider” Parallels:
  • Van: “It follows documentary sensibility… It feels almost like a doc. And it’s narrative style in that they have so much to cover that they’re just like, we’re gonna do away with the arc of a character and just show these crucial moments.” (04:53)
  • Mann’s style is dissected as being more about grand themes—defiance, institutions stifling individuality—than about literal biography.
• The Opening 20 Minutes:
  • Bill: “Maybe the best 20 minutes that Mann’s ever put together…is the opening 20 minutes of this movie.” (13:16)
  • Chris: “When you watch the Open, you start to think, like, you’re thinking, is this going to be one of the best movies?” (13:32)

Tone, Expectations, & Audience Reaction

• Ali as More Meditative & Less Joyful
  • Chris: “This movie treats Muhammad Ali in a way that he’s not remembered culturally… Ali was fun… he was quick… he did it all with this tremendous flair.” (07:00)
• Roger Ebert’s Critique:
  • Bill quotes Ebert’s review: “…lacks much of the flash, fire and humor… shot more in the tone of a eulogy than a celebration.” (55:34)

Ali’s Reality: Flaws and Multitudes

• Ali’s Complexity:
  • Van: “These guys [Ali, Jordan, Tiger] can contain multitudes… they don’t want to believe that the government and his family, his own personal peccadillos… that stuff weighed on him.” (07:50)
• Ali’s Cruelty Towards Frazier:
  • Bill: “Ali was like a pretty mean spirited guy sometimes. Like the shit he did to Frazier was brutal.” (15:06)

Will Smith’s Performance

• Physical Transformation & Limitations:
  • Van: “He’s as close as you’re going to get to an actor being Ali, but you’re just not. You just don’t see how somebody becomes Ali.” (32:14)
  • Chris: “My hottest take is that this is one of the strongest performances in a biopic. Whenever Will is not talking.” (32:48)
• Comparisons to Jamie Foxx:
  • Jamie’s supporting turn as Bundini is seen as a blueprint to his future Oscar-winning roles.
    • Bill: “Who wins the Oscar first? Jamie Foxx.” (42:11)

Supporting Cast & Standout Performances

• Mario Van Peebles as Malcolm X:
  • Chris: “That performance is phenomenal.” (22:19)
• Jon Voight as Howard Cosell:
  • Bill: “He gets nominated for an Oscar. That’s like, you can’t—who can play Howard Cosell? …he’s really good.” (46:04)
• Jamie Foxx as Bundini Brown:
  • Multiple hosts agree: Foxx is electric and lights up every scene he’s in.

Michael Mann’s Directorial Run

• “Imperial Phase”:
  • Bill: “Last of the Mohicans, Heat, The Insider, Ali… It’s a pretty good four in a row that have nothing in common, but then there’s common threads in each one.” (29:02–29:16)

Cultural Context & Legacy

• Ali and the Burden of Representation:
  • Van: “He’s probably the richest subject for sports writing ever.” (18:21)
• Comparisons to Later Athlete Icons:
  • Chris: “Jordan is probably that guy for my direct generation… but it’s nowhere near [Ali’s] importance.” (35:23)
• Social Media Era Hypothesis:
  • Brief discussion about how Ali might have operated in the age of constant exposure and social media.

Problems & Flaws with the Movie

• Editing & Structure:
  • Bill: “We just moved three years. We go from 1971 to 1974. We’re, like, painstakingly going through all these things, and all of a sudden…it’s like…he had thirteen fights during that stretch!…and they just kind of skip ahead.” (06:02)
• No On-Screen Dates / Jump Cuts:
  • Craig: “It felt like, I don’t know what year I’m in. I don’t know where I am.” (25:58)
• Music & Visual Style:
  • Van: “I do not think this is the right score for this movie… it takes you out of the time zone, the time period.” (82:53)
  • Chris: “Michael Mann’s grainy digital type of look… I don’t know if it works for [the] period in this one.” (83:49)

Boxing, Realism, & Cinematic Technique

• Fight Scenes Analysis:
  • Bill: “I thought the Foreman fight specifically was really, really, really close to the actual fight.” (64:32)
  • Van prefers Scorsese’s stylization in Raging Bull but acknowledges Mann’s commitment to realism.

Notable Behind-the-Scenes/Production Facts

• Nearly a Decade in Development Hell:
  • Van: “It is worth noting that this script was like in development hell…It’s kind of a miracle the movie hangs together as well as it does.” (47:06)
• Ali’s Personal Approval Was Required:
  • Bill: “Ali had the rights to this and wasn’t going to do it unless he felt good about the lead person.” (32:08)
• Will Smith and Michael Mann Put Up Salaries When Over-Budget:
  • Bill: “Will Smith and Michael Mann put up their salaries that the movie went over budget.” (97:20)

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Notable and Memorable Quotes

• “It’s the closest thing that they’ll ever have. We’re never gonna do better than this.” – Van Lathan on Ali biopic (03:25)
• “This is about him winning the title, losing it, getting it back.” – Bill Simmons on the film’s structure (05:36)
• “The actual man is actually more interesting than the fairy tale is.” – Van Lathan (14:49)
• “He was the most charismatic athlete we’ve ever had… Ali was beautiful. Everybody loved him. He was, everyone was attracted to him.” – Bill Simmons (18:11)
• “Ali was like a pretty mean-spirited guy sometimes. Like, the shit he did to Frazier was brutal.” – Bill Simmons (15:06)
• “Whenever Will is not talking… there’s so much action happening… that’s when maybe you lose a little bit.” – Chris Ryan on Will Smith’s performance (32:48–33:42)
• “Jamie is legitimately one of the most talented people, like Sammy Davis Jr type shit, that we’ve ever seen.” – Chris Ryan (44:10)
• “Michael Mann doesn’t make humorous and celebratory movies.” – Van Lathan on Ebert’s criticism (56:58)
• “Free ain’t easy. Free is real. And real is a motherfucker.” – Van Lathan (108:31)
• “You could even say the first 24 minutes. The only thing that, like, approaches that, for me, is the Zaire arrival, like, the Kinshasa arrival…” – Van Lathan on most rewatchable scenes (67:58)

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Timestamps for Major Segments

• Sports Biopics & Creating Myth on Film: 01:34–04:53
• Capturing Ali’s Personality, Tone vs. Reality: 06:36–10:58
• Opening 20 Minutes & Michael Mann’s Stylistic Choices: 12:32–15:39
• Ali’s Flawed Humanity: The Frazier Rivalry: 15:06–17:32
• Will Smith’s Performance & Identity: 32:14–34:08
• Supporting Cast (Jamie Foxx, Jon Voight, Van Peebles): 42:11–46:12
• Race, Cultural Context, and Directorial Controversy: 29:31–31:08
• Critical & Commercial Reception, Ebert’s Review: 55:07–56:58
• Biggest Flaws (Jump Cuts, Structure): 25:56–26:55
• Fight Scenes & Boxing Realism: 63:52–66:00

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Awards, Categories, and Best Scenes

• Best Opening Sequence:
  • Sam Cooke concert, Ali training, Liston weigh-in, Malcolm X voiceover (13:16–13:51)
• Best Supporting Performance:
  • Jamie Foxx, Bundini Brown – “That’s the star” (81:06)
  • Mario Van Peebles as Malcolm X (22:19)
  • Jon Voight as Howard Cosell (46:04)
• Weakest Link:
  • Sudden time jumps, lack of on-screen dates (“We just jumped three years...”) (82:43)
  • Score/Visual Style mismatch (82:53)
• Best Cinematography:
  • “My favorite shot, the running in Zaire.” – Chris Ryan (79:43)
• Most Rewatchable Scene:
  • Opening 20 minutes (57:54)
• Best Needle Drop:
  • The Sam Cooke/Apollo section

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Generational Distance & Legacy

• Modern Audiences’ Disconnection:
  • Craig: “I couldn’t really feel the weight of Ali’s talent as a boxer in this movie… When the movie ended, I was kind of like, I don’t know what my takeaway is…” (110:47–111:32)
• Enduring Value:
  • Bill: “I don’t think I’ll be watching the Freddie Mercury biopic 25 years from now, but this keeps sucking me in.” (109:44)

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Final Reflections

• Ali is not a standard celebratory biopic—Michael Mann aimed for mythic, sometimes meditative, sometimes deeply flawed realism, leaving a film that’s rich in moments and performance but confounding to some first-time viewers.
• Will Smith’s commitment is universally respected even if no actor can fully embody Ali; Jamie Foxx’s arrival as an actor is cemented.
• The podcast ponders what a Spike Lee-directed Ali might have looked like and how cultural attitudes have shifted around biopics, directorial voice, and whose stories get told.
• Despite its flaws, the film remains a “rewatchable” classic, worthy of deep discussion and returning to for its ambition, moments of cinematic artistry, and the challenge of dramatizing a life larger than legend.

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For Next Time

• The next episode will cover the 30th anniversary of She’s the One—available to watch on Netflix.

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This summary captures all key topics and conversations from The Rewatchables’ Ali episode, with proper segmenting, speaker attribution, timestamps, and thematic highlights.

Transcript

[Bill Simmons]

The rewatchables is brought to you by the Ringer podcast network, where you can find higher learning.

[Chris Ryan]

Yeah.

[Bill Simmons]

And midnight boys.

[Chris Ryan]

Don't forget it.

[Bill Simmons]

And ring or tailgate.

[Chris Ryan]

Going crazy right now.

[Bill Simmons]

Yeah, it's going crazy.

[Chris Ryan]

Yeah, man.

[Van Lathan]

Jeff Kessler coming on.

[Chris Ryan]

Kessler was nuts. We're having so much fun. We talked about Stacey Dash and Ben Carson on the last episode.

[Bill Simmons]

Damn cr.

[Chris Ryan]

Yeah.

[Bill Simmons]

The watch. And then you're doing beautiful pod on Adam Friedland's podcast.

[Chris Ryan]

Yeah.

[Van Lathan]

And talk the Thrones.

[Bill Simmons]

Pop on big picture and talk the Thrones.

[Van Lathan]

Yeah.

[Bill Simmons]

Still Thrones. Same show or we go backwards.

[Van Lathan]

Yeah, we're moving slightly forward.

[Bill Simmons]

Yeah. The Viking era.

[Van Lathan]

It is the Viking era. It's the Norwegian national team.

[Bill Simmons]

Interesting.

[Van Lathan]

Erling Holland's showing up. Yeah.

[Bill Simmons]

We're going to do a movie called Ali, directed by Michael Mann, who is about to take, I think, the lead in the director rankings, or at least high five, as he should be. Our guy, Michael Mann. Ali is next.

[Chris Ryan]

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[Bill Simmons]

This episode is brought to you by Pure Michigan. In Grand Rapids, every moment feels like a scene worth replaying. Every riverside stroll, every slow afternoon sipping small batch brews. Every guitar riff drifting out of the city's brand new amphitheater. This is a place where everything feels cinematic, like you've stepped into a highlight reel that's yours to explore. Ranked as the number one city on the rise from LinkedIn, Grand Rapids invites you to find a rhythm all your own, season after season in Pure Michigan. Find your [e-mail]. All right, guys. Ali, a movie that we all love that's super flawed and we all love it anyway. And it came out 25 years ago this fall. Starring Will Smith, directed by our guy, Michael Mann. Sports biopics. So there's the biopics about the guys that weren't super duper famous. Cinderella Man, Rudy, Raging Bull, La Motta was famous, but not famous famous. King Richard, Seabiscuit, Secretariat, Chariots of Fire, rush. Really good one. Borg versus McEnroe. Then you have like the I, Tonya the rookie blindside. Those types. You have the Disney ones like 42 race and radio. The biggest athletes I think they've ever tried to do this with are Prefontaine and Ali.

[Chris Ryan]

Right.

[Bill Simmons]

Where there was, like, the myth around, the person almost made it like, ah, you can't do a movie about them. They're too famous. And they do this with Ali. And it mostly works. Right.

[Van Lathan]

It's the closest thing that they'll ever have.

[Bill Simmons]

We're never gonna do better than this.

[Chris Ryan]

Yes.

[Van Lathan]

Yes.

[Chris Ryan]

Yeah. The Prefontaine thing was interesting because they released two Prefontaine movies within, like, two years of each other.

[Van Lathan]

Yeah.

[Bill Simmons]

Yeah. The better one was Without Limits, which is a really great movie.

[Chris Ryan]

Good movie. Yeah, really good movie.

[Van Lathan]

That's Crud Up.

[Chris Ryan]

So it's Crudup and Leto, right? Yeah, Crudup One is great. The Leto one is great.

[Bill Simmons]

Leto One's watchable.

[Chris Ryan]

They're both great. Neither one of them are bad. But I actually didn't know who Steve Prefontaine was before that movie came out.

[Bill Simmons]

It was like a blind spot. Whereas Ali was the most famous athlete

[Chris Ryan]

of the 20th century, which hangs over the movie. Ali had his own biopic, obviously, that he had starred in. And then a couple years before this movie came out, When We Were Kings comes out and. Which was like this really penetrating look into Ali versus Foreman. And that heightened my expectations for this movie, I think. I think that documentary affected a lot of people the way they went to the movie.

[Bill Simmons]

I think that's the best sports documentary I ever made. Really, I do.

[Chris Ryan]

No Hoop Dreams. Hoop Dreams is paralyzing Hoop Dreams for

[Bill Simmons]

a degree of difficulty. Yes. When We Were Kings. It's, I think, the perfect sports documentary because another time had passed.

[Van Lathan]

Would you put Last Dance in there?

[Bill Simmons]

I mean, last dance is 10 episodes.

[Van Lathan]

Sure.

[Bill Simmons]

So. So that's almost like a docuseries. I don't think that could be a documentary. When We Were Kings is just like, if you want to. I mean, this is kind of what this movie tries to do, too. If you want to kind of capture how charismatic, lovable, fascinating, galvanizing Ali was, that probably does the best job.

[Van Lathan]

I think the film actually follows documentary structure in some ways. Obviously, it follows documentary sensibility, style. Wise man making all these efforts to really recreate moments. And, yeah, it's completely stylized the way all Michael Mann stuff is. But, like, he's out there with lipstick cameras, you know? I mean, like, in the middle of the night, shooting digitally with Will Smith running through neighborhoods. You know what I mean? So it's like. It's as real as it can get, but it feels Almost like a doc. And it's narrative style in that they have so much to cover that they're just like, we're gonna do away with the. Like, the arc of a character in a lot of ways and just show these crucial moments.

[Bill Simmons]

But it makes sense how they do it. I agree with what you said, where they're just like, this is about him winning the title, losing it, getting it back.

[Van Lathan]

Yes.

[Bill Simmons]

Right. They didn't try to do the.

[Van Lathan]

And it's about his political awakening, which I think.

[Bill Simmons]

But it's about those 10 years, and then they try to go. And all this other stuff that. The problem I had is this either should have been. And I. I love this movie, and I've watched it a bunch of times, but it's flawed. This either could have been an hour 45, or, like, 10 hours.

[Chris Ryan]

Right? Yeah.

[Bill Simmons]

You know what I mean? Because you were bringing in all of his female relationships. We're bringing in Islam in a real way and Malcolm X and all of these other themes that I think you need. But it's also like, we. I mean, this is the weakest link of the movie. We just moved three years. We go from 1971 to 1974.

[Craig Horlbeck]

Yes.

[Bill Simmons]

We're, like, painstakingly going through all these things, and all of a sudden it's like. I mean, he had 13 fights during that stretch. He got his jaw broken by Norton. All these things happen, and they just kind of skip ahead.

[Chris Ryan]

I think that there's a. The Ebert. We'll get to Roger Ebert on this, but in his review of the movie, I think is the thing that bothered people the most about the film is that this movie treats Muhammad Ali in a way that he's not remembered culturally.

[Bill Simmons]

Well, way more serious and reflective.

[Chris Ryan]

And, like, when you read Roger Ebert's review, what he essentially says is that, like, Ali was fun. I hung out with Ali, and Ali was quippy, and Ali was quick, and he was that. And when we talk about Muhammad Ali, even when people talk about all the political trials that he went through in his life, they talk about him in this way that he could put a smile on it. He did it all with this tremendous flair.

[Bill Simmons]

Twinkle in his eye.

[Chris Ryan]

A twinkle in his eye. This movie kind of explores that being part performance. And I do not think that people responded to that very well. Like, there's a version of Ali and, like, even, like somebody like Martin Luther King Jr. You get a Santa Claus version of Martin Luther King Jr. When he's talked about historically. But if you ever really dug into his life, it was very stressful, anxiety ridden, and in a lot of ways, pained.

[Van Lathan]

One of the fascinating aspects of guys, and there's probably only like half a dozen that I can think of where it's like, Tiger, Jordan, Ali. These people who wind up becoming almost like some icon doesn't even feel like enough of a word for them. Is that the relationship you have to them as like, a younger person or as like a fan changes once you find out more about the context of, like, what made them who they are. So it's like my understanding of Jordan is like, he's the best basketball player in the world. He's the most famous athlete in the world. He's in. In the cartoons, he's selling sneakers. Like, he's delightful. And now my attitude about him is like, almost like a tragedy where he's tortured by competitiveness and, like, what happened to his father and throughout his life is just like carrying around this millstone of. Of a chip on his shoulder about every single slight he's ever experienced so that these guys can contain multitudes. And I just think, man decided in some ways, like, it would have been better if he had called the movie, like, the political awakening of Muhammad Ali or something like that. Like, you know, that would not have.

[Bill Simmons]

I have some stuff about that for later. He basically said he thinks it's a movie about defiance.

[Craig Horlbeck]

Yeah.

[Guest or Sponsor Voice]

Yeah.

[Bill Simmons]

And so Ali's my favorite athlete ever. I mean, like, for real, like, I loved him. And when I was five years old, six years old, I started watching him on Wide World of Sports because he was on all the time and that was like, basically his weekly window, and he would just go on when he didn't even have fights there. There was a joy and a curiosity and like a fun about him that

[Chris Ryan]

even as Skills from Boston, you were

[Bill Simmons]

like, oh, I just.

[Chris Ryan]

That's a black.

[Bill Simmons]

You would turn on.

[Chris Ryan]

Wow, dad, look. You saw. I read about.

[Bill Simmons]

I would see black people on don't do.

[Craig Horlbeck]

I know.

[Bill Simmons]

No, but the thing is, you wouldn't know when he was going to be on Wild Rotor Sports. So you would go. You would turn it on on Saturday. Or, you know, it was usually Saturday. Sometimes I'd have special shows, but it'd be like, I hope Ali's on. And then he would come on, and it wasn't even. Like, he didn't even have a fight. He would just come on to make fun of Jim McKay or Howard Cosell. But he had. And that's what I think when we were King's captures, like, you just see him moving through Zaire. And he's just so curious and loves it. He just wants to connect with everybody. And I don't think the movie totally captured it.

[Chris Ryan]

There's one specific scene that I will never forget. I'm pretty sure it's from When We Were Kings. They do it in this movie. They recreate it from that documentary or maybe an earlier documentary. But when Ali is flying to Africa and he sees a cockpit full.

[Craig Horlbeck]

Right.

[Chris Ryan]

With the pilots in it, that's in the dock. In the documentary, Ali is beaming with pride. Like, he's beaming with pride, and he's using that to teach. And what makes Muhammad Ali who he is as a speaker and as a, like, personality comes through. They approximated in this. And it just doesn't quite feel the same.

[Bill Simmons]

Yeah.

[Chris Ryan]

But I appreciate the movie for going for it. The movie is trying to show you just how small and big Ali's world was at the same time.

[Bill Simmons]

That's why I think it's a win, because I think this could have gone badly in so many ways. That quality we're talking about with Ali. The only person I've seen in real life who has it is Charles Barkley.

[Craig Horlbeck]

Oh.

[Bill Simmons]

Like, I've watched him do it, and he's like that all the time. It doesn't matter what situation he is. He's genuinely curious. He connects with people. He's funny. Like, just enjoys life and enjoys intersecting with everybody. And everybody said that's what Ali was like. Like it didn't matter where he was. And the movie hits it a couple times. Like, they have that scene when he goes to meet Joe Morton at the diner, and then he leaves and he goes outside and he runs into, like, people.

[Chris Ryan]

Yeah.

[Bill Simmons]

And he starts, like, the thing where

[Van Lathan]

she's like, I'm gonna come see your next fight. He's like, you better get there early.

[Bill Simmons]

Yeah. So it taps into it. But I feel like Michael Mann's interpretation of Ali was just kind of darker than how I think Ali, actually.

[Van Lathan]

So it depends on how you want to read the movie. Do you want to read the movie as a sports biopic where you're evaluating it on its rendition of real life events? Do you want to read the movie as a Will Smith movie, which is a movie star vehicle, and as an act of him immersing himself in this character and transforming his body? Or do you want to read it as a Michael Mann movie? And if you read it as a Michael Mann movie, the closest partner it has, and many people have commented on this, is not, like, an original thought by me, but the closest partner it has is the insider, and it's.

[Bill Simmons]

Which he had just made right before.

[Van Lathan]

And it is about a guy being subsumed by things that no matter how big he is, are larger than him.

[Bill Simmons]

Right.

[Van Lathan]

And it's about the government and religion and all these institutions trying to suppress him, weighing down on him, trying to hold him back in his evolution as a human being. That's what's interesting to man about this movie. You know what I mean? And you can see from honestly, what is maybe the best 20 minutes that man's ever put together, and maybe I put it up against almost any other filmmaker's 20 minutes, is that the opening 20 minutes of this movie are the

[Bill Simmons]

reason it's Rewatch Symphony. Yeah.

[Van Lathan]

That covers like, 18 different aspects of American life and does so in a way where your head is spinning around by the time he.

[Chris Ryan]

He.

[Van Lathan]

He knocks out.

[Bill Simmons]

It's almost like that's why he wanted to make the movie. And then he tried to figure out the rest.

[Chris Ryan]

It really. When you watch the Open, you start to think, like, you're thinking, is this going to be one of the best movies? Like, is this going to be going

[Bill Simmons]

to be one of the best movies? I still feel that way in 2026.

[Chris Ryan]

Oh, wait, Sam Cooke is going. Ali is going. Things are happening.

[Van Lathan]

Malcolm X is speaking.

[Chris Ryan]

Malcolm X is speaking. It's moving.

[Bill Simmons]

You're like, we're going backwards on a bus, and there's Emmett Till, and now we're going forward again, right?

[Chris Ryan]

You're like, what the hell is going on? And the energy of that. He almost sets the movie up with that energy, and then he slows it way down.

[Van Lathan]

I mean, it's unsustainable.

[Chris Ryan]

You couldn't do it, right. He says, I want to get into, like, the finer points. I want the viscera of Ali all over me. But I'll say this, though. I think this movie is also him talking about, man. I mean, talking about what he believes Ali was like. He's actually like a theory, right? It's a theory because if you look at Muhammad Ali and just this extraordinary life, but somebody that popped up every time you saw him. I feel like for a lot of people, and I brought it up, I said it before, and like you kind of almost reiterated when you were just talking, they don't want to believe that Muhammad Ali wasn't like that. They don't want to believe that he wasn't on all the time. They don't want to believe that the government and his family, his own personal peccadillos like whether or not he could be a good. They don't want to believe that that stuff weighed on him because it kind of ruins their fairytale about him. And man posits that the actual man is actually more interesting than the fairy tale is.

[Bill Simmons]

I mean, you even could have gone like, what you said about Jordan Ali. I probably read. I've read every Ali book, every Sports Illustrated I've seen every documentary, every book, like, name it. I've consumed it because I loved Ali. Ali was like a pretty mean spirited guy sometimes. Like the he did to Frasier was brutal. And that was one of those things because I loved Ali. And as I got older, Mark Cram wrote a great book about it called Ghosts of Manila. And it's just like what Ali did to Frazier was fucked up.

[Chris Ryan]

You know, the fact that Frazier was helping him and the fact that they had a.

[Bill Simmons]

He tried to present. He tried to push Frazier as he's the. He's the Uncle Tom. I'm on this side, he's on that side. He's corporate.

[Chris Ryan]

Frazier was like, Frazier was like, dude, I was. I'm trying to give you help.

[Bill Simmons]

Frazier hated his guts to the bitter end. Like that's what led to Manila, where Frazier's like, we're fighting to the death now. I hate you this much. Like both. Neither of us will ever be the same after this fight because of what you've done for me, the last to me the last five years. But Ali was like a little like Jordan, like pretty, could really get beat.

[Van Lathan]

Like.

[Bill Simmons]

Yeah.

[Van Lathan]

And left like a left like wreckage in his way.

[Bill Simmons]

Like that stuff he did to Floyd Patterson and Cleveland Williams and then. And then Terrell, which the movie hits where he's so mad that they don't say his name. Like he, he tortured Floyd Patterson. He keeps Floyd Patterson up for like an extra four rounds so he can like keep beating the shit out of him.

[Chris Ryan]

As an aside, I don't know what you guys version of this would be. I'll just ask what is this? Athlete is in the prime of who they are. They are unbeatable. The best they've ever been in.

[Bill Simmons]

Just disappearing for you?

[Chris Ryan]

No, no, no, not disappearing. Just in any sport for you. Like if you wanted to show athletic dominance and excellence, what would you show?

[Bill Simmons]

I would show Ali against Cleveland Williams it, bar none.

[Chris Ryan]

It's not even close. A lethal 215 pound killing machine. The way he breaks him down. If you that that fight, Cleveland Williams was good. That fight is on YouTube. Watch how watch him feel if you're

[Van Lathan]

Asking for, like, a single game.

[Chris Ryan]

Not like a single game of single.

[Bill Simmons]

Jordan against the 93 Suns.

[Chris Ryan]

Right? Like. But if you watch, he comes out first half of the first. The half of the first round fills him out, and then he's got. I got him. And he just starts this beautiful symphony of destruction.

[Van Lathan]

Yeah, there's. There's. It's not for me. It's like. It's hard for me to pick, like, individual games. There's, like, swaths of Bo Jackson or Michael Vick and especially Bonds, right?

[Chris Ryan]

Where you're like, that's a good one.

[Van Lathan]

This is going out, like, it doesn't matter. And, you know, that's Bonds mentality at that point where he was like, there's just nothing you can do to beat me, Brady.

[Bill Simmons]

Second half, Super Bowl, Falcons. No, I mean, come on. Five straight touchdown drives. All the two points. Yeah, yeah. But I mean, Ali's. He's the best heavyweight ever. I would put the Cleveland Williams fight. Give me every other heavyweight. He's winning.

[Chris Ryan]

There's nobody. There's no one at that weight you can put in the ring with him, and they're gonna beat him.

[Bill Simmons]

He's the most charismatic athlete we've ever had. He was in the running for most handsome. I mean, Ali was beautiful. Everybody loved him. He was. Everyone was attracted to him. Oh, shit.

[Van Lathan]

He's probably the richest. Would you say he is the richest subject for sports writing ever?

[Bill Simmons]

The sport. He. He seduced all those sports writers, like,

[Van Lathan]

the sites in the movie.

[Chris Ryan]

Right.

[Bill Simmons]

He would hang out with all of them, especially when they were in Africa because Forma got hurt. And Ali had, like, an extra six weeks with all those guys, like Norman Mailers down there. Or maybe he was at Manila one of the. The two times when he was in locations like that. He would spend real time with them and they would write the most flattering. Like, they fucking loved him. Dick Shapiro, all these people. He just knew how to play the game. But it goes back to the Barkley thing I mentioned. Like, he genuinely was like that. He liked being around whoever. He didn't like being alone. That's why some of the stuff in this movie, I'm like. I just feel like Ali was around people more.

[Van Lathan]

The thing is, is that this.

[Chris Ryan]

He's constantly around people in this movie.

[Bill Simmons]

Well, there's times when he's, like, alone. And so I think if he was alone, there was probably a woman in there.

[Chris Ryan]

Like, not to. Not to cut your wisdom, cr. But, like, there's. I think one of the constant themes in this movie is that he is suffocated. He can't do anything.

[Van Lathan]

Yeah, well, he's always got a photographer. He's always got a religion, a spiritual guide. He's always got a wife or God.

[Bill Simmons]

He's got Bundini selling his belt. Bundini.

[Chris Ryan]

And all of these people's problems. He's so singular in his charisma and his capability that all of these people are like, champ, help me. Champ, what are we going to do? Champ, what's going on?

[Bill Simmons]

Well, he's probably the all time most exploited celebrity we've had, like, in terms of entourage, in terms of the Nation of Islam just taking most of his purse, multiple wives, like, just, you know, he's broke. By the time it was like 1979, he had no money left.

[Van Lathan]

Yeah.

[Bill Simmons]

People just stealing from him left and right.

[Van Lathan]

I tried to find a bunch of interviews. What I was going to say is, I tried to find a bunch of interviews with man about it. And he's obviously like, so, so articulate about his own.

[Bill Simmons]

There was one great one, the Deadline Hollywood one.

[Van Lathan]

I haven't found him address this necessarily, but I really wonder whether, like, the half of him wanted to make a Malcolm X movie because this, the first half of this movie is a Malcolm X movie. I mean, in a lot of ways, it's about, like, Ali being enthralled to this guy, being pulled away from him by the Nation of Islam.

[Bill Simmons]

It's its own movie, and it's fascinating.

[Van Lathan]

This is the same thing happened to me on the rewatch that happened to me when I saw it the first time. And it's basically every time I watch this movie, I started, I'm like, holy shit, this is the best movie I've ever seen. Huh? This is Malcolm X movie. And then, like, I'm so disoriented that the second half of the film kind of like slips away a little bit until zier. And then the second time I watch it, if, like, I. If I go back and restart the film, I'm like, oh, this is really, really, really good. This is awesome. Because once you know the rhythm of it and know where it's going to go and know what it leaves out and know what it accentuates, it feels just a little bit more like in the pocket. You know what I mean? First watches with this is tough.

[Chris Ryan]

You're like, so you know what the movie doesn't do, which the Malcolm X character does. So a lot of times when you watch films that are set in this, like, racial reckoning period of the 60s, they give you a Lot of, like, news clipping stock footage.

[Bill Simmons]

Hold your hand.

[Chris Ryan]

They give you fire hoses and they give you dogs, and they give you. Look at the people marching.

[Bill Simmons]

Here's George Wallace.

[Chris Ryan]

This movie sets all that up through the character of Malcolm X. Yep. It's like Malcolm X who talks about the black churches and the four little girls. It's Malcolm X who you see like, I am a black America's vengeance. I am the pain. You see that in him, and then you see, like, Cassius Clay at that point, learning about it and connecting to it through him. Since the movie doesn't seem concerned with doing all of the other tropes that other movies do. They put it all into a character. And that performance is phenomenal.

[Van Lathan]

Yeah.

[Chris Ryan]

By Mario Van Peoples.

[Bill Simmons]

I texted you guys that the other day. I always forget, like, how great he is.

[Van Lathan]

This movie, the first half of this film, that performance, a lot of it exists in the shadow of Malcolm X, which happens nine years previous. Right. I. Then you get into the whole, like, at one point, spikes attached to this film.

[Bill Simmons]

Yeah.

[Van Lathan]

You know, at various points, Oliver Stone is. And wants Denzel to be in it. Like, to be Ali. I mean, it is a fascinating text for that decade of filmmaking. And those filmmakers in that sense, that scene when.

[Bill Simmons]

When they're in Africa and he's excited to see Malcolm and then slowly realizes he's got to get away from him.

[Chris Ryan]

Bro.

[Bill Simmons]

It's so. And the way Van Beebos plays that. Yeah.

[Van Lathan]

And Jeffrey Wright kind of, like, looking off and not sure whether he should take a picture of it or not.

[Chris Ryan]

He's like, yo, that's like. He goes, yo, that's my man. That's our guy. Yeah. Like, you see them and then you know that they. In the movie at least that they won't see each other again. And Ali thinks it. Did I read this right? Ali thinks it before he says it?

[Van Lathan]

Yes.

[Bill Simmons]

Oh, yeah.

[Chris Ryan]

He goes. He's standing there and he's with his friend. And we never get to hear the inner monologue of Muhammad Ali because we think that his talent is so effervescent that it just flows out of him, like, gifted by God. But he's standing in front of this incredible historical figure that's been his friend, and he thinks you shouldn't have done it. He builds up the courage to say it. And then Malcolm X's face is just drains, man.

[Bill Simmons]

They were really close. Like, I think they started hanging out in 62. And then when he started feuding with Elijah Muhammad, it was about, like, the adultery stuff. And that Became the breaking point. And then what.

[Chris Ryan]

Let's go ahead. I like this. Tell us more about the Nation.

[Craig Horlbeck]

Bill X.

[Bill Simmons]

The Honorable Bills.

[Chris Ryan]

The Honorable Bills. The Honorable Bills.

[Van Lathan]

Honestly, it would be. It's just amazing. Final act for you is to convert

[Chris Ryan]

to the Nation of Islam.

[Bill Simmons]

First of all, I'd be William X, not Bill.

[Craig Horlbeck]

No.

[Bill Simmons]

But the movie makes it seem they had a conflict, but they don't really explain what the conflict was about. And it was about Malcolm X, who was like the guy underneath Elijah Muhammad who didn't like some of the. He felt he was a hypocrite.

[Chris Ryan]

He. And.

[Bill Simmons]

But it had a lot to do with the adultery stuff.

[Chris Ryan]

Had a lot to do. Bunch of stuff out there that's involved and the government was involved in driving away stuff.

[Van Lathan]

Is the most. Yeah, it's not the most, but, like, it's an interesting tactic and it almost suggests a wider canvas. He wanted to work with. But, man, when you get the Ted Levine scene with Leon when he's like, yeah, and we want to know about this guy.

[Bill Simmons]

Well, I want to ask Craig about that, because this movie. So it comes out in 01, when everybody knows everything about Ali and Michael Mann makes the movie assuming, oh, you know, I don't need to go into this. Cause you know this. Right. It's like when. When MLK dies and he has. And just Ali's looking out, he's on the roof.

[Van Lathan]

Yep.

[Bill Simmons]

And there's just. And he's like, I don't need to show you, like, the three minutes of what happened in America because you already know this. And there's a lot of.

[Van Lathan]

We see the riots. Like, we see.

[Bill Simmons]

I know, but he does it quick. Like, he gets in and out because he's like, oh, I assume you know this. I assume you know this. But you. I mean, you. You saw this movie for the first time. Right. Could you follow all the stuff that happened or were you confused?

[Craig Horlbeck]

I did feel like there were. Where I was a little confused. And I don't think this movie holds your hand in terms of.

[Van Lathan]

It does one. It's. It's weird that it starts with a declaration of what day the movie starts,

[Bill Simmons]

and then we never see.

[Van Lathan]

And then never does a time stamp again.

[Craig Horlbeck]

It felt like, I don't know what year I'm in. I don't know where I am.

[Van Lathan]

It helps to, like, basically have his Wikipedia page open and be going to these fights. And as you find out, like, okay,

[Bill Simmons]

so I had that. In what stage the worst for this. I actually don't know why he didn't put dates and kind of root you in where we were. And it just seemed like a miss maybe that Michael Mann's like, I'm too good of a director to do that. But I really think it would have helped.

[Chris Ryan]

I think more than anything, the reason why it's such a big swing is a biopic. And Ray kind of follows this same type of basic. He really wants it to be about the characters. He tries to tell the story of Muhammad Ali's life and not necessarily a recounting of Muhammad Ali's life.

[Bill Simmons]

So it's like his discovery with Islam, his discovery through women, like, who he should end up being with his discovery to what's important to him. And he doesn't need the title to be who he is.

[Chris Ryan]

Yeah. Almost every single scene where something significant happens, you could leave the scene as if the scene is asking you, what if it were you? Like, what if it were you and you had found this new religion or movement that you were into, but it went against what your father wanted. What if you fell in love with the woman and she didn't conform to what it was? This thing like every. And you take this huge, huge cultural figure and you just make him a guy.

[Van Lathan]

Yeah. And then there are some ideas that are so huge that Man's trying to illustrate very quickly. So, like Young Cash is seeing the blonde haired, blue eyed Jesus that his father's painting is. Got to do so much work for, like this kid and the little kid. That's a little kid from the wire, right?

[Chris Ryan]

Yes, maestro.

[Craig Horlbeck]

Yeah.

[Van Lathan]

Doing such an amazing job of like, kind of like, what the fuck is this? And then that is why, like, you know, however many years later, he's. He's in this headspace where he's open to converting.

[Bill Simmons]

So man said, if there's a theme to the movie, it's defiance. OI defied that along with every expectation about him. Goes through a whole bunch of stuff about when he's gonna make himself his heavyweight championship of the world. He's gonna be a motivational personification of something totally different. A black man in his own culture, with his own pride. And then that was what I think he's trying to do with the 10 years. Here's the climate Ali walked into. Here was his motivation, here's where he wanted to end up. And then everything culminates in Africa, which is why the running scene is so long in Zaire.

[Van Lathan]

Yeah.

[Bill Simmons]

Because I think that's the one time Michael Mann's doing some handholding. He's like, I really want you to understand this running thing, what a big. He's really having. This is his epiphany. Michael Mann, Last of the Mohicans, Heat, the Insider, Ali.

[Van Lathan]

This is the imperial phase.

[Chris Ryan]

Jesus Christ.

[Guest or Sponsor Voice]

This is.

[Van Lathan]

This is him, like, at the center of everything. And all the big major. The major movie stars, the great actors are, like, lining up.

[Chris Ryan]

Run it off again.

[Bill Simmons]

Last Mohicans, Heat, the Insider, Ali.

[Chris Ryan]

I don't know.

[Van Lathan]

I mean, that's. That's 92 to 01.

[Chris Ryan]

It's just like with. With that. With the variety of the movies. Yeah, I don't know if it gets much better than that.

[Bill Simmons]

It's a pretty good four in a row that have nothing to do in common. But then there's common threads in each one. He. I feel like I wrote this when I did my review of this movie a long time ago, that I think he felt like, if I pull this off, this will be my legacy.

[Van Lathan]

1.

[Bill Simmons]

I've done some really good shit. I'm one of the best directors in the world. But this is the hardest IP to pull off. I'm going to try this. I'm going to go for it. It's also like, I think 25 years later, I don't think a white guy's directing this. I just don't think it happens.

[Van Lathan]

It was kind of controversial then.

[Bill Simmons]

It was controversial in 01. I think now it's. How did you feel about that, by the way?

[Chris Ryan]

I've always wondered what a movie that was a little bit more culturally at home would feel like. What a black. And look, we have not stopped making Muhammad Ali stories. Like, he pops up in all kinds of different stuff we see all the time. But, like, I did wonder that. But I'm gonna be real with you, man. I think maybe man compensated or overcompensated. The beginning of this movie is very black. Like, it is very black. Maybe he was trying to do a little bit too much, you know, like when you and your homeboys or like, you got white homeboy and y' all listening to Tribe Called Quest. And he goes, yeah, man, these guys, they really influence Kanye. And you like, shut up, bitch.

[Bill Simmons]

Like, yeah, I shouldn't have said that to you.

[Chris Ryan]

Yeah. It's like, we. I know you ain't got to perform. Let's just enjoy the music. So, but. And I.

[Van Lathan]

So the version of that. And this is like, him be like, what if we also went to the Apollo the night Sam Cook is right?

[Chris Ryan]

So he's like, okay, well, I'll show you guys. I can make. I can make A movie with these people as well, and. But to me, it feels authentic, though. Like, it. That kind of grounds the movie.

[Bill Simmons]

I think that's one of the best sports movie scenes ever. And it's one of the best scenes of Michael Mann's career, if not the best one. We'll talk about it when we do Rewatchables. Yeah, so he's got that. And then you have Will Smith. He's only taken two swings in his career. It's this and six degrees of separation. Other than that, every choice was safe. This one he knows. He even said, I have a quote in here, I guess from later. I'll find it. But he's 33 years old, and he's basically like, this is it. Like, I'm in the prime of my career. I got. I got to do this. This is. This is my moment. Spends a year learning how to box and talk. Like, Ali basically takes two years to make this movie because he wants it to be perfect. And also, like, Ali approved him. Ali. Ali had the rights to this and, you know, wasn't going to do it unless he felt good about the lead person. He's as close as you're going to get to an actor being Ali, but you're just not. Just don't see how somebody becomes Ali. He does the best job. There's scenes where he comes alive as Ali, but it always feels like Will Smith.

[Van Lathan]

Yes. I never forget.

[Bill Simmons]

I never forget playing Ali.

[Chris Ryan]

Basically. Mike Lowry playing Ali.

[Bill Simmons]

Mike Lowry.

[Van Lathan]

There are moments of real beauty. I think all of the physicality of his performance is amazing. The boxing, the running.

[Bill Simmons]

The boxing's excellent.

[Van Lathan]

Him. Him, like, holding court or being in, like, at a press conference. The intimate scenes, the scenes of the women, the scenes of his religious conversion. I feel like I'm watching a historical reenactment kind of this, which is the.

[Bill Simmons]

Usually the problem with biopics.

[Chris Ryan]

My hottest take is that this is one of the strongest performances in a biopic. Whenever Will is not talking. And I know that that feels silly. Like, that almost can't be a thing. But there's so much. There's so much action happening. There's so much drama happening that a lot of times, in order for, like, his reaction to Malcolm X in that scene. And just the one line, like when

[Bill Simmons]

he's understated, when he sees Michael Michelle for the first time. Yeah, yeah. And he's like, hey, all.

[Chris Ryan]

He nails all of that. Every single thing, every way, everything that. When he. When they don't call his name and he decides he's not going to be inducted, all of that. But when he starts trying to do the Ali voice, it's impossible. You can't do that. Yeah, that's not gonna happen. And that's kind of when maybe you lose a little bit.

[Van Lathan]

And it's weird because there are so many figures around him that are so iconic. And I can't help but feel like Michael T. Williamson is doing Don King. I'm like, this is fucking awesome.

[Bill Simmons]

That one scene when he does the Don King in the outside, when he tells him Foreman got hurt, he becomes Don king for, like, 75 seconds.

[Chris Ryan]

Not only does he.

[Van Lathan]

But also, like, Ron Silver and Jamie Foxx, all of these guys.

[Chris Ryan]

Cosell, you feel like you're in the middle of it. Michael T. Williamson kind of, like, inhabits the energy of Don King. Like, Don King feels like, a little fucking sleazy, a little fucking, like, dangerous. Like, it's a really understated performance.

[Bill Simmons]

Who some people said was super naive at all times, but then other people would say had pretty good sense.

[Van Lathan]

Yeah.

[Bill Simmons]

So he sniffed out the Don King thing pretty early. We'll talk about all those actors in a second. Craig, who is. Who's Ali now? Like, this is the most beloved celebrity we had for, I would say, the entire 1970s and 80s. I think people loved him the most.

[Craig Horlbeck]

You guys could probably tell me what year or what kind of era that it flips, but boxing just culturally expired. And I have no relationship to boxing

[Bill Simmons]

other than, like, do you think there's a celebrity, though, anybody in boxing? Or are you saying in all sports, in anything?

[Craig Horlbeck]

Well, it's hard for me to even know how you felt about Ali, because I wasn't there, and I don't really get it.

[Bill Simmons]

So I'm trying to think, like, who

[Chris Ryan]

is that for you?

[Bill Simmons]

The biggest athlete of your life is Highest approval rating.

[Chris Ryan]

Who's the biggest athlete?

[Craig Horlbeck]

I mean, probably Tom Brady or LeBron.

[Bill Simmons]

It's just.

[Chris Ryan]

It's nowhere close to the significance.

[Bill Simmons]

Yeah.

[Chris Ryan]

And LeBron James is a massive, huge guy who has political. It's just nowhere near. Nowhere near the importance. There's no way. There's no way. It's impossible.

[Bill Simmons]

I've only seen it Ali, which I caught in the tail end as a little kid growing up into it. Jordan and then Tiger got close. He didn't have the personality.

[Craig Horlbeck]

No.

[Van Lathan]

I think it's almost more common for us now to experience that kind of thing, or at least in our lifetimes. Like, on a local level. Like, I would say Iverson in Philly for a couple of years, had like this magic to him, and it's larger than life.

[Bill Simmons]

But a lot of people also didn't like him.

[Van Lathan]

I know.

[Bill Simmons]

Which would put some more toward ali

[Van Lathan]

in the 60s, but he was not. I mean, we're talking about like a global. Like, if this dude walked into a restaurant in China, people would be like, that's fucking Muhammad Ali. You know what I mean?

[Chris Ryan]

Well, also, it's sometimes unfair when we do this because, like, the 60s are the adolescence of America.

[Van Lathan]

Yeah. And of mass culture.

[Chris Ryan]

Right. Of mass. Of mass culture of America. Like, this is when we're like, okay, it seems like we're going through it again. Is this thing gonna work or we're gonna figure out a way around this. And the people who embody that, they live as symbols for that forever. And we're just in a different spot now. Jordan is probably that guy for my direct generation. But his. His grand contribution is his ability to be liked.

[Bill Simmons]

And sneakers.

[Van Lathan]

That would have been amazing if you were like, It's Mr. Beast.

[Chris Ryan]

I like Mr. Beat too.

[Bill Simmons]

The thing that pushed Ali over the top for everybody was that he actually sacrificed something. That's what I think. When. When you're sacrificing your own. All the. Not just money, but this part of his prime, all these different things, that's. Then you're at another level.

[Craig Horlbeck]

Well, I do think now there's a bit of, like a sanitation to the most famous people in the world now.

[Bill Simmons]

Yeah.

[Craig Horlbeck]

There is nobody putting themselves out there like Mahmoud.

[Guest or Sponsor Voice]

Yeah.

[Bill Simmons]

What would Ali be like in social media era?

[Van Lathan]

It's like, I don't. He's got a personal photographer flying surround, like, following around.

[Chris Ryan]

He knows he's important.

[Van Lathan]

He's going on Wide World of Sports. He's got sports writers, like, in his coterie. Like, he is documenting himself in real

[Bill Simmons]

time, but was never overexposed, I don't think.

[Chris Ryan]

Well, it was. Might have been impossible to overexposed.

[Bill Simmons]

Might have been impossible in the 70s

[Chris Ryan]

to be overexposed also in many ways. And the Jordan thing I was talking about, you actually doubled down on it when you said the sneakers. Jordan kind of invents that type of sneaker culture. But at the same time, Jordan's main thing is that, like, he was beloved as a pitch man and that. That became what people wanted to be. Before Jordan, the actual architect, archetype for the modern athlete was Muhammad Ali. That's who people wanted to be. Jordan actually kind of changed that. Jordan didn't want to have any type of political stance. He didn't want to have any type of countercultural significance or relevance. He just wanted to be the guy that had the number one approval rating everywhere. So whatever he told you to buy, you went and bought it.

[Bill Simmons]

It worked. Also super handsome like Ali.

[Chris Ryan]

Super handsome.

[Bill Simmons]

I gave for Will Smith. I'm giving him the Peter north award for most effort put in a movie.

[Van Lathan]

Okay.

[Bill Simmons]

He put on 35 pounds.

[Chris Ryan]

Yeah.

[Bill Simmons]

He had to try to figure out Ali's weird Louisville accent, which I think is like almost impossible.

[Chris Ryan]

Bryson Tilbury.

[Bill Simmons]

It's like a draw draw combined with like, there's a sing songiness to it. I don't know. It's. It's. I've never heard anybody do it 100% successfully.

[Chris Ryan]

The voice, it's almost like when people

[Bill Simmons]

try to do Barkley. Like you just can't do it. It's like a one on one voice.

[Chris Ryan]

Right? Yeah.

[Bill Simmons]

We'll take a break. There's a couple other things to discuss and we'll do the categories this episode is brought to you by ZipRecruiter. A lot of times it feels like there's just not enough time in the day. Especially when you get older. Time speeds up. I'm telling you. It's the thing I've noticed. I try to make my day slow down. I do some multitasking, try to get the same amount of sleep every day. Everybody's got some tricks. As you get older, you figure out more and more tricks to try to try to schedule your time better. Well, a smart trick to save time when hiring is to use ZipRecruiter. Our old friends try it free at ZipRecruiter.com Rewatchables that's us. With powerful matching technology and a new feature that shows the most interested candidates first. It'll help you connect with people faster, save time, meet great candidates sooner with ZipRecruiter. Remember, four out of five employers who post on ZipRecruiter get a quality candidate within the first day. Yeah, that's been the same stats for like 10, 12 years. Try it for free at ziprecruiter.com rewatchables Once again, ziprecruiter.com reWatchables Meet your match on ZipRecruiter this summer, FanDuel is the

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[Bill Simmons]

So one thing Michael Mann said about Ali, he said he represented the enormous possibility, the poetics of actual self determination had to defy not just the establishment, not just white America, not just people who are feared militancy, but also the naacp, Joe Louis, you name it. Everybody who was centrist and had an interest in maintaining the status quo. Now he says this in 2017. He says, we are still talking identity politics in 2017. Try understanding that perspective in 1964. It's a good point.

[Chris Ryan]

That's a good point.

[Bill Simmons]

Jamie Foxx.

[Van Lathan]

Yeah.

[Bill Simmons]

So he was in Nanny Gavin Sunday as Willie Beeman. It's the first time we're like, oh, Jamie can act. This is pretty good. He's unbelievable in this. And I remember one of my big takeaways seeing this in the theater was like, fuck, Jamie Foxx is a great actor. I had no idea. There's an interesting dynamic here, Van, where he's kind of the Tom Brady sixth round pick to Will Smith's Peyton Manning of like, oh, you're just supposed to be over here. It's Will Smith's time. And nobody sees the Jamie Foxx thing really coming yet. And who wins the Oscar first? Jamie Foxx.

[Chris Ryan]

Yeah, there's actually a Jamie Foxx was hosting something. It might have been the MTV Awards or something like that to where Will was still in the era of unveiling his body before the movie came out. We looked at God damn. Will then got swole. And I remember Jamie comes over to say on this, whatever bit they're doing on stage, Jamie comes over to say what's up to Will. And Will takes off his jacket and everybody's like, oh my God, it's Will Smith. And then he gives his jacket to Jamie Foxx. And then Jamie Foxx kind of like slinks away. He plays it up. You know, Will's kind of the star. He's kind of the co star and everything like that. The whole Ali thing is happening in two years. Legitimately that changed. It didn't change to where Jamie Foxx ever usurped Will as a star. I don't think that that quite happened, but I think you think that happened.

[Bill Simmons]

I don't. I think it was inconceivable that he would be Even be in the conversation.

[Chris Ryan]

But he caught.

[Bill Simmons]

And then he was.

[Chris Ryan]

Because I like Collateral. The Collateral ray years, what, 2004, mid 2000s.

[Bill Simmons]

Yeah.

[Chris Ryan]

By that point, everybody's in awe of Jamie and everything that he could do.

[Bill Simmons]

He was also more, I think, liked in the. In the Hollywood range because maybe he was Will Smith. Well, Will Smith at that point was like he was married. He was. He was just a major star. Jamie was accessible.

[Chris Ryan]

Huh.

[Bill Simmons]

Jamie was at, you know, partying. He would come on the late night shows.

[Chris Ryan]

I think they were. They. I think they had two different parts of Hollywood. I think Jamie's Hollywood was a little bit more rat packed. Will's Hollywood was a little bit more corporate.

[Bill Simmons]

Yes.

[Chris Ryan]

And we. It was probably more rap.

[Van Lathan]

But I. And I think that they kind of managed their careers at a certain point where it was like, Fox is still like, I want to do tv, I want to host stuff. I want to do music, comedy. Yeah. Like, I want to be in everything. And Smith's running his career essentially on the Tom Cruise track of, like, when you do this, it has to hit you has to count.

[Chris Ryan]

Jamie busted everybody's ass. They did. Like, Jamie is legitimately one of the most talented people, like Sammy Davis Jr type shit that we've ever seen.

[Bill Simmons]

He's great. And then as soon he's funny as fucking shit, too.

[Chris Ryan]

Like, Bundini almost greases the skids for Ray. You see the same type of DNA in this performance. Like, the same type. And then, well, he's out of there then.

[Bill Simmons]

And then we have Van Peebles as Malcolm, who. I think this is probably the best he's been in a movie like this. Right. He had a good career, but I think.

[Van Lathan]

I mean, can you imagine how fucking hard it must be to play Malcolm X after Denzel?

[Chris Ryan]

Right?

[Bill Simmons]

After Denzel, like, not that far after, man.

[Chris Ryan]

Mario Van Peoples is a fucking genius. Like, Mario Van Peebles is one of those guys. When you go back and look at the totality of things that Mario Van Peebles has done and done them well, that is a fucking A plus creative man. New Jack City. It's Marlo Van Peoples. You know what I'm saying?

[Bill Simmons]

So, like, here's who else is in this movie. Jeffrey Wright as Howard Bingham, Giancarlo Esposito, who's great in this movie. I like that there's only like one scene with him and Jamie Foxx when they're drinking. And I was like, I could have done five more water.

[Guest or Sponsor Voice]

Yeah.

[Bill Simmons]

Ron Silver is Angela Dundee. Joe Morton, Chauncey Askurge, Ted Levine Briefly, Leon Barry, Shabaka Henley, Michael t. And Bruce McCall even has a McGill. Bruce McGill. I wrote down McCall again. Bruce McGill. All of them are great. All of them are graduated. That guys.

[Chris Ryan]

Nona Gay, Michael Michelle

[Bill Simmons]

Rodriguez, Freddie Pacheco. Does he have a line?

[Van Lathan]

No.

[Chris Ryan]

Does he talk?

[Van Lathan]

I think maybe in the director's cut he has a line.

[Chris Ryan]

Yeah.

[Bill Simmons]

And then Jon Void as Cosell, which is another one. Shouldn't have worked.

[Van Lathan]

Did you say Jada?

[Bill Simmons]

Well, we hadn't even gotten to the ladies yet.

[Chris Ryan]

Yeah.

[Bill Simmons]

But Jon Voight is Cosell, who he gets nominated for an Oscar. That's like, you can't. Who can play Howard Cosell? That's like doing an SNL sketch. And he's really good.

[Van Lathan]

Yeah.

[Bill Simmons]

And I think probably makes him a little more kind of a good hang than Howard Cosell was, by all accounts.

[Van Lathan]

Well, it's the intimate. The intimate moments between Ali and Cassel are the ones that really sell it. When he's like doing the coffee and he's like, have some coffee with your sugar. And then he's like, they're coming for you.

[Bill Simmons]

They're coming for you.

[Chris Ryan]

Yeah.

[Bill Simmons]

And then Nona Gay, Jada Pinkett and Michael Michelle. I went to an Ali junket because I wrote a piece for page two and I got to spend 10 minutes with Nona Gay. Yes. Who was the best looking person I'd ever seen up to that point.

[Chris Ryan]

It's a thing. It's impressive.

[Bill Simmons]

This is really, really impressive.

[Chris Ryan]

It's a thing. Man. That's a beautiful, beautiful, beautiful woman.

[Bill Simmons]

First script was with Sony 1992. Ended up at Columbia Pictures in 98. Ron Howard, Harry Sonnenfield.

[Van Lathan]

Can I have five seconds on this? It is worth noting that this script was like in development hell. This was like A. Almost 10 years in the 80s they were talking about doing this. I think there was different guys attached. There's. The credits are. I think Gregory Howard has the story credit or some original screenplay people. Then there's two other writers credited. Eric Roth and Michael Mann also get a screenplay credit at various points. This was going to be the childhood story of him up to 40, like it was. There's lots of different versions of this out there. It's. It's kind of a miracle the movie hangs together as well as it does.

[Bill Simmons]

Well, how about Ali with approval of everything.

[Van Lathan]

Yes.

[Bill Simmons]

Which never really works either. And he never works and had. At that point he was fading.

[Chris Ryan]

And they keep trying to do it and it never makes good.

[Van Lathan]

Basically everybody from you older is like, that's not Ali. You know what I mean? Like you're going to have to including Ali voting public is going to be pretty harsh with this.

[Bill Simmons]

So Spike Lee wanted to do it was in negotiations and Will Smith really wanted Michael Mann to do it. Interesting.

[Van Lathan]

Is it apocryphal that Will Smith told Spike Lee he was going to have to expand his boundaries if he wanted to direct this.

[Bill Simmons]

And they had that in my notes. Didn't couldn't imagine him saying that to Spike Lee. Now I gotta say like Malcolm's too important to this movie. I don't know how Spike could have directed it. I don't know if that I think it's too weird.

[Van Lathan]

Would have been the same film. It would not have been the same film.

[Chris Ryan]

I think that there's a version of this. I think that the Spike Lee movie. They're two vastly different movies. Vastly different movies. I think the Spike Lee movie might have had more cultural relevance. It might have been more. It might have been thematically tighter in terms of what he was trying to say about Malcolm X. Excuse me, Malcolm X Ali. It would have been a smaller movie. And Will just liked movies for everyone. And Spike doesn't make movies for everyone.

[Bill Simmons]

And probably wanted to work with Michael man too. Who is scorching hot at the time.

[Chris Ryan]

Has ever worked with Spike.

[Bill Simmons]

I don't think this was the deal breaker after this.

[Van Lathan]

What year's 25th hour is that? 02.

[Bill Simmons]

Yeah.

[Van Lathan]

So we get that instead.

[Chris Ryan]

Yeah.

[Bill Simmons]

I mean like I think that's a win for us.

[Van Lathan]

For us. Definitely a win. Maybe Spike Lee would have liked to direct the Muhammad Ali movie.

[Chris Ryan]

But I will say this. It is interesting that Will Smith has never worked with Spike Lee. Most of the guy guys.

[Bill Simmons]

So the biggest black actor we've had since younger than Denzel.

[Chris Ryan]

Right.

[Bill Simmons]

And probably the only person who didn't work with Spike Lee was Will Smith.

[Chris Ryan]

Yeah. It's just an interesting thing.

[Van Lathan]

It's also. Did Jamie work with him with Spike?

[Chris Ryan]

I don't think so.

[Bill Simmons]

I don't think so.

[Van Lathan]

But it is worth noting also that Will was the first person I I I think he he turned down Django and then J. Jamie does Django.

[Chris Ryan]

But later. Because I think maybe those types of

[Van Lathan]

movies are like I can't do it.

[Chris Ryan]

I don't do it. Jamie gets in the can't make.

[Van Lathan]

You know after Earth or whatever the that was. You know. Like, like you won't.

[Bill Simmons]

I wrote Remember that first year Grantland. I wrote a huge piece about this.

[Van Lathan]

Did you?

[Bill Simmons]

About Will Smith is the Will Smith career arc. And it was About Will Smith, the Django thing, saying everything about his career decisions in the 20th, 21st century, basically, it was too hot for him. It was. He studied it. He. He was honestly like an advanced metrics guy. Him and his agents studied box office and the movies that made the most money. And they were all like, outer space, big action. And that was like, he's just like, I just want to do those. And never really wanted to experiment with anything else. So Django was like, too much for him. After Earth, Jamie stepped right in.

[Chris Ryan]

I liked it.

[Van Lathan]

I mean, it's also the craziest thing about the slap is that's the dude who had the most, like his. The most carefully public perception, and his career was so carefully managed.

[Chris Ryan]

The crazy thing about the slap is that the slap might have been. Might have not been as efficient as it was if not for this movie. Because Will had to learn how to throw punches, right?

[Bill Simmons]

But without decking somebody, Will had to

[Chris Ryan]

learn how to throw punches and get his shit straight. So years later, that slap came through and you couldn't get out the way of that bitch because of this movie.

[Bill Simmons]

I think Covid, everybody just ate that motherfucker. Everyone's in a haze from COVID I think the Fox, I mean, the Will Smith, Chris Rock slap is the weirdest thing that's happened this century. So 21st century. That's my number one pick. Weirdest thing that's happened. So listen, I watch it sometimes. I'm like, I can't believe this happened.

[Chris Ryan]

So our movie.

[Craig Horlbeck]

And then he won an Oscar.

[Chris Ryan]

Won an Oscar. Our movie won the year before. So we're still in the haze, right? So that year, everyone that was involved in two dissing strangers is at an Oscar party because they act like they care about you for like two years after you, then they dump you. Then it's like, whatever. So everyone's at it. I'm in New York doing hip hop homicides. I have worked all day, I've gone to sleep. I wake up, it's a million fucking text messages. But the first one is from Kalika, and it says, will Smith just punched Chris Rock in the face on stage, live at the Oscars. Where are you? I'm like, there's no way that happened. Some facsimile of that might have happened, but there's no way that that happened. And when I looked up, that's what the fuck happened. Will Smith walked on stage at the Academy Awards and slapped the shit out of Chris.

[Bill Simmons]

Did it affect how you watch Ali? I always feel like I have Will Smith. I always feel like I have a little Will Smith baggage now when I watch Will Smith movies because that slap was so weird.

[Chris Ryan]

I have zero.

[Bill Simmons]

It's in the back of my head.

[Van Lathan]

It's like, way down on the list of the most deplorable things people have done in movies.

[Bill Simmons]

I still watch that. It was just so weird.

[Chris Ryan]

Those guys.

[Bill Simmons]

I can't believe he hit Chris Rock.

[Chris Ryan]

That's so interesting to me.

[Bill Simmons]

I still can't believe that happened.

[Chris Ryan]

Lil Rel is the best on this. Lil Rel goes, yeah, Will shouldn't. He goes, yeah, Will shouldn't have hit Chris. But I get it. He's the funniest on that. It's just like, yeah, he lost himself. He went up. He smacked the guy. It happens.

[Bill Simmons]

Michael Mann did a director's cut in 2017, where he basically said, I wasn't totally happy with his finished product of this movie. He said, with the hindsight of history, I felt the drama didn't get all the way there because he made some tweaks. It wasn't as strong as it should have been. I don't think I changed anything on a movie like Heat, but here, the proportion, how it made you feel, wasn't quite right. And then he made his little tweak, so I'm sure he had to hand this in. It's like, over 150 minutes.

[Van Lathan]

It's. Yeah, it's 2 hours, 40 minutes.

[Bill Simmons]

And I'm sure he's like, oh, man, there's so many things I like in this movie, but I can't.

[Van Lathan]

Yeah, you can tell the casting of, like, the film. Like, there's. There's got to be footage of. There's probably more Angelo, Freddy, and Bundini footage out there.

[Bill Simmons]

Come on, daddy.

[Van Lathan]

Yeah.

[Craig Horlbeck]

Side.

[Bill Simmons]

Let's go, Daddy.

[Chris Ryan]

Don't jump in one place. It's probably just more boxing, period.

[Van Lathan]

Good. That would have been sick.

[Bill Simmons]

Oscar noms. Will Smith, nominated for best actor, loses to Denzel in Training Day. We're good with that.

[Chris Ryan]

That works.

[Van Lathan]

Yeah.

[Bill Simmons]

John Voight, nominated for Howard Coel. He lost to Jim Broadbent and Iris. Jimmy Foxx. Not nominated.

[Chris Ryan]

Should have been nominated.

[Van Lathan]

Should, should have.

[Chris Ryan]

Should have been nominated.

[Bill Simmons]

Should have been nominated.

[Chris Ryan]

Yep.

[Bill Simmons]

110 million. Made 87. Lost money.

[Chris Ryan]

Big, big.

[Van Lathan]

It's kind of crazy.

[Chris Ryan]

Yeah.

[Bill Simmons]

EBERT Two stars.

[Van Lathan]

When this came out, did you feel like the. The thing that was working against it was the critical reception as we're about to get to or. Why didn't this do better?

[Craig Horlbeck]

It came out a week after Lord of the Rings also. Oh,

[Bill Simmons]

Critical response was like, eh, this is good. But it just. I don't know. 87 million is still not awful for 01. But the fact that it cost 110 million because man's like, I'm going to Africa. We're going to Africa. Yeah, we're going here. We're going here. We're recreating this.

[Chris Ryan]

87 million is bad for one reason. Look at Will Smith's movies before that. I knew that the movie would have problems resonating with people when my dad didn't like it. My dad is the man that handed me VHS tapes of Muhammad Ali. And for some reason he couldn't connect with the movie like the movie. For some reason, he just. He didn't like it.

[Bill Simmons]

It's also too long for. If you're gonna be 2 hours, 45 minutes, then you only get the two screenings a day instead of the three. So you're cutting into your own money.

[Chris Ryan]

Craig almost had a stroke.

[Craig Horlbeck]

I did split it into two different viewings.

[Bill Simmons]

Ebert two stars. A long, flat, curiously muted film about the heavyweight champion lacks much of the flash, fire and humor. Muhammad Ali shot more in the tone of a eulogy than a celebration. His review is really good for this. I would encourage people to read it. But he does say no modern actor could capture Ali completely.

[Chris Ryan]

I've never read him and disagree with the review more.

[Bill Simmons]

What'd you disagree with?

[Chris Ryan]

I disagree with the fact that the movie in some way should have been like a celebration of Muhammad Ali. I think the best thing about this movie is to examine this extraordinary life. Like, we don't need Muhammad. The celebration is his life itself.

[Bill Simmons]

Yeah.

[Chris Ryan]

What I always want to know from a biopic, My one question from every biopic is what it cost you. That's the only thing I ever want to know about a biopic. We know that you were great. We're making the movie about you. We know that you did what it cost you. Like, what did you have to give up? Like, what love did you leave on the table? What personal situations did you leave on the table? What skeletons or bones do you have behind you to achieve that type of greatness? Because that sacrifice is what it takes. That's what this movie is about. To me.

[Van Lathan]

It's obviously a character and a person that is just too close to Ebert. I mean, Michael Mann doesn't make humorous and celebratory movies. So it's kind of like, you know,

[Bill Simmons]

what with Tannen Ebert, he wrote a great, great piece about the Rocky movie. Watching it with Ali. Yeah. And he said, he talked about he spent one day with him. I saw a man enormously entertained by life, twinkling with bemusement, lowering the tinted glass window of his Rolls limousine so pedestrians could do a double take when they saw it was him. And then he's like. He thought Smith played him as more meditative and subdued, sad. And I just think he was like, that's not the guy I spent a day with. And that seemed like he colored it. Anyway, most rewatchable scene. We mentioned the opening Sam Cooke all the way into the Bundini intro, into the List and weigh in. What's a better Michael Mann sequence other than maybe the bank shootout?

[Van Lathan]

I mean, the. The opening of Heat is pretty high up there in terms of, like an opening of a film. There. There's several battles and Mohicans that I think attain this kind of like nirvana,

[Bill Simmons]

but Diner scene in Thief.

[Van Lathan]

The diner scene. This big type romance. Yeah, but this is. This is among the best things he's ever put together.

[Bill Simmons]

The Collateral, the jazz scene when he shoots Barry Shabaka.

[Chris Ryan]

That. That stuff is all. I was just looking at Collateral. That stuff all really works. But.

[Van Lathan]

Hey, homie, is that my briefcase?

[Chris Ryan]

God damn. We used to be a real country man. Hey, homies have my brief.

[Bill Simmons]

I like when Lista goes, keep talking, I'm gonna fuck you up.

[Chris Ryan]

It's like, just don't kill Tom in that movie. Don't kill Tom in the movie by Collateral. Yeah, don't kill him. Don't kill Tom in the movie. Don't kill him. And just run it back three years

[Bill Simmons]

for Collateral Two for Collateral Two.

[Craig Horlbeck]

That's right.

[Chris Ryan]

Day of the Soldario.

[Bill Simmons]

More rewatchable scenes that aren't gonna win because we already have the winner. Third round, sixth round of the Liston fight is really good. I like when Liston quits when Ali's on the. On the stool kind of watching Liston.

[Van Lathan]

I was gonna ask you, what's the rap on the Liston cheating with the blinding Ali thing was that he.

[Bill Simmons]

Liston definitely did that.

[Chris Ryan]

Some people think that it was just that it happened on its own. That, like, they rub you with stuff. It got on the gloves and it got. Not with his eyes, but most people look at it.

[Bill Simmons]

Liston was a scumbag. Like, there's no way he didn't do that.

[Chris Ryan]

Scumbag.

[Bill Simmons]

He was a bad. He was a bad person.

[Chris Ryan]

Bad man. He was a heavyweight champ in the world.

[Bill Simmons]

Sonny Liston was a bad person.

[Van Lathan]

Don't you know you're talking to Bill X.

[Chris Ryan]

Come on.

[Bill Simmons]

William X did not Like Sonny Liston.

[Chris Ryan]

William X would love Sonny Liston.

[Bill Simmons]

William X did not like Sonny Liston. What he stood for.

[Van Lathan]

William X should be a recurring character on this show.

[Chris Ryan]

No, we can't do. Let's not do William X.

[Van Lathan]

Not approving of Denzel and Julia Roberts relationship in Pelican Brief. No, sir, I won't have it.

[Bill Simmons]

Well, you know, I had this in nitpicks. The movie avoids the Muslims thought Angelo Dundee doctored the gloves because he was trying to tank the fight for Ali. And that's. It's like a big part of the lore of that fight.

[Van Lathan]

Yeah. So as they start coming to the corner, boxing guy. So I didn't know about that.

[Bill Simmons]

Yeah, that's a real thing. I don't know why that wasn't in the movie.

[Van Lathan]

Moment in the film to show Dundee putting like in his pockets and then he's. He puts pills in his pockets, right?

[Bill Simmons]

Yeah.

[Van Lathan]

And then he's like getting all of his stuff together. And I was like, oh, this is cool. This is just Michael Mann doing, like, look at this. Master of his craft. But I wasn't sure. Then I read about, like, there are all these, like, allegations both ways.

[Bill Simmons]

It's amazing that he was blind for one of the six rounds and one. And then if you, if you watch it, like the six round, Liston quits after the six. Like, he kills Liston in the sixth round. He like really fucks him up. Malcolm in the hotel room with Ali. That camera angle of Van Peebles with Ali behind him just kind of staring out. And it's a long scene too. That's great. We mentioned Ali turning his back on Malcolm in Africa. Obviously not rewatchable for the typical reasons. But I thought the scene when Malcolm gets murdered and then Ali in the car is just really great.

[Van Lathan]

That's also fucking crazy. That. That I believe is Chauncey Eskridge was on the phone and was talk. Because like that. Yeah, it's. It's an amazing sequence.

[Bill Simmons]

The second list in fight just because of Jada Pinkett's performance in the stands. Yeah, Koso, they're coming after you. Well, Coward, Ali on the phone. Yeah, I know where Vietnam is. It's on TV when he does the Vietcong thing.

[Van Lathan]

Yeah.

[Bill Simmons]

And then Howard Bingham's like, you know what you just did? Will Smith's best scene in the movie when he comes out of the courtroom and he's like, you're my oppressors. And he does that 45 second you my enemy. Not no Chinese, no Viet Cong, no Japanese. You Were my opposer when I want freedom. And does that whole. I think that's his best scene in the movie leading into the Tyrell weigh in and all that stuff. Do you like this scene with Ali and Bundini when he sells the belt?

[Chris Ryan]

I love it.

[Bill Simmons]

I sold your belt.

[Chris Ryan]

My two favorite scenes in the movie. That one. And for some reason, Ali watching Foreman knock out Joe Frazier, that's just such a real fucking scene to where you feel like you got everything lined up, right? And then all of a sudden that. That scene. Another boxing thing. If you want to see the greatest destruction ever, go watch of a. Of a great champion, go watch. The way I know you guys have seen this. You guys are sports fans. How Foreman destroyed fucking Joe.

[Bill Simmons]

Down goes Frazier.

[Chris Ryan]

Just. Just like. Just like a child. But I like. Cool.

[Van Lathan]

How they're all sitting on the couch and like, they're like, this is a good.

[Chris Ryan]

Like, this is not a big deal. And it's like, what the. Like, we like, we. This guy's announcing himself. But the Bundini scene is particularly moving to me.

[Bill Simmons]

Ali goes on wide road of sports right into Frazier. Takes Ali for a ride. You beat Corey. I'm going to get in the ring. I'm going to kick your ass, James. Tony's good in that scene.

[Guest or Sponsor Voice]

James.

[Chris Ryan]

Tony does a good job.

[Bill Simmons]

Cosel tells Ali he won the trial. Ali loses to Frazier.

[Chris Ryan]

Move legs.

[Bill Simmons]

And it's like, okay, hook coming. I like how they did that. But they get into that fight fast. Ali, Boumier running through the streets. And then Ali, Foreman heading into the eighth round when the ring girl winks at him and he winks back and then leading to, like, him kind of. All right, now I'm going to go. And he gets Foreman, which is still. That had to have been the most thrilling moment you could possibly have if you loved a team or an athlete. When he actually beats Foreman in the eighth round, that has to be number one.

[Van Lathan]

What do you guys think of the boxing in this film?

[Chris Ryan]

I like it. I like it, too. I think he took a more deliberate approach to it. Like, some boxing is about movement. Some boxing is about some boxing. I'm talking about when I'm talking about boxing in movies. Some of it's about movement. Some of it is about thuds. Like, he wanted you to feel the thuds. You couldn't really approximate the speed of a prime Muhammad Ali.

[Bill Simmons]

You would almost have to do CGI stuff, right?

[Chris Ryan]

But, like, as far as the movement and the actual impact, I thought they did a good job. And the guys, like, unlike Other movies, they look like heavyweights.

[Van Lathan]

Yeah. They are fighting and they are.

[Bill Simmons]

And they're hitting each other.

[Chris Ryan]

Yeah.

[Bill Simmons]

I thought the Foreman fight specifically was really, really, really close to the actual fight. The way he's leaning back, the way Foreman was just. I thought Foreman was pounding him. It felt like Will was taking a lot of those shots. What'd you think?

[Van Lathan]

It's just interesting because, like, I look at it from a purely cinematic. It sometimes is a little bit. The fights in this movie lack a little bit of the stylistic diversity. I think Raging Bull has, like, Raging Bull, he shot each fight in this different kind of way. And I feel like he shot. To my eye, he shot these fights in a very similar fashion. The entire, like.

[Bill Simmons]

Well, he was trying to be exactly like the actual fight.

[Van Lathan]

Yes. And I think. I think. But there. I guess I prefer, ultimately, Scorsese trying to reinvented the experience of looking at a Life magazine photograph rather than, like, perfectly.

[Bill Simmons]

Like, the Foreman actor took that punch.

[Chris Ryan]

Yeah. I will say that.

[Bill Simmons]

Did the whole face shake.

[Chris Ryan]

I will say that those two fighters are also different. With Jake LaMotta, you have to capture brutality, which that movie captures the brutality of who Jake LaMotta was.

[Bill Simmons]

Yeah.

[Chris Ryan]

With Ali, obviously, he was a very dangerous fighter. But there's an elegance to it. Like, there are times where he's delivering performance inside of the air. And that's what's so good about the final fight in this movie, is a smart decision to end the movie with that fight because it's Ali at the peak of his performance.

[Van Lathan]

Yep.

[Chris Ryan]

Not as a fighter, athletically he had been, but how he could be theatrically inside of the ring and outside of the ring.

[Van Lathan]

What's your favorite boxing in a movie? Not necessarily boxing movie, but the box. Like fighting in a movie.

[Chris Ryan]

It's such a stupid answer. It's a really stupid answer. Digstown.

[Van Lathan]

It's not a bad answer.

[Chris Ryan]

It's not a very serious movie.

[Van Lathan]

But for me, it's a good one, though.

[Chris Ryan]

It's a. Like, Digstown.

[Van Lathan]

I like Digstown.

[Bill Simmons]

I think the first. The first Creed fight. The actual fight.

[Chris Ryan]

Talking about in Mexico, when.

[Bill Simmons]

No, not Mexico.

[Van Lathan]

The one saying. Whatever that one.

[Bill Simmons]

I forget who he fights when. That first round, when it's like the entire.

[Van Lathan]

Wait, that's the Tijuana fight in Creed.

[Chris Ryan]

That's what I'm saying. In Mexico. The one in Mexico. The first time you see Adonis Creed fight, period.

[Bill Simmons]

No, the next time he's Creed.

[Chris Ryan]

By this point, he's.

[Bill Simmons]

When Stallone is in his corner. Oh, okay.

[Van Lathan]

Yeah.

[Bill Simmons]

I thought they did a really good job with that.

[Chris Ryan]

Mike's a good boxer. Well.

[Bill Simmons]

And also that it was one shot for, like, three straight minutes. I thought that's probably the best thing I've seen. What was your favorite scene, Craig?

[Craig Horlbeck]

I really liked all the Cosell Police stuff. I found that to be really fascinating. Mainly also probably just because I can't believe that's something that was happening culturally and that's something that would never happen now. Those type of conversations on air like that and, like, their interaction and, like, even I was watching old videos of Ali talking to Dick Cavett, and I was just like, man, this is crazy. Like, the types of conversations that they're having is just not really what you get.

[Van Lathan]

Closest thing we had was Bill and kd.

[Craig Horlbeck]

That's right.

[Bill Simmons]

Yeah.

[Chris Ryan]

Yeah.

[Bill Simmons]

Long time ago, man. I remember it was the second Ali, Frazier, after the fight at Mud World of Sports, and Ali started making fun of Frazier, that he went to the hospital, and they got in the actual fight and Wide World of Sports. I think it was the second fight.

[Van Lathan]

I think it's. It's obviously the first 10. Yeah.

[Bill Simmons]

It's got minutes.

[Van Lathan]

You could even say the first 24 minutes. The only thing that, like, approaches that, for me, is the Zaire arrival, like, the Kinshasa arrival or the. Or running through Kinshasa. Yeah.

[Bill Simmons]

Also, like, the fact that it rained right after he knocked Foreman out, which is something that happened in real life, is one of the craziest things that's happened in a sporting event.

[Chris Ryan]

My dad always said God wanted him

[Bill Simmons]

to finish, like, two minutes after the knockout.

[Chris Ryan]

Yeah.

[Bill Simmons]

Pouring hurricane rain.

[Chris Ryan]

Yeah.

[Bill Simmons]

Would have been like, you can't make that shit up.

[Chris Ryan]

Would have been like a terribly hot day in the whole nine.

[Bill Simmons]

It's like, what's the most 2001 thing about this movie? Cr?

[Van Lathan]

I guess I just had Will Smith, critical and commercial sensation.

[Bill Simmons]

What do you have?

[Chris Ryan]

Kind of the same. But I will say the cast itself is this mixture. Oh, shit, he's got. Something's brewing. The cast itself is this mixture of, like, ascending people. Like, I mean, Jamie and some of these other people, but also, like, staples of people. The ascending people are Jeffrey Wright and Jamie and all of this stuff. And then you had your older guard and. Well, that's a very 2001 cast. What are you about to say, including

[Van Lathan]

Ron Silver, Is he the most 2001?

[Bill Simmons]

No. When I did the junket, it was the only time I'd ever been to a movie junket. And I had 10 minutes with Ron Silver, and I immediately went Into Silent Ridge. God, I'm excited about Silent Rage. I was like, I'm a huge silent rage guy. And he's like, the killer wouldn't die. And he was all excited and we talked about it.

[Chris Ryan]

What was the movie that he was in with Jamie Lee Curtis?

[Bill Simmons]

Blue Steel.

[Chris Ryan]

Blue Steel.

[Craig Horlbeck]

Yeah.

[Bill Simmons]

To be classic where he was the.

[Chris Ryan]

He was like a killer. Blue.

[Bill Simmons]

Blue Steel. You might have to crank that one up one night after this.

[Van Lathan]

Bigelow, isn't it?

[Chris Ryan]

Is it Captain Bill, like Lou Steel.

[Bill Simmons]

She's the to be all stars last year. My most 2001 thing. Will and Jada young love. Real chemistry.

[Van Lathan]

There you go.

[Chris Ryan]

Yeah.

[Bill Simmons]

Great to see them happy. Really believed in those two. Some good things ahead.

[Chris Ryan]

They're still together.

[Bill Simmons]

The Floyd Gandali butter on my ass and lollipops in my mouth. Aware for something I just enjoy. What do you have, Van?

[Chris Ryan]

I like whenever actors take on athletic roles and commit to it, there's nothing that I hate more than some half ass actor trying to play basketball. But whenever they really commit to it,

[Bill Simmons]

or Matt Damon doing Legend of Bagger Vance and doing two weeks of golf

[Chris Ryan]

wrestling, when they bullshit about it, I don't like it. But when they really commit to it and bring that to it, I always

[Van Lathan]

find myself CR Cosell's voice and I just miss the Pat Summerall, Keith Jackson, that era. I mean, even cut through Costa. She just.

[Bill Simmons]

White announcers.

[Van Lathan]

No, I didn't say that I was gonna. I just miss like guys who tried to capture the poetry of a moment.

[Bill Simmons]

Yeah.

[Van Lathan]

Rather than just be like, welcome to the like Stephen. A dome for Stephen.

[Bill Simmons]

A's not cutting it for you?

[Van Lathan]

No.

[Guest or Sponsor Voice]

Who.

[Chris Ryan]

Who's left? Bob Costas.

[Van Lathan]

Breen.

[Chris Ryan]

Breen.

[Bill Simmons]

Breen's not like Polish Joe Buck.

[Chris Ryan]

No.

[Bill Simmons]

Now there's nobody left.

[Chris Ryan]

Nobody's left. Those guys are all gone.

[Bill Simmons]

There's nobody who can levitate.

[Craig Horlbeck]

Nance.

[Bill Simmons]

Nance a little bit.

[Craig Horlbeck]

Yeah.

[Bill Simmons]

But Nance who can levitate above the event with some monologue for three minutes like.

[Chris Ryan]

Like Vin Scully or. I was gonna say, it's easy to

[Van Lathan]

do it on the Masters. You know what I mean?

[Craig Horlbeck]

But even college basketball dance had it.

[Van Lathan]

Yeah.

[Bill Simmons]

It's what Tom Rinaldi tries to do. My Floyd Gondali.

[Chris Ryan]

God damn

[Guest or Sponsor Voice]

the.

[Bill Simmons]

Oh, I got my bell rung. Slow motion moment in every boxing movie where it's like. And they do like the weird. And it's like, I always like that. It's like, oh, he got fucked up.

[Chris Ryan]

Have you ever actually had your bell rung?

[Bill Simmons]

Not by a punch.

[Chris Ryan]

What happened.

[Bill Simmons]

I've hit my head a couple times where I'm like, fuck.

[Van Lathan]

Right?

[Bill Simmons]

Yeah. I got elbowed in basketball once.

[Chris Ryan]

Oh that's a good one.

[Bill Simmons]

I hit my head in the attic where I didn't realize the doorway was low. And I just got clocked and like fell to the ground. Clocked up. What stage? The best mentioned any moment with Jean Clarlo Esposito and Jamie Fox together. That just should have been all the deleted scenes. James. Tony. Acting. I love Foreman. The actor playing Foreman just hitting the heavy bag in that scene.

[Chris Ryan]

Jesus.

[Bill Simmons]

And man. Just stays with it for like 10 seconds.

[Van Lathan]

Yeah.

[Bill Simmons]

No lines for Paul Rodriguez and then Jim Gray and Bill Plaske being in scenes.

[Van Lathan]

Yeah.

[Bill Simmons]

Bill Plasky has a line.

[Chris Ryan]

He has to ask a question. Right?

[Van Lathan]

Yes. Too. Doesn't he?

[Bill Simmons]

Yeah.

[Craig Horlbeck]

Yeah.

[Bill Simmons]

Jim Gray's just smiling like a maniac for some reason. What do you have?

[Van Lathan]

I have the Champ is here as a rap sample.

[Bill Simmons]

Yeah.

[Van Lathan]

I have Smith's fighting ability. You are never like, he's not fighting or they're about to double in or anything like that. I talked about this. But the low key. The fact that it's a low key Malcolm X movie for an hour. Yeah. Those are mine.

[Chris Ryan]

Since then they've put Muhammad Ali on in a bunch of different shows and stuff. Like. And there's another one coming out. They're doing the greatest. And so like just Muhammad Ali as a cultural figure that they want to put on a narrative has exploded after this.

[Van Lathan]

I will also say that

[Craig Horlbeck]

however.

[Van Lathan]

I don't know anything about. Like. I assume the guy was singing because it's not Sam Cooke. Exactly. It's not lip syncing Sam Cooke's voice. But it's a very good approximation of Sam Cooke. And that is on the live record. The call and response that goes on is exactly how it is on the live record. And it's fucking amazing to watch a bunch of other stuff happening while Sam Cooke is playing. It was just that. That whole sequence is just so brilliant.

[Bill Simmons]

I'm disappointed. I thought Van was gonna have a What stage? The best hair. And I'm sad I'm gonna have to do it.

[Van Lathan]

Okay.

[Bill Simmons]

A bunch of beautiful black women in this movie. Van.

[Van Lathan]

William X is back.

[Chris Ryan]

William.

[Bill Simmons]

William X is here. Even in the Apollo scene. There's like good ones in the crowd. It's just like Michael Mann. Michael Mann was tapping into something. Do you think that he really was.

[Van Lathan]

You should go back to writing. And it should be from the author of the Book of Basketball. He's changed his Name to William X. And it's the Book of Black Women.

[Chris Ryan]

The Book of black Women. Good ones.

[Bill Simmons]

Oh, my God.

[Chris Ryan]

Good ones with the pyramids.

[Bill Simmons]

Here's my prologue about Jane Kennedy.

[Chris Ryan]

See, that's a good one. It's a good one.

[Bill Simmons]

Very important person. Very important person in the 70s.

[Van Lathan]

This is.

[Chris Ryan]

But, you know, I will say this, though, is that, like, for me, personally, if we get into this, there's an era of fine that this movie represents, and it is hearkening back to in the 60s that a lot of people wish was still around. Everybody look good. I'm not coming down on no one. I gotta lose weight, so don't come for me. Right? Everybody looks good. Oh, you're saying there's fine aesthetic. All of these women look different. They don't have the same body. They're petite women. They're tall women. They're women of all different complexions. It doesn't seem like this assembly line of beauty that we see now. And that's kind of how the 90s were.

[Bill Simmons]

That's a chapter for William X's book, Me and Thelma from Good Times.

[Chris Ryan]

Who's that on the left?

[Craig Horlbeck]

Rembert.

[Bill Simmons]

Rembert?

[Chris Ryan]

You lying.

[Bill Simmons]

Yeah, it's me and Rembert met Thelma.

[Chris Ryan]

That's Rembert right there.

[Bill Simmons]

Yeah.

[Craig Horlbeck]

Remember?

[Van Lathan]

Are you blind? That's remember. Yeah, I think he and I are wearing the same shirt right now.

[Chris Ryan]

Okay. That looks nothing like the Rim that I know.

[Bill Simmons]

We were so excited to meet Thelma.

[Chris Ryan]

That's for real. That's my nigga.

[Bill Simmons]

All right, what's our next category?

[Chris Ryan]

Rim is really excited to meet Thelma. Like, really.

[Bill Simmons]

We were, like, starstruck. The fight scenes. One last thing. For what stage? The best. The only limitation placed on the fighters, they could hit Smith as hard as they could as long as they didn't knock him out. So it's why a lot of it is, like, shoulders, body. Like, nobody's, like, head hunting with them, but they're hitting also.

[Van Lathan]

Like, if they have are shooting other stuff, you can't have, like, black eyes and swelling and.

[Bill Simmons]

Yeah, yeah, that's bad. And then they had Angelo helping out. We'll take one more break, and then we'll do the rest of the categories.

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[Bill Simmons]

Gordo?

[Van Lathan]

So there's a ton in this, but my favorite is in that opening sequence when he's training as Clay and he's on the speed bag. The camera's behind the speed bag and the way that he is punching it creates the illusion that he's almost on a film strip and it's being hit in time with the music. But it almost feels like you're watching like an old film strip because of the way the bag is affecting like the way the camera is and it.

[Bill Simmons]

That's a good one.

[Van Lathan]

I'm just like, dude, you're. You're the fucking guy.

[Chris Ryan]

He's a man, bro.

[Bill Simmons]

I love in that open, that extended opening scene, how fast they're walking when they're coming around the ramp and it's everybody in concert, almost like they're I.

[Van Lathan]

I'm not going into the press Conference

[Bill Simmons]

with, like, real speed and purpose. It's just really cool. And Ali's entrance for the foreman fights good. When the camera's behind him and he comes out and he doesn't kind of realize how many people are there. And he's kind of like, holy shit. And the camera comes around and catches it, which I think was actually Will Smith's reaction, because I don't think he had seen it. So he was kind of like, jesus, yeah.

[Van Lathan]

There's also, like, the. The way that it, like, it'll be that the screen's completely dark when he gets off the plane in Zaire and it goes out and then the running in Zaire, where it, like, is, like, basically somehow above him and then comes in behind him.

[Chris Ryan]

That's my favorite shot. The running anxiety. He just. The. It goes from being. This is this full world that he hasn't explored yet to. This is a guy who can fill up any world, like, once he gets there.

[Craig Horlbeck]

Yeah.

[Chris Ryan]

So the camera, like, tells you that. The camera goes, oh, my God, this guy, this place. It's a big place. He doesn't know where he's at, blah, blah, blah. But this is Muhammad Ali. So it's just like a matter of time before this world becomes his den of thieves.

[Bill Simmons]

Benihana Award. Zaire, obviously, for sure.

[Chris Ryan]

Yeah, Zaire.

[Bill Simmons]

Kid Cudi, Pursuit of Happiness. That's the opening. Was there a better title for this movie?

[Chris Ryan]

You floated one or did you float one?

[Bill Simmons]

Yeah. What'd you say? What was yours?

[Chris Ryan]

You said, one of you guys said,

[Bill Simmons]

the Awakening of Ali.

[Van Lathan]

Like, the political education. The political awakening, yeah. The education of Muhammad Ali.

[Bill Simmons]

The Redemption of Muhammad Ali. Something like that.

[Van Lathan]

Like, if you just wanted to do a boxing movie, I'd call it the Champ Is Here. You know, like, I mean,

[Bill Simmons]

the Champ Is Here.

[Chris Ryan]

Champions Here is not bad.

[Bill Simmons]

What do you think of that one, Craig?

[Craig Horlbeck]

I like it.

[Van Lathan]

Ali should have sold itself like Ollie, like. Yeah, I know what I'm. I know what movie I probably have

[Craig Horlbeck]

to go with Ollie.

[Chris Ryan]

Yes, but you have to go with Ali.

[Van Lathan]

But if I think now, it would probably be Ollie Colon. The Champ is Here. The way they name movies now.

[Chris Ryan]

Cashless X in Game.

[Bill Simmons]

What's your flex?

[Van Lathan]

The Todd Parker Award for best character entrance goes to Jamie Foxx as Bundini Brown. I'm called Bundini. Rhymes with Houdini. He was a Jew, too. Some people call me Fast Black. Some people call me Daddy Mac. And then the show where he's just like, call him Shorty because he likes him circumcised. Like this movie introduces Fox. I know he's only in like six scenes or seven scenes or whatever, but man, like when Michael Mann introduces Jamie Foxx, he's like, that's the star.

[Bill Simmons]

Like.

[Chris Ryan]

And I'm telling you the reason why I think he introduces him that way is cause he's really introducing Muhammad Ali's performance Persona to the audience. That's what these characters are all like. Malcolm X is his political stuff. This is the making of this guy. And then when Jamie Foxx comes in, the reason why. Cause even when you watch it, you go like, this guy's not in the movie a ton.

[Van Lathan]

Well, when they go into the press conference, they're saying the lines together, right?

[Chris Ryan]

Like he's introducing you to that part of him. Cause the first thing we see from him is the Emmett Till stuff, the work ethic. You see the building of a champion.

[Van Lathan]

And Angelo is running everything.

[Chris Ryan]

And Angelo's running everything. And then when Bundini comes in, it's like, oh my God, this is how. This is what it took for this guy to be to become Ali.

[Bill Simmons]

I like how he also just talks during between rounds as Dundee's talking.

[Craig Horlbeck]

Yeah.

[Bill Simmons]

Cuz that's what. If you watch the fights, he's just yapping. He's doing a podcast as Dundee's like, hey, watch the rate Bundi's just on the side going nuts.

[Chris Ryan]

Nobody can touch you, champ.

[Bill Simmons]

You're the best Butch's girlfriend weak link of the film. We mentioned this. This has to be the answer that we just jumped three years.

[Van Lathan]

I have a different one.

[Bill Simmons]

We miss so much. You have a different one. What do you got?

[Van Lathan]

The original music. I do not think this is a the right score for this movie.

[Bill Simmons]

What would you have had?

[Van Lathan]

So it's Peter Bork and Lisa Gerard who did the Insider music and the really works for the Insider. But I think they should have either had an orchestral score or they should have had like a jazz score like there that it does not feel appropriate. It takes you out of the time zone, the time period. And I think it would have just been benefited if they had had like a really good Terrence Blanchard style jazz orchestral score.

[Chris Ryan]

I had something different, but it was also in the actual creative. Michael Mann's grainy digital type of look works. I love it in Collateral. Obviously love it in this one. I don't know if it works for period in this one. It parts of it didn't feel like

[Bill Simmons]

when you're in 1968.

[Chris Ryan]

Yeah. Like yeah, it part sometimes it would just take you out of it. A little bit.

[Van Lathan]

I think that the trade off is that the, like, Kinshasa just is a different situation. If you're there with like a bunch of lights, obviously, you know, like a lot of. And I don't, you know, he. He will make a movie with a ton of stakes and a ton on the line, and he will be like, but the camera is on the tip of this pen and I'm gonna shove it in between these two guys while they're fighting. He's a risk taker.

[Chris Ryan]

Yeah. But, you know, if this movie had the. To you, the orchestral and for me, the visual sweeping scale of Last of the Mohicans, maybe it lands with people differently.

[Bill Simmons]

I threw this in the Sasha Jenkins Award, even though it's Sasha Jensen for actor. You can't believe didn't become a bigger star. No.

[Chris Ryan]

To gay.

[Van Lathan]

I don't know.

[Bill Simmons]

I don't know why she. She feels like she could have gone pound for pound with all the other ones from that era, right? Yeah.

[Chris Ryan]

Yeah. I mean, she.

[Bill Simmons]

I think she's really good in this movie.

[Chris Ryan]

She's good and everything.

[Bill Simmons]

Beautiful.

[Van Lathan]

I mean, I have Michael T. For this. This.

[Bill Simmons]

That's another one where I'm just like, why wasn't he a bigger star?

[Chris Ryan]

Hey, guys, is it possible that there's

[Bill Simmons]

some forces at work you want me to get William X.

[Chris Ryan]

Van X. Is there. Is it. Is it. Is it possible? Van X. Is it possible that there. There wasn't a climate in the town that could have as many roles for these people as what they needed to explore all of their.

[Bill Simmons]

Well, Michael, Michelle was on er.

[Chris Ryan]

She was on er. I mean, look, when. When the movie came out, Nona Gay was on. Nona Gay was in Crash. Nona Gay was in the Matrix sequel. So is it possible that they're just not enough roles for all very possible performers? Yeah.

[Bill Simmons]

Marvin Gaye's daughter, another special category. How would Van Lathan get out of this one?

[Chris Ryan]

Which one?

[Bill Simmons]

Well, you're in Zaire and you just started dating a new girl and your wife said she was going back to Chicago to take care of your sick child, but now she's back in your

[Van Lathan]

room, she's like, do you love this new woman?

[Bill Simmons]

And she's upset about your new girl and. And you're about to have a fight in two weeks. So what do you. What do you tell your wife?

[Chris Ryan]

Do I love her? Yeah, I love her. And let me tell you why I love her. Because I have to love her because the CIA is watching me. And by the way, you know, the CIA is watching me. You know I'm being watched by the CIA. The press is on my back. Everyone's on my back, all right? I'm being surveilled. I got a lot of pressure. You know what pressure I don't need. I don't need the pressure of you

[Bill Simmons]

like this biggest fight in my entire life. Why are you doing this to me right now?

[Chris Ryan]

Why are you doing this to me? Like ain't nothing happened. Look at that woman. That's way too light skinned for me. That's not how I even like him. I like him like you.

[Bill Simmons]

Right?

[Chris Ryan]

Okay, but the reality is you're here now. Now I gotta think about this. I could go out there and be killed. Have you seen this guy hit the heavy bag? Let's go. You know what? Don't even worry about this. We gonna go watch this guy hit the heavy bag. And then after we watch this guy hit the heavy bag, you then can make your mind up about whether or not you wanna put this on my mind right now. Cause I could be killed then what?

[Bill Simmons]

You're killing me right now just by bringing this up.

[Van Lathan]

You know what a much shorter version of this would be?

[Chris Ryan]

What?

[Van Lathan]

Is if Ali just did Vincent from Heat and was like, you knew when we hooked up, baby, that you were gonna have to share me.

[Chris Ryan]

When all the dead people, they should

[Bill Simmons]

have thrown that in what stage? The worst. Will and Jada. The romance, maybe.

[Van Lathan]

We still got a lot of Runway.

[Chris Ryan]

We got a lot of Runway. And by the way, it's a long. It's working for them. They still got a family. It's working for them.

[Bill Simmons]

I didn't really have any other. What's age the worst that we didn't

[Van Lathan]

mention on the original soundtrack. There is a ton of R. Kelly.

[Chris Ryan]

Oh, he's in this one. Oh, he's in the greatest. The greatest is he. It plays in the movie. I thought one of y' all was gonna use that as a needle drop. That's why I'm waiting. That's Bill's last zag. Bill's last zag.

[Bill Simmons]

Where am I going? Bill's William X's last.

[Chris Ryan]

William X's last zag is. Guys, I was hanging out with some people this weekend. R. Kelly. I'm back in on him. That's your.

[Bill Simmons]

Why would I be hanging out with R. Kelly in this scenario?

[Chris Ryan]

You're not hanging out with R. Kelly.

[Bill Simmons]

I'm just listening to his music.

[Chris Ryan]

Just listen to his music. I'm back in on R. Kelly. That's your last act. And then we'll know that it's over when you do that. But that's.

[Bill Simmons]

How about this? I never really liked R. Kelly's music ever. I was never a huge fan.

[Chris Ryan]

What's your favorite? R and B. Not R. Kelly, but just tell me, though. Bill's RB party. What's that? Bill's R and B party. Give me, like, three songs. I know. Sean. Shit. Sean. I mean, excuse me. I know.

[Bill Simmons]

Was never, like, a huge R B guy, though.

[Chris Ryan]

Oh, so you don't like it? You don't like our music?

[Bill Simmons]

Oh, it's like that early 90s was my era for it, right? The Keith Sweat, Luther Vandross.

[Chris Ryan]

See, why are you second guessing yourself? But you talking about.

[Bill Simmons]

I'm not second guessing myself. I'm just saying, like, I never. In the 2000s.

[Chris Ryan]

No, forget it.

[Bill Simmons]

The.

[Chris Ryan]

The 90s is where you want to be. Okay. One life.

[Bill Simmons]

Make it last.

[Chris Ryan]

Forever.

[Bill Simmons]

Make it last. He loves Keith Sweat. I did. I really did love Keith Sweat.

[Chris Ryan]

Right?

[Bill Simmons]

Yeah, Keith.

[Chris Ryan]

But that's the. But you know, the 2000s is not when the R&B. The 90s is the heyday of the R and B. Yeah.

[Van Lathan]

It's new Jack Swing and New Jack

[Chris Ryan]

Swing and all that.

[Bill Simmons]

Anita Baker I put as the third.

[Chris Ryan]

Now, let me tell you something. I don't know if you know this,

[Bill Simmons]

but these were all, like, sex music songs.

[Chris Ryan]

There you go. Yeah, that's how you do it.

[Bill Simmons]

Bill X likes to get down. Or William X. I screwed up the joke. Okay. Any other. What stage the worst for you?

[Chris Ryan]

One thing. I know the kids, when they watch this movie, when he's talking to Nona Gay's character, there's a conversation that they have where she talks about how he came to her school.

[Bill Simmons]

Yeah, that's a tough one. And he remembers her even though she was like 12.

[Chris Ryan]

She was 11 years old.

[Bill Simmons]

That was tough.

[Chris Ryan]

He had a. She had a braid on. I called you a little Indian girl. It's the type of she.

[Van Lathan]

I told you when I came to your school, baby.

[Bill Simmons]

Craig, what do you got for a flex?

[Craig Horlbeck]

I. I'm. I'm acknowledging that Jon Voight is very famous and successful as an actor and the whole thing, but for my millennial experience with Jon Voight, it's.

[Van Lathan]

It's not great.

[Craig Horlbeck]

I want to give him the bam out of bio 83 point. I did not know this was Jon Voight until I saw the credits.

[Bill Simmons]

Wow.

[Craig Horlbeck]

Because I try to not look up a lot. I just watched the movie. Credits roll. Jon Voight, Howard Cosell, blown away.

[Bill Simmons]

To me, like, that's you thought it was Coach Kilmer.

[Craig Horlbeck]

That's my guy. Mr. Sir. You know, from holes. That's National Treasure guy. And to see him as Howard Cosell, crushing it, unrecognizable. I thought he was fantastic.

[Chris Ryan]

He's a phenomenal actor. Whatever he thinks about anything else is his fucking business. But when he gets in front of that camera, he can get. I'm just saying, like, I'm not gonna hold that. That is what it is. But. But he can get busy. Like, he. He really can.

[Bill Simmons]

Maybe not the greatest grandfather.

[Chris Ryan]

Yeah.

[Bill Simmons]

The CR Thinks Luke Wilson could have been Harrison Ford. Hottest Take award.

[Van Lathan]

This isn't really a hot take. I think that there is a version of this film that could have been made. And I think Michael Mann would have made an incredible film out of this. That's just the Chauncey Eskur story. That's, like, pretty phenomenal. Now, I don't want it as an alternative to Ali, but the idea that a guy was Martin Luther King and Muhammad Ali's lawyer at the same time is fucking incredible. And I can't believe we're going to.

[Bill Simmons]

The Joe Morton character.

[Van Lathan]

Yeah, the Joe Morton character. And that we don't have a film about that. And a film about that guy is pretty wild.

[Chris Ryan]

What do you have, as I said already, that Will acts better when he doesn't speak in the movie. And that's, like, really tough to do. But it's a great performance. But a fantastic performance when there's no dialogue.

[Bill Simmons]

Mine is. I think there's a greatest sports movie of all time in here with a different angle, which is basically Ali and Frazier and doing it that way. And I would dump all the other stuff, even though I like it in this movie. I don't care about.

[Van Lathan]

Would you make.

[Bill Simmons]

Who he's with? I don't care about Malcolm X. I'm just doing him versus Frasier.

[Chris Ryan]

I don't care about Malcolm X. I'm

[Bill Simmons]

saying, for this movie, are you doing

[Van Lathan]

basically, Oli Frazier and it's Heat.

[Bill Simmons]

These two guys, Ali and Frazier, and it's their three fights, and it's.

[Chris Ryan]

Oh, the whole trilogy.

[Bill Simmons]

That's it.

[Chris Ryan]

Oh, okay.

[Bill Simmons]

That's my movie.

[Chris Ryan]

Okay, but.

[Bill Simmons]

And it's. It's about, like. It's Frasier coming up, and then it's all. And I. And I'm not in with Islam in the 64. I'm, like, starting around 68.

[Chris Ryan]

There's.

[Bill Simmons]

I'm going through.

[Chris Ryan]

Okay, wait, so are they. Are you doing co leads in this movie?

[Bill Simmons]

Yeah, that's the only thing that's why it didn't happen. It was an early biopic.

[Chris Ryan]

You're going to have to sell Joe Frazier to people for boxing people. Joe Frazier is an incredible.

[Van Lathan]

Do you think Michael T. Williamson could have done Joe Frazier?

[Chris Ryan]

Probably.

[Bill Simmons]

I had a turn at some point in my life where I actually became Team Joe Frazier because of. I just thought he was put in such a horrible spot with the Ali stuff. I feel like he became the sympathetic figure. Eventually. It took me. I don't think I was in till my mid-30s until I really fully saw it.

[Chris Ryan]

So Bryant Gumbel had this same thing. Bryant Gumbel actually wrote this article back in the day.

[Bill Simmons]

I remember.

[Chris Ryan]

Yeah.

[Bill Simmons]

Yeah.

[Chris Ryan]

Oh, you talked to. So you see, that was in When We Were Kings. So Brian Gumball had the same way. But growing up, to me, is understanding. Like, when you listen to Marvis Frazier talk about, like, going to school and everybody's making fun of him at school. Cause Ali says your dad is an Uncle Tom, when really this guy was not an Uncle Tom.

[Bill Simmons]

Well, he called him Gorilla. Like, he did some really bad stuff.

[Chris Ryan]

But growing up is realizing that that's that about your heroes. And that, once again, the biopic is. What did it cost you? What are the skeletons? That's what I. You know. And Joe Radio.

[Bill Simmons]

It's basically the Ghost of Manoa book that Mark Cram wrote. There was a Frasier documentary, too. Frasier. Ali. That's tilted more toward Frasier. That's good. But I just think their dynamic. And then Ali, to him, it was all about selling the fight, not realizing the cost it was doing to Frazier. To me, is a more interesting movie.

[Chris Ryan]

There's a. So I read an article back in the day about how Joe Frazier carried this his entire life. Right.

[Bill Simmons]

He's so bitter about it his entire life.

[Chris Ryan]

And this actually spilled over into Joe Frazier a lot of times being way less than sensitive about Ali's Parkinson's later on in his life. He was kind of a joke about that. Yeah.

[Bill Simmons]

He's like, I still have my faculties. You can tell who won those fights, who actually won.

[Chris Ryan]

Who won those fights. So there's. They were at an event together and. Cause the article was talking about how Joe Frazier needed to let it go. They were at an event together, and they were like, yo, you guys should hit the heavy bag. And Joe Frazier goes, I'll hit it. And Joe Frazier, who was still in control of all of his shit, gets up there and starts wailing on the heavy bag. You know, this is like in the 80s. So he's probably like in his 50s or something like that. He hasn't lost any of the time, any of the power. He does all of that stuff. And he comes back feeling like, I finally fucked over this guy, right? Ali walks up to the heavy bag and goes, did you guys see that? And the whole room starts laughing. And he made a fool out of him again. And they were just like, joe, just give it up.

[Bill Simmons]

He just couldn't get around him casting what ifs. Couldn't find any. Except for Will Smith turned down Ali. And then Ali called Will Smith and asked him to do it. And at that point, you can't say no to Ali. And that was that.

[Chris Ryan]

What type of shit do Will be on?

[Van Lathan]

I. I don't know.

[Bill Simmons]

But no, I. I think it's justifiable that it's too intimidating of a role.

[Van Lathan]

Like, what are you gonna do?

[Chris Ryan]

The man wants to do the.

[Bill Simmons]

Well, he needed to get there.

[Van Lathan]

Yeah, yeah.

[Chris Ryan]

He's like, no, I gotta do Irobot.

[Bill Simmons]

Seriously. That's probably what you're saying.

[Chris Ryan]

I mean, that's not a.

[Bill Simmons]

Hold on. I gotta do Bagger Vance.

[Van Lathan]

Do you think. I mean, do you play out. Do you play out in your head, Denzel doing this as Muhammad Ali?

[Bill Simmons]

I don't think it works.

[Chris Ryan]

I don't think it works either.

[Bill Simmons]

I don't think he's big enough either.

[Chris Ryan]

He's not big enough.

[Bill Simmons]

Will Smith was 6, 3. That was part of what made this.

[Chris Ryan]

He's perfect.

[Bill Simmons]

He looks like a heavyweight.

[Chris Ryan]

Yeah, yeah.

[Bill Simmons]

Best that guy award. It's all graduated that guys as. As we mentioned.

[Van Lathan]

Yeah.

[Chris Ryan]

It's not Barry. Barry.

[Bill Simmons]

I think Barry was the one that gets it.

[Van Lathan]

But he's a Michael Mann, that guy. Yeah.

[Bill Simmons]

Dion Waiters, Don King, Joe Frazier or Veronica.

[Chris Ryan]

Is Jamie eligible?

[Bill Simmons]

No, no.

[Chris Ryan]

Too much.

[Bill Simmons]

Too much. Or Veronica Porsche.

[Van Lathan]

I think you gotta go. I go Michael T. I go Don King.

[Bill Simmons]

I go with that too as well. Recasting couch Director City.

[Chris Ryan]

Slight case for James Toney. Just put it out there.

[Bill Simmons]

I had him on the list.

[Chris Ryan]

Yeah.

[Bill Simmons]

Spike Lee.

[Van Lathan]

We could talk it out. We can talk Oliver Stone out.

[Bill Simmons]

I'm glad it played out the way it did with Michael Mann, because I don't think there was any way to make this movie perfect. So you might as well make it stylistically incredible. And again, like, when did he make Malcolm X? It was like 92, 91 and 92. So if you're doing this version of the movie, I don't know how. He just is like, yeah, I'm gonna run back my Malcolm X stuff. Like It, I don't know.

[Van Lathan]

I think he would have made a different film.

[Bill Simmons]

He probably would have not had that stuff in at all. Right.

[Chris Ryan]

I think it would have been a really awesome movie. But I don't like. I accept and like this movie the way it is.

[Bill Simmons]

Half ass Internet research. Will Smith was a pallbearer at Ollie's funeral. Will Smith and Michael Mann put up their salaries that the movie went over budget.

[Van Lathan]

Yeah. Because Will Smith was coming off Wild Wild West. So there was some money stuff.

[Bill Simmons]

Smith didn't want to meet Ali for months. And then seven months in the filming, Ali came to the set and Smith did his whole trash talk ali thing for 15 minutes. And Ali was impressed and turned to Howard Bingham and said, how come you didn't tell me? I was so crazy. Imagine doing Ali for Ali, bro.

[Van Lathan]

Oh, you know what? For Dion Giancarlo, I think Esposito would count for Deion, wouldn't it?

[Bill Simmons]

Yeah, he's in four scenes.

[Chris Ryan]

He's in my flex category.

[Bill Simmons]

Okay, what's your flex category? Let's hear it.

[Chris Ryan]

The David Caruso Stuff of Legends award for character who definitely should have been spun off into their own sequel. I would love to see a movie with Giancarlo as Ali's dad. It's him watching all of this crazy ass shit happen to his son. I love that character.

[Bill Simmons]

I love them too.

[Chris Ryan]

That character reminded me so much of my dad. That character, he think about it, that character's going from watching his son be the best amateur heavyweight to getting it. Then his son joins the Nation of Islam and changes his name. Changes his name. He gotta tell it's his name. So he's done all of this work and now his name, Cassius Clay is going to be everywhere. Except it's not. It's not going to be everywhere. A new name will be everywhere. His son marries the woman, loves the woman he meets Bundini Brown. I think it would have been a really fucking interesting.

[Van Lathan]

It would have been awesome. There's so many characters in this movie that you could make a Howard Bingham movie. You could make a Bundini Brown movie. You could make a Bundini movie. You could make a Casella movie. You could make a Don King movie. I mean, Frasier.

[Chris Ryan]

But the more I saw Giancarlo on screen, the more I wanted to see it.

[Bill Simmons]

Yeah, Apex Mountain.

[Chris Ryan]

Oh, I got one more. Half ass Internet research the guy. There's an actor named Albert hall in this movie.

[Van Lathan]

Yeah, he plays Elijah Muhammad in this. But in Malcolm X. Yeah, in Malcolm

[Chris Ryan]

X he plays a Character named Banes, who is a fictitious character that was there to sort of be like.

[Van Lathan]

He leads Malcolm in his prison conversion. Right, right.

[Chris Ryan]

And he introduces Malcolm to Elijah Muhammad. In this movie, he plays Elijah Muhammad.

[Van Lathan]

He is also the boat commander in Apocalypse Now.

[Chris Ryan]

Apocalypse Now.

[Bill Simmons]

I had some notes on his living room. Thought we could have needed more furniture.

[Craig Horlbeck]

Oh, yeah.

[Chris Ryan]

William.

[Bill Simmons]

Yeah.

[Van Lathan]

William X. Interior designer for the new chairs in there.

[Bill Simmons]

Yeah.

[Chris Ryan]

What was the last time you read Way of Superior Man?

[Bill Simmons]

Pretty big message of the black man. Apex Mountain. Will Smith,

[Van Lathan]

he's taking an L, though. He's coming off Wild West. So he is like. He's wobbling.

[Chris Ryan]

So if not this, what's his apex, then?

[Van Lathan]

I think it's the.

[Bill Simmons]

I think it's Independence Day. Enemy of the State.

[Chris Ryan]

We.

[Bill Simmons]

We litigated this when we did Enemy of the State. I think it's. It's in the late 90s.

[Van Lathan]

He does a series of, like, sequels and stuff. Like.

[Chris Ryan]

Yeah, I can make an argument.

[Craig Horlbeck]

He goes, Fresh Prince, Independence Day, Men

[Chris Ryan]

in Black, that it's tough to beat. I make an argument that Will Smith. Will Smith at the absolute peak of his powers is hitch05. Absolute peak of his powers. Hitch is a movie that legitimately, everything else that we're talking about, all of that stuff, those movies have conceits, big aliens, all of that type of shit. Fresh Prince is very close to what I'm talking about. Hitch is Will Smith directly demonstrating what a devastating movie star he is. He charms us through the entire movie and makes it into a really good

[Bill Simmons]

film on the rewatch was list. Fox, no Ollie movies, yes. The Jada Will relationship. Probably. James. Tony still fighting and he's in Ali.

[Chris Ryan]

Yeah, maybe. Yeah.

[Bill Simmons]

I think it's 90s for James.

[Chris Ryan]

Tony, yeah. He was like the undisputed super middleweight champion.

[Bill Simmons]

Dun King. Impersonations in a movie? Yes. Cosell impersonations, yes. Boxing movies. No.

[Van Lathan]

Apex Mountain for Cosell impersonations.

[Chris Ryan]

Don King, Ving Rhames. Do you remember that one?

[Bill Simmons]

What was. What was he?

[Chris Ryan]

Ving Rhames did the Don King movie.

[Bill Simmons]

Oh, that's on Showtime. Right? Like hbo or hbo. One of those.

[Chris Ryan]

That was a lot more. The Devil Is a Motherfucker.

[Bill Simmons]

Michael Mann. No, it's the Insider.

[Van Lathan]

I think that this is. Like I said, this is the end. You call it. We can call Apex Mountain. You can call it the Imperial Phase, which is like a pop music term. But they're both, like, at the peak of their powers, per se. But I don't think this is his Apex Mountain.

[Bill Simmons]

I think it's Insider.

[Van Lathan]

Insider was kind of a box office disappointment, though.

[Bill Simmons]

No, but it got Oscars. And it leads to like, I'm going to spend 110 million on my Ali movie. And they're like, go ahead, Michael, man.

[Van Lathan]

Right?

[Chris Ryan]

Yeah. I think that run is the apex. And it might be anybody's apex. Maybe like Spielberg. Denny. It's not too many guys that have them back to back like that.

[Bill Simmons]

Best name for a racehorse. Ali Boumay. It's pretty good.

[Chris Ryan]

Gorgeous.

[Bill Simmons]

Boomay Bandini. Bundini's good cruiser. Hanks. Who would you want to see play Ali? Cr.

[Van Lathan]

Is it in blackface or is it like just.

[Bill Simmons]

No, it's just makeup.

[Chris Ryan]

William X. Get your guy.

[Van Lathan]

I had Hanks as Cosell.

[Bill Simmons]

Okay.

[Chris Ryan]

I mean, you'd have to like.

[Bill Simmons]

Is that the only way? So that.

[Chris Ryan]

Or Cruise doesn't have any place.

[Bill Simmons]

Cruz is Angelo. Come on, daddy. Can I run with you? What do you have? Craig stuff.

[Van Lathan]

Hanks is good.

[Craig Horlbeck]

So how. What options do we have?

[Bill Simmons]

Not a lot.

[Chris Ryan]

Bob Arum.

[Bill Simmons]

Scorsese or Spielberg? Bringing it back for this one.

[Van Lathan]

Scorsese.

[Chris Ryan]

Scorsese.

[Bill Simmons]

Okay. Picking knits. We mentioned a few. A big one for me. They show the LS Quarry fight. And then Ali goes and meets Joe Morton in the diner. And then three weeks later, MLK gets killed. The Quarry fight. Ellis Quarry happens three weeks after MLK got killed. They fucked up the scenes.

[Van Lathan]

I was also wondering, do you think that Ali found out he won the Supreme Court case from Howard Cosell? Is that true?

[Bill Simmons]

And sitting at just a table. I don't think that was true. I think they probably took some liberties. When Joe Frazier asked Ali if you needed any money. Oh, he took the money. In real life, that scene was true.

[Van Lathan]

Really?

[Bill Simmons]

Yeah.

[Craig Horlbeck]

Yeah.

[Bill Simmons]

Ali was broke.

[Chris Ryan]

Yeah.

[Bill Simmons]

He ran out of money.

[Chris Ryan]

And Joe would bring that up, which is you shouldn't do, by the way.

[Bill Simmons]

We mentioned the dates that this movie desperately needed dates. And then it's a hardcore Ali nitpick, but he's speaking differently by the time we're in Zaire. Oh, he's a little slower.

[Chris Ryan]

Yeah.

[Bill Simmons]

He's not. It's not as bad as after Manila, but it's definitely like the guy in the 60s is.

[Chris Ryan]

You start to watch flying.

[Bill Simmons]

Yeah, he's a little. You know, it's just. It's slowing down a little bit in that they didn't. He just seems the same throughout the movie.

[Chris Ryan]

Actually, the slowing down becomes a part of it too. There are two very distinct Ali's. There's a super fast talking Ali and then there's a slower talking Ali, which

[Bill Simmons]

is where we are. Yeah, a lot of people remember any other nitpicks?

[Van Lathan]

No.

[Bill Simmons]

Sequel, prequel, Prestige, to be all black cast or untouchable. Prestage TV would have been. They had like $150 million for a 10 hour.

[Chris Ryan]

They're doing it.

[Van Lathan]

That's what the greatest is.

[Bill Simmons]

Yeah, that's what it is. Yeah.

[Chris Ryan]

It's a prestige.

[Bill Simmons]

It's a.

[Chris Ryan]

It's an Amazon joint Michael B. Jordan and them are doing. Yeah.

[Van Lathan]

Who's playing Ali?

[Chris Ryan]

I can't remember, but I know that my man Eamon from Snowfall is playing Sonny Liston. Okay,

[Bill Simmons]

is this movie better with Wayne Jenkins, Fergie, the Florist, Zane Lowe, Robert Evans, Dr. Charles Nichols, or someone else here?

[Van Lathan]

Obviously, Fox is incredible. But have you guys thought about Pete Posselwhite as Bundini Brown?

[Bill Simmons]

No, I have not.

[Van Lathan]

Now I'm Jewish and he's Muslim, and because of that, he tells me I need to give up certain things, like pork and white women. I can give up pork, but white women? Not after a little taste.

[Bill Simmons]

I had Ted Levine as the FBI agent, but as Buffalo, but as.

[Van Lathan]

Yeah, yeah.

[Bill Simmons]

Have you heard of Malcolm, you big fat person? Just one Oscar. Who gets it? Interesting category. Fox.

[Chris Ryan]

I go with Jamie.

[Bill Simmons]

It's Fox. Would you have Fox or Voight?

[Craig Horlbeck]

Oh, I'm going Voight.

[Chris Ryan]

Okay, that's. That's Ali in the. In the thing. A guy named Jalen Best.

[Van Lathan]

Okay.

[Bill Simmons]

Probably an answerable questions. I only had one. Why didn't more boxers try Sonny Liston's doctor gloves trick?

[Chris Ryan]

Of course they tried the shit.

[Bill Simmons]

This seems like a great idea for evil boxers.

[Van Lathan]

And did Sonny Liston throw the second fight?

[Bill Simmons]

I mean, almost definitely.

[Chris Ryan]

Phantom punch. Depends on which lore you believe. You believe the Lord. Ali was so quick, he could land a right that the camera couldn't even catch. Knock somebody clean out.

[Bill Simmons]

Probably the most crooked boxer of the last 75 years.

[Chris Ryan]

The lore about the fact that the mafia owns Sonny, Listen, I see they made him take a dog.

[Bill Simmons]

Also, like, if you watch it, there's a moment when he's down when he tries to get up and he does like this, almost like pro wrestling, and falls back down. It's really bad. I always thought he threw it. You think he threw it, right?

[Chris Ryan]

Yeah.

[Bill Simmons]

Probably the memorabilia you'd most want from this movie.

[Chris Ryan]

The one of the toughest ones we've ever had to do.

[Van Lathan]

For me, the. The hand tape that the ref signs to be like. I've checked, you know, in the beginning.

[Chris Ryan]

That's awesome. Yeah.

[Van Lathan]

I don't know what I would do with used hand tape, but still be cool.

[Bill Simmons]

I have the movie robe from the first Liston's Fight. Liston fight, where you can see it says the lip on the back. They try to get him going as the lip.

[Chris Ryan]

Good to go.

[Bill Simmons]

Because guess what? Guess who didn't need a name. Ali. Just call him the greatest.

[Chris Ryan]

What would you do? I always like those old vintage gloves. So either the gloves used that Will Smith used and the thing, Zaire, by

[Bill Simmons]

the way, with the fight scenes. They tried all kinds of stuff with gloves to make it so they would look more realistic. And nothing worked. Like big, bigger, softer gloves. So it could really. And nothing. Nothing worked. Coach Finstock, Mr. McGuire. Best worst life lesson.

[Van Lathan]

Dude, free ain't easy. Free is real. And real is a motherfucker.

[Chris Ryan]

Yep.

[Bill Simmons]

Okay. Best double feature choice. I have When We Were Kings.

[Van Lathan]

Malcolm X. I have Malcolm X. Okay.

[Bill Simmons]

Chris X. Tough one. Who won the movie?

[Van Lathan]

I'm going to say Michael Mann, because that's why I watch the movie now. I would say that. But I do think that his visual style, while Van's point's really well taken about whether it works for period, I think his visual style is the reason I returned to this film.

[Chris Ryan]

All I know is you can't necessarily say that Will won the movie. I think actually this is one of the rare situations where Will's kind of out. And after that.

[Bill Simmons]

He did get nominated for the first time.

[Chris Ryan]

He did get nominated for the first time. He did get nominated for the first time. I personally, when I watch on a rewatch this stupid. I kind of think Jamie Foxx won the movie, I think as like a blueprint or.

[Van Lathan]

And using it as like the.

[Chris Ryan]

Yeah, I think kind of Jamie Foxx won the.

[Van Lathan]

And obviously Mann is like, that's my fucking guy.

[Chris Ryan]

They go back and they do Collateral again and all that stuff.

[Bill Simmons]

That makes sense. I have Will Smith in the moment and then over the years, Michael Mann. Cause I think he's the reason to keep coming back to this. Even though it's a pretty. You know, it's a biopic.

[Van Lathan]

Yeah.

[Bill Simmons]

Yeah. I don't think I'll be watching the Freddie Mercury biopic 25 years from now, but this keeps sucking me in. The Freddie Mercury biopic has some good scenes in it.

[Van Lathan]

What's William X think of Freddie Mercury biopic?

[Bill Simmons]

Enjoys it.

[Chris Ryan]

Oh, okay.

[Bill Simmons]

Yeah. I like Freddy's music.

[Craig Horlbeck]

Yeah.

[Van Lathan]

William X contains so many different.

[Bill Simmons]

Craig, you never saw this movie?

[Craig Horlbeck]

No.

[Bill Simmons]

You blanched at the time. You were scared. I mean, it really Was long. It's like a fucking football. Yeah.

[Van Lathan]

But once you get. Once it gets rolling, you're like, all right.

[Craig Horlbeck]

I thought the acting across the board in this movie was superb. I thought everybody was just fantastic. I thought there were a lot of, like, Zaire was amazing. The Cosell stuff I thought was great. The Malcolm X stuff I thought was great. I don't know, it's probably a generational thing, but I felt that just kind of disconnected to this movie. I don't know why. I just felt like something was missing out of this movie, and I don't know what it was. I think I struggled with. I couldn't really feel the weight of Ali's talent as a boxer in this movie. Like, to be honest, I wasn't like, this guy's an amazing boxer watching the movie.

[Chris Ryan]

You know what's funny about that? That's the one thing that the movie being made for us that you don't have to convince us of.

[Craig Horlbeck]

Right. And I. You know, other than, like, clips here and there, I don't really know. Like, I was kind of bummed that we didn't really get a lot of the feat stuff, which I understand Will Smith can't do, but the movie magic of trying to really make. Maybe I'm just like Rocky and Creed brained, or I like a little bit more of the theatrical boxing style. But, like, when the movie ended, I was kind of like. I don't know. I was like, I don't exactly know what my takeaway is supposed to be or what the point of view is supposed to be from this movie, but I enjoyed it.

[Van Lathan]

Maybe it's about too many different things.

[Craig Horlbeck]

Maybe it could be.

[Chris Ryan]

Maybe the movie is a little bit about political stuff, a little bit about personal stuff.

[Craig Horlbeck]

Like, it didn't seem that much about boxing to me when the movie ended at boxing, I was like, oh, okay.

[Bill Simmons]

Do you think we'll ever get to the point where we can just CGI the actor's face over the actual boxing footage for a boxing movie?

[Craig Horlbeck]

We don't want that.

[Van Lathan]

Why would you want that?

[Bill Simmons]

I don't know. I'm asking.

[Chris Ryan]

I'm asking.

[Craig Horlbeck]

I think the answer is yes. We could definitely do that. Probably do it right now.

[Van Lathan]

Smith's face on old Muhammad Ali footage.

[Bill Simmons]

I'm saying for some of the. Just slide it in so that we get all the athleticism and stuff from this.

[Chris Ryan]

They do. They like de age actors and put them. And make them.

[Bill Simmons]

Like the Irishman. You like the Irishman. I'm saying, would we ever cheat? Could you accept it.

[Craig Horlbeck]

Like you put Muhammad Ali's legs on Will Smith or something.

[Bill Simmons]

Almost like what they tried to do with Forrest Gump when they put Forrest in the different.

[Chris Ryan]

Well, I mean, what you're really asking for is for there to be like an AI facsimile of. Because that would work the best. Right? Like what you're asking for is an AI facsimile that can approximate the speed, power, and position.

[Craig Horlbeck]

Just watch a fucking Muhammad Ali YouTube video.

[Bill Simmons]

That's the problem.

[Van Lathan]

Yeah, that's the thing. I think if you wanted to do something where it was like, I want Timothee Chalamet to play like a middleweight fighter, but he's, you know, like, there are limits of what he can do.

[Bill Simmons]

Well, that's a good example, though, because the ping pong was all AI. Yeah, he wasn't actually playing ping pong.

[Craig Horlbeck]

It was cgi.

[Bill Simmons]

I mean, cgi.

[Chris Ryan]

Yeah.

[Bill Simmons]

So he wasn't playing. He was playing ping pong, but wasn't playing at the level of the movie.

[Chris Ryan]

The deal here is that, like, when you're a boxer, it's something you've been doing most of the greats, not all of them, but most. It's something you've been doing since you're 8 or 9 years old. And they're like fast and slow, twitch muscle things. There's movement, there are angles. There's all of that stuff that you just can't get ready for in a movie camp to kind of like, look like. Like, you know how to do it. That's. There's a lot of things like that.

[Craig Horlbeck]

Yeah.

[Chris Ryan]

So you just.

[Van Lathan]

I'm glad they. But it's. It's refreshing to see William X open to new technology.

[Craig Horlbeck]

Right.

[Van Lathan]

Because a lot of our religious leaders are a little bit, you know, but

[Chris Ryan]

you, you know, you know, oh, William X. When is the next Million Man March?

[Bill Simmons]

You know what's a good boxing movie for boxing scenes? The Hammer with Adam Corolla.

[Chris Ryan]

Yeah. Is that. Oh, yeah, it is.

[Bill Simmons]

Cause Cruella actually boxed. It's one of the rare ones. Everyone else kind of learns how to box for the movie, but rarely do we get the actor leading the movie who actually boxes.

[Chris Ryan]

Boxes a little bit. Distallone box. Did he mess around in a chair?

[Bill Simmons]

No, he kind of learned how to do it.

[Van Lathan]

Is there a boxing story that you would love to see made into a movie? A fighter, a fight.

[Chris Ryan]

Easy for me. Emil Griffin.

[Bill Simmons]

Good documentary.

[Chris Ryan]

Emil Griffin.

[Bill Simmons]

Why Bill see killed somebody in the ring.

[Chris Ryan]

That's not why.

[Bill Simmons]

Well, and. And had some. Just hiding some secrets.

[Chris Ryan]

Yeah.

[Bill Simmons]

He Was he was gay the whole time.

[Chris Ryan]

Middleweight?

[Bill Simmons]

Yeah.

[Chris Ryan]

Like just one of the most dominant middleweights fucking over everybody. But also gay guy.

[Bill Simmons]

And the guy he killed in the ring kept making fun of him for being gay.

[Craig Horlbeck]

Oh, wow.

[Bill Simmons]

And he killed him in the ring.

[Chris Ryan]

Jesus.

[Bill Simmons]

It's a good documentary.

[Van Lathan]

Did they make a Ward Gotti movie?

[Bill Simmons]

Well, they. They did not, but they made the fighter. But somehow word Gotti wasn't it. I always thought a great movie would be Sugar Ray Leonard winning the Hearns fight, getting into like cocaine and the detached retina and then the five years leading to the Hagworth fight and trying to be haggard.

[Chris Ryan]

Did Sugar Ray get to. And obviously Emil Griffin is much more obscure than Sugar Ray. That would be about the story and not about the thing. Did Sugar Ray get to biopic level?

[Bill Simmons]

I mean, I personally think he did for some of the movies that have been biopics. Like did Cinderella man get to a biopic level?

[Chris Ryan]

I said more about the depression.

[Bill Simmons]

Sugar Ray was the most famous fighter since Ali before Tyson.

[Chris Ryan]

He definitely was. But like there was something to where he seemed like bridge between Ali and Tyson. He like he held it down. So.

[Bill Simmons]

But to me, that the Sugar Ray story is like Ralph Sampson getting hurt in the 86 finals, but then coming back and winning the 93 finals or something. Like it felt like his career was kind of over. Detached retina seemed like a death sentence. And he started to have a whole bunch of issues right then came back. And then when he fought Hagrid, it was like a four to one underdog.

[Chris Ryan]

Like four years, three years off. How many years off it took?

[Bill Simmons]

Five.

[Chris Ryan]

Yeah. Like it just comes back bottom in 87.

[Bill Simmons]

Do you like.

[Van Lathan]

Do you.

[Chris Ryan]

Does any of this ring a bell or none of young?

[Craig Horlbeck]

I mean, I know all these names obviously, but yeah.

[Chris Ryan]

80s man.

[Bill Simmons]

Cr. Thank you.

[Van Lathan]

Thank you for having me.

[Bill Simmons]

Thank you. Craig and G. Thank you. Eduardo, thank you. Anyone else to thank?

[Craig Horlbeck]

Matt.

[Bill Simmons]

Matt, thank you. We'll be back next week on the rewatchables with the 30 year anniversary of she's the One, which you can watch on Netflix before we do the podcast. There you go.