‘Over The Top’ With Bill Simmons and Kyle Brandt

Summary

Episode Summary: "Over The Top" with Bill Simmons and Kyle Brandt

Released September 24, 2024, on "The Rewatchables" podcast by The Ringer

In this engaging episode of "The Rewatchables," Bill Simmons and Kyle Brandt delve deep into the 1987 Sylvester Stallone film "Over the Top." Positioned as one of Stallone’s most unconventional movies, the hosts explore its themes, memorable scenes, and lasting impact on pop culture.

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1. Introduction to "Over the Top"

Bill Simmons kicks off the discussion by positioning "Over the Top" against Stallone’s other iconic films like "Cobra," "Rocky," and "Rambo." He remarks, “Over the Top came out in 1987, immediately became known as the greatest arm wrestling truck driving divorce movie anyone's ever made” (04:44).

2. Plot and Key Themes

The movie centers on Lincoln Hawk (Sylvester Stallone), a truck driver and single father who enters an arm-wrestling tournament to win a grand prize that would allow him to reconnect with his estranged son. Brandt humorously describes it as “arm wrestling, truck driving, divorce” (05:06), highlighting its unique blend of genres.

3. Stallone's Performance and Character Analysis

Both hosts critique Stallone's portrayal of Lincoln Hawk, noting his minimal acting range in the film. Simmons points out, “Does he even do a single fucking moment of acting?” (06:43), emphasizing Hawk’s stoic and mechanistic demeanor. Brandt counters by appreciating Stallone's commitment, especially during the arm-wrestling scenes, despite the character's flaws.

4. Arm-Wrestling Scenes: The Heart of the Movie

A significant portion of the episode focuses on the arm-wrestling tournament, with particular attention to the "Over the Top" move—a signature maneuver used by Hawk. Simmons questions the plausibility of this technique, stating, “It's the most important movie of all time. Which it might be, I gotta be honest.” (04:37), while Brandt defends its iconic status, especially in the film’s climactic moments.

5. Critical Reception and Box Office Performance

Initially, "Over the Top" was not well-received, both critically and commercially. Simmons notes, “Stallone signs up for 12. Stallone said years later… they were like, well, what about 12? And the agent's like, okay, fine.” (15:38), reflecting on the financial risks and eventual losses the film incurred, leading to a downturn in Stallone's career trajectory.

6. Behind the Scenes: Golan and Globus

The hosts venture into the film’s production background, discussing producers Menahem Golan and Yoram Globus. They reference the documentary "Electric: The Story of Cannon Films," revealing how Golan and Globus were prolific yet controversial figures in the 80s action film industry. Brandt highlights, “They made 31 movies in 1987. They made Last American Virgin, Runaway Train, Barfi, Street Smart…” (16:46), showcasing their extensive influence on genre cinema.

7. Memorable Quotes and Iconic Moments

Several standout quotes from the movie are dissected:

• Lincoln Hawk’s Philosophy: “You were born to win, but to be a winner, you must plan to win, prepare to win, and expect to win.” (12:19)

• Sammy Hagar’s Contribution: The song "Winner Takes It All" by Sammy Hagar is lauded as one of the best sports montages in film history. Both hosts agree, with Simmons declaring, “Winner takes it all has to be on Mount Rushmore.” (36:50)

8. Critical Analysis and Nitpicks

Simmons and Brandt engage in playful criticism, addressing various plot inconsistencies and character motivations:

• Naming Confusion: Simmons laments the inconsistency in Lincoln Hawk’s last name, fluctuating between Hawk and Hawks throughout the film (66:12).

• Transportation Feasibility: Both question the logistics of Lincoln’s arduous journey to the arm-wrestling tournament without modern technology like GPS or cell phones (86:13).

• Character Development: The lack of a substantial backstory for Lincoln’s estrangement from his son and the underdevelopment of pivotal characters like Bull Hurley are highlighted as significant flaws (43:05).

9. Legacy and Rewatchability

Despite its initial shortcomings, "Over the Top" has gained a cult following over the decades, particularly for its climactic tournament scenes and memorable soundtrack. Brandt shares, “As so often happens with the rewatchables, [Over the Top] started to make the rotation. It started to show up on cable.” (10:35), underscoring its enduring appeal.

10. Personal Insights and Reflections

The hosts reflect on their personal connections and the emotional resonance of the film:

• Bill's Nostalgia: Simmons reminisces about watching the movie as a child and the enchantment of seeing his father perform cool actions on screen (57:13).

• Kyle’s Critique: Brandt expresses frustration with the film’s narrative choices but acknowledges the quintessential 80s flair that makes it a beloved rewatchable (105:26).

11. Notable Quotes with Timestamps

• “Don't meet me halfway.” – Kyle Brandt (13:12)

• “You gotta take it.” – Kyle Brandt (31:37)

• “I'm going to give you a whirl.” – Kyle Brandt (04:07)

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Conclusion

In "Over the Top," Bill Simmons and Kyle Brandt provide a thorough and entertaining exploration of a film that oscillates between campy action and heartfelt drama. While acknowledging its flaws—from inconsistent character naming to implausible plot points—they celebrate its unique place in 80s cinema and its transformation into a beloved classic over time. The episode is a testament to how "Over the Top" has transcended its initial reception to become a staple for film enthusiasts seeking nostalgic rewatchables.

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Notable Quotes with Timestamps

• Bill Simmons: "Over the Top came out in 1987, immediately became known as the greatest arm wrestling truck driving divorce movie anyone's ever made." (04:44)

• Kyle Brandt: "You were born to win, but to be a winner, you must plan to win, prepare to win, and expect to win." (12:19)

• Kyle Brandt: “You gotta take it.” (31:37)

• Bill Simmons: “Does he even do a single fucking moment of acting?” (06:43)

• Kyle Brandt: “Don’t meet me halfway.” (13:12)

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Timestamps Overview

• 00:00 – 04:00: Advertisements and podcast promotions (Excluded from summary)

• 04:00 – 63:00: Main content discussing "Over the Top"

• 63:01 – 65:00: Advertisements (Excluded from summary)

• 65:01 – End: Continued discussion, nitpicks, and final thoughts

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This summary captures the essence of the episode, focusing on meaningful discussions and insights while omitting non-content segments as per the guidelines.

Transcript

[Bill Simmons]

If you're a fan of the inner workings of Hollywood, then check out my podcast, the Town on the Ringer Podcast Network. My name is Matt Bellamy. I'm founding partner at Puck and the writer of the what I'm Hearing newsletter. And with my show the Town, I bring you the inside conversation about money and power in Hollywood. Every week we've got three short episodes featuring real Hollywood insiders to tell you what people in town are actually talking about. We'll cover everything from why your favorite show was canceled overnight, which streamer is on the brink of collapse, and which executive is on the hot seat. Disney, Netflix, who's up, down, and who will eat lunch in this town again. Follow the Town on Spotify or wherever you get your podcasts. Want to shop Walmart Black Friday deals first? Walmart plus members get early access to our hottest deals. Join now and get 50% off a one year annual membership. Shop Black Friday deals first with Walmart Plus. See [e-mail] this is the sound of.

[Kyle Brandt]

Your ride home with dad after he caught you vaping. Awkward, isn't it?

[Bill Simmons]

Most vapes contain seriously addictive levels of nicotine and disappointment.

[Kyle Brandt]

Know the real cost of vapes brought to you by the fda. The Rewatchables is brought to you by the Ringer Podcast network. We have our own YouTube channel. It is Ringer Movies. It's us in the big picture. You can find a lot of old Rewatchables episodes that we've done. We've been putting up ones that we did on video from 19 and 20 and 21 that we just kind of never threw up. Like just put up panic rumors up there. Die Hard 2, Armageddon. Yeah. And then we put up all the new episodes as well, including this one with Kyle Brandt. He's back. We're doing over the Top with Sylvester Stallone. It came out in 1987. We're going to be able to talk about it in one second. Like it is the most important movie of all time. Which it might be, I gotta be honest. But there's certain movies, they just have the scent of Kyle Brandt. And I mean that in a good way. It's the scent of Brut cologne, It's the smell of bubblegum, it's the smell of popcorn. So we're going to dive into over the Top in one second. But before we do, I have an announcement. New Yorkers, people in the tri state area, people who aren't that far away from heading into New York City. The Rewatchables is coming to Broadway that's right. No singing or dancing, just potting. The Rewatchables live from the Music Box Theater in New York city on Monday, October 7th. It's going to be myself, CR, Fantasy, Mal or Rubin. The four of us. Tickets go on sale this Wednesday on September 25th, my birthday at 10:00am Eastern. All information will be on the ringer.com events page. Once again, the Rewatchables live on Broadway. One night only. Monday, October 7th. Music Box Theater. Tickets go on sale Wednesday, 10am Eastern. It's a bigger theater, so hopefully everybody who wants to go will be able to get Tickets. That'[e-mail] events. And speaking of September 25th, which weirdly is also my birthday, that is going to be the premiere of Mr. McMahon on Netflix, which is a six episode series that I've been working on for the past four and a half years. It's directed by Chris Smith, who is amazing and we put a lot of time and a lot of energy and a lot of effort into this. I really hope you watch it. So there you go. Let's talk over the Top with Kyle. Brandt. Craig, play the trailer. Ladies and gentlemen, welcome to the arm wrestling world championship competition. All I want to do is hurt him.

[Bill Simmons]

Crippling.

[Kyle Brandt]

When the switch goes on, I feel like machine. The talk is over. Now the action begins. Back off.

[Bill Simmons]

I'm going to give you a whirl.

[Kyle Brandt]

Of hurt, little man. You want it, Sylvester Stallone?

[Bill Simmons]

I own you. Come on.

[Kyle Brandt]

Over the Top.

[Bill Simmons]

Ready PG soon.

[Kyle Brandt]

Okay. Kyle Branis here and we have been circling this movie ever since you and I got to know each other.

[Bill Simmons]

Oh, yeah.

[Kyle Brandt]

Was this number one on the list? What was number one on the list for us to do? Is it is. This is way up there.

[Bill Simmons]

You know what's great, Bill? It. It was either this or Cobra. It was one of the two. And I feel like those are cousins, if not brothers. So we've got them.

[Kyle Brandt]

Made by the same production company a year apart. Over the Top came out in 1987, immediately became known as the greatest arm wrestling truck driving divorce movie anyone's ever made. I don't know what the competition is. Kramer vs Kramer crossed with the champ. Crossed with Rocky, crossed with arm wrestling. Want to start there?

[Bill Simmons]

Yeah. There's a legendary Hollywood story that in an early draft of Kramer vs. Kramer, Dustin Hoffman and Meryl Streep arm wrestle. And that's how they decided. But they decided to cut it and they went with something more authentic. I wish they would have stuck with it. We can start there. I'm also kind of in a bad mood, Bill, because I wanted to set up a pulley system for this pod where I can work my shoulder while we pod, but I couldn't pull it off in time and it kept falling down. Just one of the many charm.

[Kyle Brandt]

It just had not even mentioned it. And you were just doing one arm pull ups the whole time.

[Bill Simmons]

I tried, man. I tried.

[Kyle Brandt]

So did all the truck drivers have that back then?

[Bill Simmons]

Yeah. I don't know how the Department of Transportation would feel about their truck drivers taking 18 wheelers on the highway while getting in a shoulder burn. But Sly knows how to come up with cool stuff like that. It's one of my favorite parts of this movie.

[Kyle Brandt]

So sly in the mid-80s, 85 to 87, does Rambo II, Rocky 4, Cobra, and Over the Top in the span of two years. And we covered this in Cobra. Sly had a point before Cobra where if he's releasing a movie, it was the single most exciting person who could release a movie in like 1986. Even after Cobra. Still super exciting. This time. He does everything we just mentioned with the arm wrestling, truck driving, divorce name, but with a little kid with him that needs to be slapped the entire movie. It's the first one ever where you're rooting for father son abuse. So can you just backhand this kid once? Can you do something? But he doesn't. I think what's interesting, Kyle, is that Rainbow 2, Rocky 4, Cobra, and over the Top, he's giving the same performance in each movie.

[Bill Simmons]

That's great. I had this built like I have it written down. Does Sly do any acting in this movie? Does he even do a single fucking moment of acting? And that includes a moment like right out of the final day of drama school where he is confronted with the news suddenly that his wife is dead. And he just goes like, oh, if he doesn't act for the whole movie, he makes no choices. It's nothing.

[Kyle Brandt]

He scales it back. This really started with Rambo too. And then he's just like, I wonder if I can just do this for the next few years. I think he realized eventually it was a mistake because entangling cash, he tries to be like kind of jovial, sarcastic. Sly puts like glasses on in a suit. Cliffhanger. It's a version of this character, but it's also, we want to see the pain. But in this it's just clear it's a paycheck movie. This was also the first alone movie that lost money. I think since Victory. He'd been on a hot Streak where he was at least breaking even or making shitloads of money. People did not like this movie. It led to a slide for our guy.

[Bill Simmons]

Yeah. Where does it take us? It goes bad places. Give me the rundown because I love mid-80s Stallone. It's like, it's some of his worst, best movies. And it's when obviously no one was checking him on anything like Sly. It's just your world. Make whatever you want. Say whatever you want. In Cobra, get a slice of pizza out of the freezer and cut it with scissors for no reason. Just do whatever you want. But it goes bad from here. Give me the rundown after this.

[Kyle Brandt]

I don't know where the over the top hat. What's going on up there?

[Bill Simmons]

Yeah, I got the over the top hat. I got the exact hat. In fact, I probably should have turned it around right, to start the podcast. But, yeah, I have the hat.

[Kyle Brandt]

So would you buy that on, like a. Where'd you. Where'd you get it? Website. Ebay.

[Bill Simmons]

Here's what it was. Last year in the NFL world, over the top was huge because of Tyson B. The Bears quarterback whose dad, Travis Bagent, was like a real life Bull Hurley or Lincoln Hawk. So last year on Good Morning Football, I was Lincoln Hawk for Halloween. So I found it online. Like, if you Google Lincoln Hawk hat, there's a whole bunch of them out there. So I got. And I cherish it.

[Kyle Brandt]

I mean, there's a lot of reasons why you're on this podcast, but that has to be in the top three that you're just saying, oh, yeah, I have the over the top hat.

[Bill Simmons]

Yeah, sure.

[Kyle Brandt]

So Rambo 3, 1988, which made almost $200 million, but was bad. Lockup, 24 million spent, 22 brought in. I like Lockup. And don't think we probably won't be seeing it on the rewatchables at some point. Tango Cash. We've already done rewatchables. Broke even. Rocky 5, spent 42, made 120. But even Stallone now is like, I hate that movie. That's why I made Rocky Balboa. We had to. I ruined the franchise. Oscar spent 35 million, made 24. That was 1991. And then stop or my mom will shoot. Cost 45 million and somehow made 71 million, which I don't really understand, but by that, it's over.

[Bill Simmons]

Estelle Getty from Golden Girls, they liked her. Yeah, they liked her. Can I ask you a question, Bill? Like, for over the top, when you rewatched it for this Pod. When was the last time you had seen it? Prior. Prior to the rewatch. Because for me, it had been a very, very long time.

[Kyle Brandt]

Unfair question because it's on Pluto and Tubi and cable a lot. And you clicked. If we're getting close to the arm wrestling scene, it's like we might be in Vegas within 10 minutes. I'm probably sticking around for. I think the 35 minutes of this movie is unassailably great.

[Bill Simmons]

It's awesome.

[Kyle Brandt]

I'll defend it to the death.

[Bill Simmons]

Great.

[Kyle Brandt]

First 55, 60 is rough. I'm not gonna lie. It's rough. It's tough. I can only imagine producer Craig at like the 45 minute mark going, what are we doing? How is this a rewatchables movie? But then it just becomes amazing.

[Bill Simmons]

Yeah, I hadn't seen it in so long. I watched it a ton as a kid and then a lot in high school. I had literally been over 10 years since I'd seen the movie before they were watchable. And on my rewatch I was like, God, this is fucking tough to get. This kid won't shut up. And there's so little arm wrestling. It's just that sweet, sweet nectar of the final 30, 35 minutes makes it all worth it.

[Kyle Brandt]

It's very similar to the Rocky II blueprint where Rocky two, the first six minutes is just Rocky one again. The end of Rocky one, then it's got that Frank Stallone, dun, dun, dun, dun, dun, dun, dun. And they're driving to the hospital. We get. Creed goes into the hospital room. Did you give me your best? I did. And then it's like, cool. And then for an hour and a half, it's awful.

[Bill Simmons]

Long wait. Long wait.

[Kyle Brandt]

And then she comes out of coma. It's great. That's this movie. This movie's bad. Really? For about 40 minutes. And then the payoff is unbelievable. Is this the unintentionally funniest Stallone movie for you?

[Bill Simmons]

I can't get there.

[Kyle Brandt]

COBRA's still number one.

[Bill Simmons]

Yeah, it's Marion Cobretti. It's just with the. The gun tucked into the waistband and the snake on the gun. That's the best. But this is still very funny.

[Kyle Brandt]

Him fighting a cult in Cobra. A cult that stands for things that we're just apparently not gonna find out about during the movie.

[Bill Simmons]

No. They stand for banging axes together. And that's it. And they have a knife that has spikes on it, and that's all you need. And there's a laser gun. And it's awesome. It's still Cobra. I would. Bill. At some point, I would recobra. If we really needed to recobra a double Cobra. I double down. I would.

[Kyle Brandt]

So, Lincoln Hawk, he does dispense some advice in this movie.

[Bill Simmons]

Yeah, go on.

[Kyle Brandt]

You were born to win, but to be a winner, you must plan to win, prepare to win, and expect to win. I wish somebody would tell Nick Sirianni that. All I could say is, I made a mistake. I know that. You know, sometimes that happens in life. We all make mistakes, but it won't happen again. I wish Nick Sirianni would say that after whatever happened at halftime. I mean, this was the enduring advice of the movie. The world beats nobody halfway. When you want something, you got to take it. Now, what's weird is Kenny Loggins does this song for this movie called Meet me halfway across the sky, which is diametrically opposed to the lesson of the movie. It's like, the world meets nobody halfway. And then Kenny Loggett's like, beat me halfway. So did he know? Did they fuck up in the translation? What happened?

[Bill Simmons]

That's a great point. Kenny didn't even really get the idea that. No, no, no, Ken. Don't meet me halfway.

[Kyle Brandt]

Yeah, that should be the name of the title. Yeah. Don't meet me Halfway.

[Bill Simmons]

And it's obviously that Stallone feels so strongly about it. It's as if he saw the world doesn't meet you halfway like, sewn on a pillow somewhere.

[Kyle Brandt]

Yeah.

[Bill Simmons]

And he was just like, well, it's fucking mind blowing, and I want to make a whole movie based on it. And he's. He says it six times, the songs in the movie, 50 times. And it's like, listen, it's fine. It's not like, the most poetic thing I've ever heard in my life. I don't even know if it's true. But he loved it, obviously, and that's why we're here.

[Kyle Brandt]

Don't. The world meets nobody halfway means you have to take the bull by the horns.

[Bill Simmons]

The world, you got no half measures. Like, you're not going to get any breaks from life. You got to do everything yourself. It's really cheesy. In fact, Bills, what's funny about your reference is that I know for a fact that Nick Sirianni is a huge, Sly Stallone guy. Like, huge. He loves the Rocky movies. He wears, like, Rocky T shirts, Philadelphia, all that stuff. So I bet he has seen this movie 50 times and has probably told the Eagles that life doesn't meet you halfway.

[Kyle Brandt]

I bet probably after the game yesterday, the other Lincoln Hawk advice is turning your hat around gives you strength. I don't know if you want to do that when we get to most rewatchable scenes, but it's like a switch. It's a superpower. So Stallone did not like the movie after it came out, distanced himself from it a little bit. Said later if he directed, he would have set the movie in a more urban environment, dumped the pop music, and made the Las Vegas finale more ominous, which I don't even know what that means. There's a reason he made this movie. They offered him $12 million, which was a record. So people talk about Demi Moore with striptease, which made 20 million. People like, oh my God, 20 million. And she. Stallone broke every record with the 12 million. And the story behind it was they. And there's this great documentary we're gonna talk about a second, but they offer Stallone 10 million. And the agent goes, 10 million? He. He wouldn't even do it for 12. And they're like, well, what about 12? And the agent's like, okay, fine, 12. So Stallone signs up for 12. Stallone said years later, Menaka Golan kept offering me more and more money until I finally thought, what the hell, no one will see it. Little did he know, 37 years later, we'd be doing an hour and a half long podcast about it.

[Bill Simmons]

Damn right.

[Kyle Brandt]

But the key to this is Golan and Globus, the producers, Golan directs it. So they made a documentary about these guys, which I asked you to watch, you can find on Amazon. It is called Electric the Story of Canon Films or something like that. And what I didn't realize, because we'd seen them in these things and we've talked about them in past rewatchables, we were like, was this an Israeli arms dealer, like Front? These weren't real people. Not only were these real people, Golan was the father of Israeli cinema and then for whatever reason, moves into the 80s, into softcore and action movies. And they just make so many movies over the 80s, so many movies that I had no idea they made. They made 31 movies in 1987. They made last American Virgin, Runaway Train, Barfi, Street Smart. Those were the good ones. They also made Bo Derek and Bolero. They made all the Lady Chatterley lovers movies. They did multi part movie deals with Chuck Norris and Charles Bronson. So three Death Wish movies, three Missing in actions. I can go on and on, but did you watch the documentary I asked you to?

[Bill Simmons]

Did I watch it? Bill, I can give you the tagline for the Last American Virgin, which is see it or you'll be it. And I'm like, that's fucking witty as hell. I'm ready. I'm ready to do rewatchables on lemon Popsicle. Anytime you're ready. We can do the Lemon Popsicle pod. It would be a great one. Bring Van on. I want to do it with him. That movie is horny as hell. I love that doc. It was. It's. If you're. If you're listening and like canon films doesn't quite register for you. Like a shitload of movies that you care about. Like Van Damme movies and Stallone movies. And then they did the American Flame movies, all that stuff. Like cool action movies that matter in this batshit doc that is required watching I think now.

[Kyle Brandt]

Yeah. You don't see a lot of movie studios embrace a philosophy and their philosophy was nudity in action. Those are our sweet spots. I didn't remember this, but they made a futuristic musical in 1980 called the Apple which was set in 2025 Tel Aviv. And they showed clips from it in documentary. And it's out and out flat out insane.

[Bill Simmons]

They thought it was going to be their Tommy.

[Kyle Brandt]

Right. He was trying to model it after futuristic Tommy. Didn't work. And then that just led to this crazy action softcore run they had. And they definitely had a business model and they were always borrowing money and always basically Ponzi scheming it leading to over the Top, where it's like, all right, we need. We got. We have to get a bigger star than Chuck Norris, Charles Bronson. Those guys are getting old. Let's get sly. They fund Cobra and get him to do over the Top, which for some reason Golan's like, you know what? This is so important. I'm going to direct this one. And even though it only directed like.

[Bill Simmons]

Three movies and the writer tells this great story about over the top. Whereas the credits roll and Lincoln Hawk's holding up his son. He's like, and I was crying. I had tears coming out of my eyes. And the producer goes, haha, I got you. I got you. And he goes, I'm crying because I know my career is over, but he's full of shit. We like over the top. Right? Yeah, I'm into it.

[Kyle Brandt]

That story really hurt my feelings.

[Bill Simmons]

Same.

[Kyle Brandt]

You know what I learned, first of all, it's hilarious. They made Superman 4, which is question. One of the worst movies ever made.

[Bill Simmons]

Yeah.

[Kyle Brandt]

And you understand why from thing it was supposed to be 30 million. They ran out of money. And they made it for like 15 million. And they're just cutting corners left and right.

[Bill Simmons]

Terrible.

[Kyle Brandt]

But what I realized when I watched that documentary, which I really loved, I would highly encourage people. If you like the rewatchables, I promise you'll like that movie. We need a 2024 version of these guys.

[Bill Simmons]

Go talk about it.

[Kyle Brandt]

Just let's. Let's have somebody take back these soft core slash auction action and just be like, I've done a five, five movie deal with Gerard Butler and I've locked down Pam Anderson. She's making a comeback like that. Those people should exist. I don't know why we don't have that anymore. This was so 80s. It's just everything about the 80s feels illegal and druggy and just like every single idea is bad. I love that. I really missed it.

[Bill Simmons]

Even when you watch the doc, you're not actually watching the actual movies. But even in the doc, there's just so many boobs. It's just kind of.

[Kyle Brandt]

Oh, it's unbelievable. So much nudity. Yeah.

[Bill Simmons]

And I. There's. That's undefeated. There's always a market for that.

[Kyle Brandt]

There's nudity. And part of the doc is them explaining them telling the actors why there has to be nudity in a scene. But it's like a sword fight scene outside and somebody's shirt gets ripped off. It's like, I guess I'm going to.

[Bill Simmons]

Have to keep fighting with Faye Dunaway. She's whipping some lady who's naked and they're like, this is great. Keep going.

[Kyle Brandt]

Great. Keep going. Take three. It's an awesome documentary. Anyway, this movie, $25 million budget that includes the 12 to Sly, and it made 16 million. So Golden Globus yet again. This is one of the reasons they were eventually defunct. It came out in President's Day weekend, the same weekend as mannequin with Andrew McCarthy.

[Bill Simmons]

Oh, yeah.

[Kyle Brandt]

Which beat it in the theaters. They lost a mannequin with Andrew McCarthy and Kim Cattrall.

[Bill Simmons]

Bill, did you see over the Top in the Theater?

[Kyle Brandt]

Oh, who are you talking to? Of course I saw over the Top of the theater.

[Bill Simmons]

What do you remember?

[Kyle Brandt]

Pure Joy. I loved it. It was great.

[Bill Simmons]

Did you see Mannequin Theater?

[Kyle Brandt]

Did not see Mannequin Theater. As a child of divorce, giant Stallone fan, always kind of liked arm wrestling. I remember they did a really good job of the marketing leading up to it. Like, I. And I looked for this on YouTube. I couldn't find it, but I remember watching an ESPN segment on sports center about it. Inside Sports. It was like kind of. It was after John Walsh had left, the magazine was falling apart, but they did a big spread on it. And it's like. Is arm wrestling the new craze?

[Bill Simmons]

Oh, cool.

[Kyle Brandt]

So it had some of that. It was like, first we had pro wrestling, now here comes arm wrestling. And I was buying in. I was like, where's this going? And the answer was nowhere.

[Bill Simmons]

Well, now we have. Dana White lets people slap each other in the face without defending themselves. So we have that. And that's always fun.

[Kyle Brandt]

Yeah, the. What's that called? The CTE League or the.

[Bill Simmons]

I think that is what they call.

[Kyle Brandt]

It on a slap league.

[Bill Simmons]

I don't watch it. It's not my thing.

[Kyle Brandt]

I as you know, I'll watch just about anything. And even I don't watch the slap league. Yeah, but that, that, that would be. If they did this movie in 2024, it would be built around the slap league.

[Bill Simmons]

Imagine Bull Hurley just winding up and slapping Link across the face. He's just unconscious on the floor. There's no coming. You can't defend yourself. That's the whole point.

[Kyle Brandt]

Or they're in the truck with his son and is. He's just having his son just will and hit him in the face over and over again to prepare for the.

[Bill Simmons]

Instead of the weightlifting things. Yo, Mike, just hit me. Hit me.

[Kyle Brandt]

Just whack me. Roger Ebert did not review this movie.

[Bill Simmons]

Yeah, probably not him and him and.

[Kyle Brandt]

Siskel did a whole four minute thing that's on YouTube and they excoriate it. Thumbs down.

[Bill Simmons]

Yeah.

[Kyle Brandt]

Hubert actually says one of the questions I had during this movie was why Stallone didn't haul off and belt that kid. The actual quote, yeah, belt that kid. And then he said, I would have liked this movie better if they'd forgotten about the wife and the son and the grandfather and Stallone and concentrate on the arm wrestling. So basically he's like, throw away the first hour. Yeah. Siskel says the kid is cloying, obnoxious, just not a good actor. It's like 10. He's getting annihilated on PBS.

[Bill Simmons]

I think the kid is a pretty good actor. I think the character sucks. Yeah, he does an okay job.

[Kyle Brandt]

And then that was enough. They came back for their worst of 1987 show. They do that and they double dipped and went back in on how bad over the top was. So this was not a critically acclaimed movie. It was considered a bust by Stallone purposes. And yet, as so often happens with the rewatchables, started to make the Rotation. It started to show up on cable. Let's go. It's like, oh. And then it just. And I know all the beats. And the key is when that Sammy Hagar song comes on and it suddenly becomes one of the best movies of the 80s.

[Bill Simmons]

When it takes it all. It's awesome. It's so good.

[Kyle Brandt]

Ah. Watch with broken eyes till it's time to take it all the way.

[Bill Simmons]

Yay.

[Kyle Brandt]

Yay.

[Bill Simmons]

And if nobody's seen it, Bill sent me the music video, which is a Sammy Hagar music video with the movie clips in it. And it's great. Haggard's playing guitar barefoot with like the fans blowing on him. It's a great watch. And watch.

[Kyle Brandt]

And he has arm wrestling Stallone. It's probably better than the movie, to be honest.

[Bill Simmons]

It's good.

[Kyle Brandt]

Today's most rewatchable scene brought to you by Paramount plus A mountain of movies awaits on Paramount plus Sadly not over the top, but a mountain of heart pounding action blockbusters like Top Gun, Maverick, Mission Impossible, Fall and Gladiator. A mountain of jump scares with throwers like Scream 6, Smile and A Quiet Place Day 1. And A Mountain of fun for the kiddos. Family favorites like if Paw Patrol the movie and Door in the Lost City of Gold. Are you out of the kids movie business or no?

[Bill Simmons]

No, I'm totally in the kids. We just saw Transformers 1. We watch them all.

[Kyle Brandt]

Okay, good. Discover something new every week on Paramount plus. So rewatchable scenes.

[Bill Simmons]

Yeah.

[Kyle Brandt]

Hawks first arm wrestling scene. They had to get it out of the way.

[Bill Simmons]

Let's go.

[Kyle Brandt]

What? 12 minutes in. Just. He's at a diner. He's just picked up his kid from military school. The kid's a complete dick. Hey, let's go get some food. Just happens to be the place all the arm wrestlers are hanging out for some reason. Gets challenged. Bull is there. Or Bo. Bo.

[Bill Simmons]

Bo is there.

[Kyle Brandt]

He's there. Just. I don't know. Doing a podcast. Maybe he's preparing for his live show that night. And. And just a lot of taunting. We get to see slide do his thing. Does the hat turn? Does the over the top. Where do you stand on the over the top move? I don't. I didn't want to do this later. I feel like we have to do this now. What was he the only person who did this? It seems high degree of difficulty. You're basically giving all your leverage away for two seconds.

[Bill Simmons]

I couldn't have said it better. I've always wondered this. He as he's a being pushed down and stopping the push down with his four fingers and thumb. For some reason, he takes two of his fingers and sacrifices that leverage, which doesn't make sense to me. I feel like that would be a death knell for you.

[Kyle Brandt]

Yeah. Wouldn't they immediately just.

[Bill Simmons]

Yeah. You're basically holding them up with your ring finger and your pinky. Then you'd be totally screwed. I don't get it.

[Kyle Brandt]

Right. He's starting to do the over the top, and the person he's fighting is going, oh, he's doing it. I'm just going to spam him. Yeah, that's it. For some reason, it's completely unstoppable.

[Bill Simmons]

And then his kid does it, and he even works on Bull Hurley. But the scene you're talking about is the first one. It's when we get to meet the Smasher, who I fucking. If crystal meth was a human being, it would be the Smasher. He looks exactly like. Exactly. All that entails. And I also feel like that scene with the Smasher, Bill has a little bit of the. To me, the action is the juice. They went to the Smash. And, like, you're going to do a scene of dialogue with Sylvester Stallone. That's fucking Rocky over there. Like, really bring it. And Smashers turned up to 50 out of 10 for that thing. Just tweaking and it always amuses me.

[Kyle Brandt]

Yeah, they might have not even given him some cocaine. They might have given him all the cocaine. Just.

[Bill Simmons]

Just do another Smasher.

[Kyle Brandt]

Stick your face in this pile of cocaine, and then we're going to film this scene.

[Bill Simmons]

And Hawk goes, well, don't. Don't believe everything you hear. And he goes, I don't. I don't believe it. I. I can take you and I. Jesus, Smasher, take it easy, man.

[Kyle Brandt]

Well, we also have Hurley coming over after being like, you ain't got a prayer in Vegas right now. Double or nothing.

[Bill Simmons]

What do you say?

[Kyle Brandt]

Let's just wait for Vegas. Come on, let's do it now. I feel like kicking some ass. Let's wait till Vegas, okay? You ain't got a prayer in Vegas.

[Bill Simmons]

We'll see.

[Kyle Brandt]

Too bad your old man's yellow, kid. I'll see you in Vegas. Get out of the way. Back up.

[Bill Simmons]

Sorry about that, Mike.

[Kyle Brandt]

He says all of his lines like he's being interviewed by Vince McMahon in the mid-80s. You ain't got a prayer in Vegas, Ted.

[Bill Simmons]

Be you and Virgil don't have a prayer at SummerSlam.

[Kyle Brandt]

It's like that in Hartford, Connecticut, on July 28th. You're a dead man. All right. So that's one scene. I'm gonna skip basically all the father son scenes with these two.

[Bill Simmons]

Please do.

[Kyle Brandt]

I wouldn't think any of them are re watchable. It's a little fun to watch the kid try to drive a truck when Sly says no, no milkshake feels but for the most part pretty grim. Yeah. Stuff we have the kid just trying to escape and running across the highway.

[Bill Simmons]

Yep.

[Kyle Brandt]

I don't know if you've seen. There's a YouTube video and I was upset it only had 15,000 fuse. It's called Molester Stallone and it's over there.

[Bill Simmons]

I hadn't seen it, but then I watched it when you said it. So you have seen it.

[Kyle Brandt]

It's an over the top remake of Sly Stallone basically has. It's a child abduction movie thriller with Sly Stallone just with scenes cut from this and it's actually great work. I was upset it didn't have more views. Our next big scene though is Mike's big arm wrestling scene where he takes on. It's funny you said the crystal meth thing before because the kid that he arm wrestles I wrote down was crystal meth Zappa. He's Krista met Johnny Lawrence. He's just got this spiked out hair. He looks zonked out. He's on. It feels like he's on some sort of drug or he had too much soda, not sure what. And. And Mike Hawk has no chance against this kid and somehow defeats him.

[Bill Simmons]

Mike Hawk has zero chance. I have written down as that kid as the Hills have eyes kid who is just like. Like a poster for being inbred and like that you just mentioned at the end. So first of all, they do the one out. They do a best out of three. Mike Hawk gets destroyed in the first one. And then like there's this cockamamie thing where Stallone gives him a speech about believing in himself and then suddenly he can beat him twice in a row. Like this isn't boxing, it's. It's just pure strength against strength. He would get destroyed every single time by that kid.

[Kyle Brandt]

I think it's the third time the kid cries in the movie and we're like a half hour in, maybe less loses.

[Bill Simmons]

Too bad he didn't get hit by a car when he ran across the freeway. I bet Lincoln was hoping he would.

[Kyle Brandt]

It's a better movie. He loses the first fall out of three, starts crying, runs out. Stallone chases him and the kid goes, all you wanted to do was embarrass me. Well, you did It. Okay. Grandfather always said you were a loser. Now you're trying to make me one, and I hate you for it. Mike, what's the response to that slap?

[Bill Simmons]

It's the 80s. It's the 80s.

[Kyle Brandt]

At least like a hard finger point to the chin, to the cheek. Well, like, kind of like try to paralyze his face a little bit, but some sort of contact.

[Bill Simmons]

I think at very, very least, you do the elbow. Grab that firm elbow grab that. Little.

[Kyle Brandt]

Too firm. Yeah.

[Bill Simmons]

And then get your ass back in there. And by the way, that kid's never going back in there. I don't know how he is 12. No 12 year old in tears who just got destroyed on the arcade machine is going back in. He's not doing.

[Kyle Brandt]

Man, I think I agree with you, but you're underrating Sly's motivational speech.

[Bill Simmons]

I think maybe I am. Do tell.

[Kyle Brandt]

Mike, I don't care what your grandfather thinks about me, okay? All I care about is you right now. You lost back there because you beat yourself. You told yourself you couldn't win. You're my boy. Now go back there and win.

[Bill Simmons]

I know you can do it.

[Kyle Brandt]

You're a special kid.

[Bill Simmons]

You're my boy.

[Kyle Brandt]

Do you understand?

[Bill Simmons]

But you're also a spoiled rich brat who's always had everything done for him.

[Kyle Brandt]

Now it's time to do for yourself, Mike.

[Bill Simmons]

And you can do it because I'm telling you, the world meets nobody halfway.

[Kyle Brandt]

Do you understand what that means?

[Bill Simmons]

If you want it, Mike, you gotta take it.

[Kyle Brandt]

Do you hear me?

[Bill Simmons]

You gotta take it.

[Kyle Brandt]

That was the speech.

[Bill Simmons]

It's good speech.

[Kyle Brandt]

You. Now you understand why he went back in. You're my boy. You're my boy, Blue.

[Bill Simmons]

But I lost because you chose an older kid who's already on drugs and is stronger than me. Has nothing to do with anything that was said.

[Kyle Brandt]

This kid's terrified. Yeah, he's gonna rob us after this. Best two out of three.

[Bill Simmons]

Yes. Yeah, I think he's gonna. I. I think he was gonna ad lib a different part of the speech. He was gonna say like, you can change the results and if you can change, I can change, and everybody can change.

[Kyle Brandt]

It's like, you know, nobody meets you halfway, especially in arm wrestling, because you got to push it all the way.

[Bill Simmons]

All the way, not halfway.

[Kyle Brandt]

Well, Mike comes back and wins. Big win for Mike Hawk. I'm going to say losing to this kid who just cried after the first fall and had his dad there. And you have your friends there and you're just playing video games and then you End up choking and losing. Best 203 and losing money. Is that worse than the 28 to 3 Falcons loss in the super bowl or is it right, right there. And did the kid put himself in the ring of honor right afterwards?

[Bill Simmons]

Well, he can't because unless he owns the team of that arcade. Unless he owns that arcade.

[Kyle Brandt]

He owns the arcade. He puts it.

[Bill Simmons]

I do think it's worse because the Falcons were going against the greatest quarterback ever and they were going against Mike Hawk. It's one of the all time sports chokes though in 28 to 3. I think Nick Anderson at the free throw line. I think Hillary Clinton. It's like the full on blown leads. It's an all timer.

[Kyle Brandt]

The kids trained for two days. He has no muscle tone at all. Somehow. Somehow takes it. Next scene I just wrote down. Hawk shows up to grandpa's mansion to get his kid. Grandpa played by the one, the only, the indispensable Robert Loja.

[Bill Simmons]

Robert Loggia.

[Kyle Brandt]

Just an incredible run for him. This is over the top at 87 big in 88 on the big piano. And then Mankuso, FBI, whatever that show was called in 1989.

[Bill Simmons]

What is your number one, like Loggia Performance for you personally, Bill?

[Kyle Brandt]

First of all, thank you for asking.

[Bill Simmons]

Sure.

[Kyle Brandt]

I really appreciate that. Probably big on the piano. That would be number one. Scarface as Frank would be number two. And then of course Byron Mayo and the Officer and Gentleman movie that we've been talking about ever since where we just see him basically having a threesome with his son. I also really liked him in a movie that was an HBO movie in 1987 about the Chicago 7.

[Bill Simmons]

Okay.

[Kyle Brandt]

He. I think he played the lawyer, but he was great in it. So this is. We're in like peak Loja time. He's also in Jagged Edge. He's good in that. Eighties were like his. His sweet spot.

[Bill Simmons]

Yeah, I.

[Kyle Brandt]

What about you? What's your favorite?

[Bill Simmons]

You know, I'm actually going to zag on this. I love him in Necessary Roughness. He's one of the football coaches with Heather Elizondo. And then in my weird off the beaten path one is there's an early 90s Dana Carvey movie called Career Opportunities where Dana Carvey's a con man and Loa is the girl's father. And it was like, we're gonna try to make Dana Carvey a movie star. And like Loja was in it and it was perfect Loja performance. So I love that one too.

[Kyle Brandt]

He kind of was in that Jack Warden and I feel like Jack Warden, I think, was probably a slightly better or more respected actor. So he would get like the Heaven Can Wait parts and stuff like that. And Logia was kind of working the seams. But, you know, Scarface was a really important character for him because otherwise he's just different versions of Loja. In this one, he's on autopilot. He's clearly like, yeah, it's a four day shoot. Everybody is, can you. Can you wire me the money? I don't take checks or I'll cash one or the other. I'm just gonna come in, I'll yell at Stallone a couple times and I'll be done. Anyway, Lincoln Hawk shows up in his truck to grandpa's mansion to get the kid back. Because the kid has. Has left. They don't let him in. He decides to run over the gate of the mansion and then takes out a couple of those like, concrete statue things.

[Bill Simmons]

Yeah.

[Kyle Brandt]

And drives right to the front, I would say. What, he causes a million dollars of damage. Like $900,000 of damage. Yeah, yeah.

[Bill Simmons]

On a large property. My take on the scene, I think it's a direct rip off of the Terminator in 84. It's basically just, I'll be back. And he drives. And remember Arnold goes by and drives the police station.

[Kyle Brandt]

Schwarzenegger's in his head at this point, big time.

[Bill Simmons]

This is a few years later and Arnold's blowing up and he's like, I need an I'll be back moment. I'm surprised he didn't even say I'll be back. But it's the same scene, basically.

[Kyle Brandt]

Good call. Five cops arrest him. And I don't know, for some reason, it's kind of fun. I like that they went for it. Okay, well, so we only had three rewatchable scenes in the first hour of the movie. And then, dare I say, the last 35 minutes. I don't even know what to not say. Was rewatchable, but winner takes it all. Sammy Hagar the moment the tournament starts. It's the perfect song. It's in the running for best sports montage ever.

[Bill Simmons]

Get into it. Let's go. Let's. I mean, there's the heavy hitters.

[Kyle Brandt]

Teen Wolf.

[Bill Simmons]

Yeah.

[Kyle Brandt]

Win in the end. I'm gonna win in the end. We did that one together.

[Bill Simmons]

Love the great jam. That was my first Rewatchables ever was Teen Wolf. So I might have been soft spot.

[Kyle Brandt]

For that Karate Kid.

[Bill Simmons]

You're the best around. No one's ever gonna take it down.

[Kyle Brandt]

Joe.

[Bill Simmons]

Esp.

[Kyle Brandt]

Rocky 4. I know you're partial to the. To the training sequence.

[Bill Simmons]

Yes, the best.

[Kyle Brandt]

The opening of Rocky 3, which I think gets lost in this conversation with the Eye of the Tiger montage and Clubber Lango and somehow having the resources to go to 20 Rocky fights all over the world, even though he's fighting some. Some gym in la. But I think that's the big four with Winner Takes It All. Is there one that you would add other than that, you know, I. I.

[Bill Simmons]

Would might throw some love to another canon films. Bloodsport, the kumite is really fantastic.

[Kyle Brandt]

Oh, great call. Great call.

[Bill Simmons]

I have it in. What is the best? Just tournaments and sports movies are always great. The question is, like, has there ever been a bad tournament in sequence in sports movies? I don't really know. I can't think of one.

[Kyle Brandt]

It's perfect. Yeah. The kumite.

[Bill Simmons]

Yeah.

[Kyle Brandt]

Even though that. That song's not great. But the. You're meeting a lot of characters. You're seeing a lot of, like, quick knockouts or finishes. If I had to pick. Though if you had to pick one out of all of those. Win in the end. Has some flaws. Like Michael J. Fox makes the same layup, I think, four times.

[Bill Simmons]

Yeah. And I don't. I don't. I don't count the Rocky 4 because it's not a tournament really. I think it's Karate Kid. It's so fun to watch. And there's high school kids and one of them just died just a few weeks ago.

[Kyle Brandt]

Yeah. Chad McQueen.

[Bill Simmons]

Yeah. So I thought I still. Lavar from Revenge of the Nerds is in there. Like it's. There's all kinds of fun things. I like that one.

[Kyle Brandt]

Still don't know how Dutch beat him.

[Bill Simmons]

I don't know either.

[Kyle Brandt]

They wouldn't even really show it. They were just like, point, match, controversial. Wait, what happened? All right, anyway, winner takes it all his way up there. So this goes from this weird divorce arm wrestling truck movie to all of a sudden, one of the best sports movie montages we've ever had. There's good interview montages.

[Bill Simmons]

Oh, yeah.

[Kyle Brandt]

We get the semifinals intro montage where we get quotes like, when I get to that table, that person. I don't care who they are. They're my mortal enemy. I hate them. That's one Lincoln Hawk House. What I do is I just try to take my hat and I turn it around and it's like a switch that goes on. I don't know. I feel like. I feel like a truck.

[Bill Simmons]

Like a truck.

[Kyle Brandt]

Feel like a machine. Harry Bosco.

[Bill Simmons]

Yep.

[Kyle Brandt]

My whole body is an engine. And this is a fire plug.

[Bill Simmons]

Harry Bosco, the face of Alka Seltzer. Right?

[Kyle Brandt]

Yeah. And then. And I'm gonna light him up. And then we get Hurley going. I drive trucks, break arms and arm wrestle. It's what I love to do. It's what I do best. Being number one is everything. There is no second place. Second sucks. Really good advice.

[Bill Simmons]

Honestly, Sew that on a pillow. Second sucks. I don't want to step on life lesson Bill, but second sucks is concise as hell.

[Kyle Brandt]

Yeah. I like how they film it. It's a little ahead of its time. Documentary style. It's a documentary that I don't even know who the documentary is for.

[Bill Simmons]

And it's out of nowhere, all of a sudden, they're sitting there looking off camera and sitting. Doing these formal interviews. And it really is pleasing to the eye. You didn't even need that in the tournament. Would have been cool. But it really is cool that somebody came up with that. I love that part.

[Kyle Brandt]

I mean, the arm wrestling tournament probably could have been 20 minutes more.

[Bill Simmons]

Bull Hurley says that's my area. He's got no shitting business there. I've never even heard the word shit used in that context ever. But it works for me. It's all. It's all goal at that point.

[Kyle Brandt]

And there's this whole world we're going in where it's like double elimination. That's how you get knocked out. If your hands slip apart, they bring in the strap. The strap just seems super dangerous. You could have your elbow snapped. We actually see a guy get his elbow snapped, which apparently actually happened, by the way.

[Bill Simmons]

I have elbow snap guy in contention for Dion Waiters. I fucking love that moment. The fact that they left that in there. That poor guy got his arm broken in half. You probably should take that out, Cannon. Right?

[Kyle Brandt]

And he's like. He's looking at. He's like. It's like three seconds later. I said, like a dislocated elbow.

[Bill Simmons]

Yes, I dislocated my elbow. The last time I ever carried a football in my life was ended with an elbow dislocation. It is a searing 10 out of 10 pain. It's horrible.

[Kyle Brandt]

It's horrible. Even hurting your funny bones seems awful. That seems like a hundred times worse. We have another scene when he goes up into the presidential suite at the Hilton, sure to go see Robert Loggia. And Terry Funk is there as this henchman preparing his henchman chops for Roadhouse two years later and ends up throwing Terry Funk right through the glass doors. After he tells Robert Loggia to stick his check. I'm going to come back for my son. Throws Funk through the doors. We're right into a rematch with John Grizzly. From that. From coming out of the Hilton suite, we're fighting again. One thing I forgot to mention that I like with this movie is that we do see him lose once. Yeah, it's a little rocky 3ish, where he loses to Clubber and it's like, oh, we're doing this. I didn't realize. And Bob Beatty's going, it is a double elimination. You have to lose twice. Double elimination again. It's a double elimination. Saying it over and over again. So no one says, we gotta get.

[Bill Simmons]

Into this now, because I counted. He fucking says it five times. And it's not only that. He says, it's a double elimination. He goes, remember, it's a double elimination. Which means if you lose once, you can still continue in the tournament. Did everyone get that? Even after he goes to the presidential suite, they've already hit it four times. They hit it again to remind the audience. It's unbelievable.

[Kyle Brandt]

I think Golan or Globus or Golan and Globus are like, could you make sure there's a double elimination? Just that the audience understands, I guess. Like, the audiences are like, wait, I don't understand. So I lost.

[Bill Simmons]

Also, unanswerable question. If it's a double elimination, shouldn't Bull Hurley get to go again? I mean, later.

[Kyle Brandt]

Come on, now. It's.

[Bill Simmons]

Is that your hottest take? I'm sorry, did I step on it? I just. We were there.

[Kyle Brandt]

No, I had that in Nitpicks. It's double elimination. Yeah, but we get to the finals, we don't have Bob be. Whatever his name is coming and be like, it is no longer a double elimination. It's a single elimination from this.

[Bill Simmons]

If you lose once, you are now out. As opposed to the prior form, which was double elimination. Right.

[Kyle Brandt]

We actually kind of needed him to say that because he beats him and it's like, all right, you should have had to beat him twice. You just told us it was.

[Bill Simmons]

He says it five times. All we needed was once on the single. And by the way, Bull Hurley hasn't lost a single match in five years. Don't you think you get the benefit of maybe it's double elimination. He's the only guy who lost once and was out.

[Kyle Brandt]

Totally. Well, he takes out, throws Funk through the glass doors. Beats Grizzly, takes out Mad Dog Madison.

[Bill Simmons]

Yeah.

[Kyle Brandt]

He's coming in as a 20 to 1. Underdog. Now he's in the semis. Leading to the next rewatchable scene, the controversial Harry Bosco match.

[Bill Simmons]

Oh, let's go get into this.

[Kyle Brandt]

Not sure what happened here. There's a lot of chicanery leading up to the guys getting locked in together. And then they can't. They. And then all of a sudden he just like gets him immediately. And Bosco's like, I wasn't ready. I wasn't ready. I'm not sure what happened with that one, why they played it that way.

[Bill Simmons]

It's. There's a lot of talk about your shoulders have to be square and there's complaining about the thumbs. And Bosco is a veteran arm wrestler at this point. I have a take on that. That's. It's a little. It's a little edgy that. I hate that. Where the one officiating controversy in the arm wrestling seems to be the one black guy in the whole tournament. And he was the one who got screwed. There is an official who is a person of color nearby, so thank God. But otherwise that's a bad optic. I didn't like that.

[Kyle Brandt]

Yeah, I mean, he's. Let's be honest, he's the only black guy in the entire movie.

[Bill Simmons]

He is. Yes.

[Kyle Brandt]

Yeah. We could just say now the Van Lathan Award for. Did this movie need more black people? The answer was yes for over the Top. I think Harry Bosco was the only black person in it. And then the finals. The strap is a great gimmick.

[Bill Simmons]

Awesome.

[Kyle Brandt]

I don't really understand anything about arm wrestling, but I know that once the strap is in, this seems really dangerous for both sides.

[Bill Simmons]

You out here, in here.

[Kyle Brandt]

Now, when the two arms come apart, that means the strap is going to be put on your sitting arm off. Boy, get you mind that.

[Bill Simmons]

I own you. So bring them fingers down.

[Kyle Brandt]

I don't know how that then leads to him being able to do the over the top with the strap, but he gives them the bloody nose. Just hits him in the face.

[Bill Simmons]

Yeah.

[Kyle Brandt]

He just. I own you. I own you. He's got no other lines. He. I own you.

[Bill Simmons]

See, I feel like you disrespect him. He also says, get in here. He sounds like from Mortal Kombat. He sounds like Scorpion. And I like him when he calls him Little Man. Yeah, Bull's great. I fucking love Bull.

[Kyle Brandt]

So I always thought for years that it was the same guy that Snake Plissken fights and escape from New York in the jail when they have the. And it's actually two different people that was Ox Baker. This guy's name was Rick Zumwalt.

[Bill Simmons]

Yeah, but Zumwalt, I looked it up, too. He fights Sean Connery in the Presidio. That's like one of his other more notable roles. But he's Bull Hurley. He passed away like 20 years ago, but he's Bull Hurley.

[Kyle Brandt]

The other thing here is Stallone. And I don't know where it ranks for you, but he gets the. He had that weird kind of stroke side of his mouth. And he does this in Cliffhanger. He does it. There's the Rockies where. So he's doing. With the. And I think this is the most. He does this in a movie, right?

[Bill Simmons]

Yeah.

[Kyle Brandt]

Is it Cliffhanger, maybe the other one, because he's hanging on mountains and stuff.

[Bill Simmons]

I think the reason we get it so much is he knows how hard he has to sell how fucking boring arm wrestling is. And so he's doing some huge face acting because this ain't a boxing match. He's not climbing a mountain. It's a two second thing where he pushes someone arms down. So he's face acting like crazy. And he's always had that thing out of the side of his mouth, which is like this bizarre. He even mentioned when they went to do the Rocky movie, the one with Mason Dixon, the Line, the kid who plays his son, Milo Ventimiglia was cast in part because he yells out of the side of his mouth, which is a weird thing to do, but he does it for the whole movie. Here.

[Kyle Brandt]

What's your most rewatchable scene?

[Bill Simmons]

I mean, it's. Listen to me. I would sooner turn off the Copa scene in Goodfellas than I would turn off the tournament in over the Top. I would turn off the beach scene and Saving Private Ryan. I'm not turning off the tournament. Nonstop last 30 minutes. I'm great.

[Kyle Brandt]

Sammy Hagar is the key for me, too.

[Bill Simmons]

Damn right.

[Kyle Brandt]

Today's most rewatchable scene, brought to you by Paramount Plus. From action blockbusters to throwers to favorites for the whole family, find something new to watch every week. A mountain of movies awaits on Paramount Plus. Plans start at 7.99amonth. Start streaming now. Okay, new category. What's the most 1987 thing about this movie? I will give you the following choices. Arm wrestling as a potential hot fad. Sammy Hagar in his prime. Bob Beatty. Beatty. Bob Beati. Bob Beatty. Twa.

[Bill Simmons]

No, that's a great call.

[Kyle Brandt]

Or the soundtrack, which was released in 1987, contains music from Frank Stallone, Kenny Loggins, Eddie Money and Sammy Hagar. What is the most 1987 thing about this movie?

[Bill Simmons]

Well, of the choices, it's the soundtrack. But my off the board answer is there's a brief shot at the tournament where Stallone is working out on a solo flex machine. That kills me, because solo flex, if you used to watch tv, every other commercial at night between American Gladiators and espn, and everything would be solo flex commercials. Hey, goodbye, you guys. My dog is in here now, too, and my daughter. Get out of here. Clear out of here. Go on, Go on. We're talking about solo flex. You don't know what that is.

[Kyle Brandt]

So I had a solo flex in the late 80s.

[Bill Simmons]

You had one?

[Kyle Brandt]

I had one and I used to use it. And I think it gave me a variety of physical ailments because they were like, they know instructions how to use it. Yeah, yeah. You really had to be careful with it.

[Bill Simmons]

My dad had something called a Nordic Flex Gold, which was like the genesis. The solo flexes.

[Kyle Brandt]

I think we had that, too. Yeah.

[Bill Simmons]

Yeah, you had it, too.

[Kyle Brandt]

Yeah, they might have also had that. Nobody went to the gym really for this stuff until the mid. Kind of early mid-90s.

[Bill Simmons]

No, you had the machine.

[Kyle Brandt]

There was a whole home equipment thing that was going on.

[Bill Simmons]

Yeah, and it was bad because sometimes, like, husbands would get it for their wives and stuff. One of my friends, dad, used to always get his. His wife like a Nordic Flex. And you can't get that for your wife, dude. But Sly hits it really quickly. The solo flex.

[Kyle Brandt]

That's not my best. That's definitely the answer. That's even better than twa. What stage? The best betting on yourself. Lincoln Hawk goes in and takes 7,000 for his truck. Puts all of it on 21. Odds on Lincoln Hawk, which is something that we've seen now. Boxers and UFC people, they'll go to casinos. Floyd Mayweather used to do the. This exchange. For what stage? The best. You know, if you're hungry, there's a great place up here for good steak. What do you say we stop? The sun responds, sir, you're going to be the victim of cholesterol poisoning later in life. You'll just start to rot away. And Sly responds, you just full of good humor, aren't you, Mike?

[Bill Simmons]

Incredible.

[Kyle Brandt]

No wonder the writer was crying after the movie.

[Bill Simmons]

Yeah, his career's over. Terrible.

[Kyle Brandt]

Yeah, he probably knew right then. What. What else do you have for what stage? The best. I have a bunch.

[Bill Simmons]

We already talked about tournaments. I. I just think. I think Bull Hurley is awesome in this movie. I think the casting of him, this random guy who's massive, who looks the part. And I always compare it, Bill. Like, we. Sly found Drago, right? He finds Dolph Lundgren and makes this permanent, all time amazing villain. And this is sort of a follow up my problem with Bull Hurley. I think we needed more of Bull. I think we had one quick scene where he's just sort of a dick. Like, that's a backstory. Yeah, yeah, we needed a backstory. And I think he needed to be more evil. And I have. I like Dolph Lundgren. Like, Drago kills Rocky's best friend and then says, I don't give a shit if he dies. I think we needed him to be more evil. And my idea would be that he slaps the kid and the kid mouths off on him, and then Bull Hurley backhands him. And then, like, Sly tries to fight him and everything. Now you hate Bull Hurley, right? Now he's just this, like, big, fat truck driver who likes arm wrestling and talks shit to Lincoln. I think they needed to vilify him more.

[Kyle Brandt]

Or maybe he's working for the grandfather.

[Bill Simmons]

Oh, he's working for Loja.

[Kyle Brandt]

He's. When he goes up to the. To the suite in the Hilton, the presidential suite. Bull Hurley's up there.

[Bill Simmons]

Interesting. You know why? Because I think that Loja bet, like, a million dollars on Bul Hurley to win the tournament. Like, he's there. He's rich. He's like, just bet it on the favorite. I'll dou. Because when they show him after Bull Hurley loses, he's really pissed. And I don't think it's just about Lincoln.

[Kyle Brandt]

Yeah, you're right. See, these are two scenes we needed over two phone calls from the dying mom. Are you getting along with Sly? What stage the best? Evil Robert Loggia.

[Bill Simmons]

Yeah, he's great.

[Kyle Brandt]

What stage the best? The Sammy Hagar video I sent to you, as well as the words in the opening credits. A Golden Globus production. You just know you're headed for some sort of buckle up, baby. Yeah, buckle up. So there's an SNL sketch from the mid-90s, which I'll tweet from the rewatchable Twitter account. Tonight, Sly is hosting, and Norm MacDonald gets in a car accident.

[Bill Simmons]

I know the sketch.

[Kyle Brandt]

And Sly goes to help him as a good Samaritan, and Norm just starts ragging on his movies and starts making fun of over the Top. It's hilarious. It's really good. He's making fun of Judge Dredd over the Top, all his bad movies.

[Bill Simmons]

He takes Shots at Cobras. And he even says, you know what? Kramer? This is. Kramer was missing arm wrestling.

[Kyle Brandt]

Right.

[Bill Simmons]

Stallone just has to kind of back him up. It's a great sketch. You got to take that because I've been looking for that.

[Kyle Brandt]

Yeah, I'll find. I have it. I found it.

[Bill Simmons]

Okay.

[Kyle Brandt]

The opening song in this movie, which didn't get enough acclaim in my opinion. Take It Higher, Take it higher. All the way Up. It was by a guy named Larry Green who never really made it.

[Bill Simmons]

Not a great name. Larry.

[Kyle Brandt]

Yeah, he made it. He should have called himself like Larry Rocket or some sort of more idiosyncratic. But I always thought that song was solid. I liked it more than Meet Me Halfway. That was kind of like for Loggins. For Loggins movie purposes. That's not on the Mount Rushmore.

[Bill Simmons]

All right, so you brought it up. Like, I'll ad Lib Loggins. Mount Rushmore in the 80s. All right. She got. Holiday Road is on there from Vacation.

[Kyle Brandt]

Yeah.

[Bill Simmons]

You got probably. It's all right. From Caddyshack. Like, that's pretty iconic.

[Kyle Brandt]

No, that has to be on there.

[Bill Simmons]

Okay. And then I think you got two Danger Zone. I think Danger Zone one. And I think Playing with the Boys, also from Top Gun is too. I love that thing for the volleyball scene.

[Kyle Brandt]

Well, how's Footloose? Not on there.

[Bill Simmons]

Yeah, yeah.

[Kyle Brandt]

It's almost like a five song Mount Rushmore. Regardless.

[Bill Simmons]

Okay. Yeah.

[Kyle Brandt]

Foot was gotta be on Meet Me Halfway. This is not on there.

[Bill Simmons]

No, it's kind of annoying. It actually sucks. And they play it 20 times in the movie. It's not.

[Kyle Brandt]

And then they do the instrumental when they're trying to do transitions.

[Bill Simmons]

Yeah, but like getting Loggins in the movie was so big. Like he was the hit maker then. So it was like Sly and Loggins, like were the top two billions. But the song, he's done better.

[Kyle Brandt]

Stallone played characters named Marion Cabretti and Lincoln Hawk in back to back movies. This was just peak Stallone. Like, that name's not exciting enough. Can you make me A list of 20 other names and I'll pick one. And they're like, how about. How about Lincoln Hawk? He's like, yeah, that's good. I like it. I like it.

[Bill Simmons]

Yeah. Like the President and like a bird.

[Kyle Brandt]

What I like is you could flip the name and he could be Hawk. Lincoln. And that would be cool too. What's age the best? The double elimination reminders and the strap. We mentioned those John Grizzly, the beard guy. Another great kind of wild card performance by Him.

[Bill Simmons]

Great.

[Kyle Brandt]

Stallone. Slow mush and grunt screams we talked about. So do you want to do anything else on the Lincoln forearm press machine or. I just like, where do you get it? Is it homemade?

[Bill Simmons]

Well, it occurs to me that if you're doing that mile after mile, don't you have a wildly lopsided physique? Like, isn't your left arm, like, totally underprepared and, like, subject to injury? Like, when I was a kid, I thought that was the coolest thing in the movie. And, like, I wanted to get that. Like, when this phone. When this movie came out, it was cool to have a car phone. Like, that was considered, like, the coolest thing. But I thought that shoulder pull down thing was badass. I loved it.

[Kyle Brandt]

It would make sense that the right arm would be kind of completely out of portion, the left one. All right, here's a wood stage. The best. Yeah, this is. This is just me. It's a personal thing.

[Bill Simmons]

Go on.

[Kyle Brandt]

Whenever. Whenever people show up midway through a funeral, the funeral is already a half hour in and they drop off flowers and look at the grave or the coffin and then they just walk off. Like, what did he check? Have you ever been in a funeral ever where somebody did that? Nobody's ever done that in a real funeral ever.

[Bill Simmons]

It's a great call. And it's not even at the church. It's fucking graveside in the cemetery. Yeah.

[Kyle Brandt]

Outside.

[Bill Simmons]

There's an etiquette there. You don't walk in, drop flowers, and leave without even speaking. I don't care what kind of a pariah you are. That is a purely a movie invention. It's a great call.

[Kyle Brandt]

Every time it happens, I laugh my ass off. It's just. I remember Luke Perry's last donut to an episode. His wife dies and he goes to the funeral, Same thing. He just shows up halfway through, puts something on there, and just kind of walks off. The funeral's still going.

[Bill Simmons]

The only time her husband, Kenny Powers, walks in playing candle box on a boombox, when he says he would be Goose because Goose dies in that movie. That's the only time. I love it. With the Candle Box song. I have one. I have one. Age the best.

[Kyle Brandt]

Yeah.

[Bill Simmons]

And like you, Bill, I was raised with divorced parents. Seeing your dad do cool things is so magical when you're a little kid. Especially if they're physical things. Like when he sees his dad beat the Smasher in that arm wrestling competition. He's trying to play it cool, but there's nothing like it. Especially like, I live most of the time with my mom. And, like, if I went with my dad and I would see him do something cool, even if it's like, fix something or anything. Like. Like. That's so enchanting. As a kid, I loved it.

[Kyle Brandt]

Great call. The competitor who was Elbow breaks.

[Bill Simmons]

Yeah.

[Kyle Brandt]

He was a German national championship champion because they were filming an actual wrestling tournament during the filming of the movie. His name was Michael Boschew. It was a real and unplanned elbow break. And I don't know. I guess everybody must assign beforehand. You can use my likeness. This poor guy has broken elbows for the rest of time. On Pluto and Tubi, by the way, two places you can find this movie right now and then. So it took me maybe 70 viewings to see this, but they have that ending. The camera kind of pans back in a faraway shot where Hawk takes his son finally, and Loggia is there. And it's like, they're. I guess they're on good terms. You can see Loggia in the scene.

[Bill Simmons]

I've never seen this.

[Kyle Brandt]

Yeah. Yeah. So it's kind of like. I guess they're okay.

[Bill Simmons]

It's like when Johnny, like, brings LaRusso the trophy at the end and says.

[Kyle Brandt]

Yeah, it's a little bit like that, but it's like, they must have cut it because the dialogue wasn't great or something.

[Bill Simmons]

But anyway, I didn't know.

[Kyle Brandt]

All right, some quick ones. Well, the last time you're on here, you came up with a new category. The Fortune 3 Clap Award for most giftable moment. It's got to be Stallone flipping the cap around, right?

[Bill Simmons]

Seen it all the time.

[Kyle Brandt]

I used it today in the rewatchables account.

[Bill Simmons]

It's great. It's a pr. It's just. It's. It's for his match against the smasher in the bar. When he turns it around. And it's just anytime it's like, go, time to do something. You know, you gotta go even do something with the kids. Set your fantasy lineup. Whatever. Turn the hat around. It's like, perfect. Gif.

[Kyle Brandt]

Great shot. Gordo Award for most cinematic Shot. I wouldn't. I mean, this was directed by Menakam Golan, a producer from another country. I'm not sure if there was a lot of cinematic shots, but the ending. Wide shot, I guess, is okay.

[Bill Simmons]

I've never said this for, I think, any category in any episode. I don't have one. I don't have a great shot.

[Kyle Brandt]

That's fair. That might be the right one. Dennis Benihana words, scene stealing location the.

[Bill Simmons]

Tournament, I think it's the Vegas Hilton. They could have faked Vegas. And they did a lot of. They didn't.

[Kyle Brandt]

They went all out.

[Bill Simmons]

Yeah.

[Kyle Brandt]

The Kid Cudi Pursuit of Happiness or Best Needle Drop is obviously Winner Takes.

[Bill Simmons]

It all by Winner Takes all as the tournament kicks off. It's awesome.

[Kyle Brandt]

Little backstory.

[Bill Simmons]

What do you got?

[Kyle Brandt]

John Wetton, the lead singer of Asia.

[Bill Simmons]

What about him?

[Kyle Brandt]

Asia's had a lot of hits, right? Heat of the moment.

[Bill Simmons]

Yeah.

[Kyle Brandt]

So he did Winner Takes it all and they decided his voice just wasn't, like, kind of aggro enough, and they rerecorded it with Sammy Hagar, and the rest was history. So the song existed. The lead singer of Asia, a yacht rock Mount Rushmore band just pushed to the side for our guy, Sammy Hagar.

[Bill Simmons]

Bill, this is called doing the work on your part.

[Kyle Brandt]

I did a lot of research on this.

[Bill Simmons]

You gotta do the work.

[Kyle Brandt]

Big Kahuna Burger Award for best use of food and Drink. What do you got?

[Bill Simmons]

I think it's an annoyingly hypothetical one. I wanted to see that steak that Lincoln wanted to.

[Kyle Brandt]

I had that, too.

[Bill Simmons]

I think it was the T bone. I think it was huge. And the little kid wanted tuna on whole wheat, so we didn't even see it. And it still is.

[Kyle Brandt]

The Big Kahuna Burger, the hypothetical steak. I like it.

[Bill Simmons]

Yeah.

[Kyle Brandt]

Butch's Girlfriend Award, the weak link of the film. It's the hospital scenes with the mom. I have no idea why they did it this way. They're two of the worst scenes in any Stallone movie ever. The actress isn't good. She's just like.

[Bill Simmons]

Who is that lady?

[Kyle Brandt]

Susan Blakely? Yeah.

[Bill Simmons]

I don't know anybody.

[Kyle Brandt]

She was around. She was in a bunch of TV stuff, 70s, 80s. She's on the phone. Hey, honey. How you doing? All right. I can't believe they did that.

[Bill Simmons]

So they spend the whole movie talking about what happened with Lincoln and the kids and the family and why he left. And they never reveal what happened, which is not how storytelling works. You're supposed to have a scene towards the end of the movie where he reveals that he killed a man or that, like, he was. He hit Michael or he did something terrible. All it ever is is these hushed tones about, I made a mistake. I won't do it again. Even the mom says he had his reasons. You. You have to tell the audience why he abandoned his son for 10 years when the whole movie is about father and son and they never do. It's preposterous.

[Kyle Brandt]

Well, he kind of does it during the presidential suite.

[Bill Simmons]

What does he say?

[Kyle Brandt]

He says to logic. He's like, you would tear this apart. So it's like so you left because your dad, your father in law was annoying.

[Bill Simmons]

Yeah.

[Kyle Brandt]

So you just need a little family for 10 years.

[Bill Simmons]

Need a little more. You're trying to get us to buy into this father son story. I'm completely lost of what the biggest part of the backstory is. They did no payoff. It's very strange.

[Kyle Brandt]

I'm glad you brought it up. I had it in wood Stage the worst. I just don't understand. They just kind of yada yada.

[Bill Simmons]

Yeah.

[Kyle Brandt]

This guy ditched his family for 10 years and the reasons were he didn't really like his father in law that much. It's like not an awesome reason. It's like, you wrote some letters. I wrote you letters.

[Bill Simmons]

There's a lot of people who hate their father in laws. Like you don't just leave. And also like this is not 1935. You can call as well. You don't have to just write letters. There's telephone in the 80s. It's just letters. That's it. It's terrible.

[Kyle Brandt]

Also, he's still calling it. Still calling her his wife. Like he goes to hospital. He's like, I'm here to see my wife. But they haven't been together for 10 years.

[Bill Simmons]

I don't.

[Kyle Brandt]

She didn't date anyone else.

[Bill Simmons]

Great call. Don't know.

[Kyle Brandt]

Let's. Let's take a break and then we'll do what? Stage the worst.

[Bill Simmons]

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[Kyle Brandt]

This episode is brought to you by Skinny Pop Popcorn.

[Bill Simmons]

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[Kyle Brandt]

Give yourself permission to snack and pick.

[Bill Simmons]

Up Skinny Pop original Popcorn today.

[Kyle Brandt]

All right, what's age? The worst. So the attempted kidnapping scene. Three of the Logia henchmen try to kidnap the sun and it's just ridiculous. I can't believe it's in the movie. And Stallone saves them. He uses his truck and he. And I just don't understand why that had to happen.

[Bill Simmons]

I feel like they needed a little action. And then we need Sly Sloan Punching some people. Let's crowbar some bullshit in there. We try to abduct him and we have a brief chase scene. It reminds me a little bit of when. When Lester diamond gets beat up by Sam Rothstein's guys in the parking lot outside of the diner. But they just take him and there's a brief chase scene. It seems very forced.

[Kyle Brandt]

Terrible. You mentioned Stallone's action acting in this movie and how autopiloty it is.

[Bill Simmons]

He doesn't do anything.

[Kyle Brandt]

Even his confessionals are bad. And that should have been, like, the easiest part where he does that. Tell you the truth. The truck. You know, the most important for me. I don't. Doesn't matter if I become the champion. I. I need the truck. I need the truck.

[Bill Simmons]

Sly, we're paying you 12 million bucks. Just give us something here. I'm not expecting the best.

[Kyle Brandt]

You got nominated for best actor in Rocky 1. Like, you can't do one more take? He's just cashing the money.

[Bill Simmons]

What's aged the best, Bill, is you referring to those scenes as the confessional scenes in full real world parlance?

[Kyle Brandt]

That's true.

[Bill Simmons]

Yeah.

[Kyle Brandt]

We did that just for you. There's in the credits, music by Giorgio Moroder, who was the guy who did, like, Officer and a Gentleman and like, some awesome scores. And it's like, where. Where was Giorgio in this? They just from him. Yeah. Or they went with loggings. Whatever. That's all I got. Do you have any other what's aged or worse? We've covered a lot.

[Bill Simmons]

Yeah, I have one weird one. One irreverent one. Are you. When you rewatched it, why are they constantly going back and forth, be calling him Hawk and Hawks. What is this? Half the characters call him Hawks and address him as Hawks, and then the rest of the time he's Hawk. And even when the kid finds the letters to his mom, which Lincoln wrote, the last name is Hawks. So I get that there's some continuity things in movies like this, you can't keep changing what the main character's name is. It's really strange. Lincoln, Hawks. And then sometimes they're like, hey, Hawks, sit down. And then there are times they'll be like, you Hawks. It makes no sense.

[Kyle Brandt]

So do you think there was a scene where he changed his last name?

[Bill Simmons]

I think in the middle of shooting, they're like, no, let's make it Hawk instead of Hawks. That's Hawks.

[Kyle Brandt]

Sounds cooler.

[Bill Simmons]

Half the movie they call him Hawks. Like, Bill, if you just started pottying one day is like, yeah, still Simmons. And I'm just here. And you're like, what the fuck? It's Simmons. There's Simmons. Like, it is so distracting. And you can watch this over and over. They keep calling them a different name. The other age, the worst. Bill, when's the last time you've splashed on some Brut cologne? Because it's been a while for me. And their slogan on the side of the truck smells like a man.

[Kyle Brandt]

That should have been the most 1987 thing about this movie. Brut Colon and Soliflex. In TWA, there were.

[Bill Simmons]

There were pistols being drawn between Brut cologne and Skin bracer.

[Kyle Brandt]

Yeah.

[Bill Simmons]

And I went the route of Drakar Noir. But the Brute cologne smells like a man. You just wouldn't see that these days.

[Kyle Brandt]

The Ruffalo Hannah Rubeneck Partridge Overacting word. Loggia has a couple. There's always a way to bend the law. Is that your job? There's a couple of those. He's probably the winner. Unless you want to give it to Rick Zumwalt for Bo Hurley.

[Bill Simmons]

Get in here. No, it's Loggia on the stairs too. Like, he's obviously really pissed. A truck just drives through his fucking house. But he's. Damn you.

[Kyle Brandt]

Damn you.

[Bill Simmons]

It's Loja. And that's why he's there.

[Kyle Brandt]

Was there a better title for this movie? I don't think so.

[Bill Simmons]

It's come to have a great second meaning because it's so excessive and over the top symbolically and everything that it does. It's a great. It's a great title also.

[Kyle Brandt]

That's his move. They say in the movie Czech Slaughterback Texas. The Kenny Digger award for most memorable quote has to be the world meets nobody halfway. Remember that. Yeah.

[Bill Simmons]

Okay. It just occurred to me, Bill, that you and I both were so confused by the over the top maneuver arm wrestling. Twitter and arm wrestling. Reddit is going to have like such a field day with that. Like. No, they don't understand that the fingers here. I don't understand. Neither one of us get how moving the fingers works.

[Kyle Brandt]

Don't get mad at us. We don't understand. Please. We're not even casual arm wrestling fans. My arm wrestling knowledge is from this movie.

[Bill Simmons]

Yeah. And I haven't personally arm wrestled, I think since like maybe sixth grade. So I don't. I don't know anything about it.

[Kyle Brandt]

Very fair. The CR thinks Luke Wilson could have been Harrison Ford. Hottest Take award. You go first.

[Bill Simmons]

All right. This one's pretty easy for me. Lincoln Hawk is definitely the villain in this movie. Like, without a doubt, he. If you look at it through this perspective, this person who totally abandoned his wife and son has clearly been to jail multiple times based on how relaxed he is in jail. He's asked by the kid point blank if he's still dealing drugs, which he doesn't deny. I personally think that he's on drugs for like the entire movie. He's ridiculously shredded for a truck driver. He recovers from injury immediately after getting injured in the tournament. Also, this guy, like, plays on the sickness of a dying woman to get her and to manipulate her to give custody of the son. I think Baloja is right. You're a deserter, plain and simple. Logia's raised this kid, paid everything. He loves this kid. And this jerk off drug dealer, absentee father tries to take him. I think he's the villain, and I see it that way.

[Kyle Brandt]

Incredible take. I was trying to think of like a word because Johnny Lawrence ended up being like this too, which was about Cobra Kai was about, like, he's the villain, but he's actually not the villain. He was actually maybe the opposite of the villain. It's maybe upon. I. It's some word with villain in it. Like, I don't know, there's some word. Somebody's got to come up with it. It's not hero, it's not villain, but it's.

[Bill Simmons]

I don't know what it is. I know that nobody crashes my truck into a house unless you're on some kind of narcotics like that. That's not something that someone who's not on drugs does. I think he's. I think he's nuts. And I think that Macho and Karate Kid. Yeah.

[Kyle Brandt]

Yeah. First of all, stay out of Johnny and all his relationship.

[Bill Simmons]

Yes.

[Kyle Brandt]

Maybe don't punch somebody during soccer practice. Maybe don't do the skeleton, the prank in the bathroom. Like you had a lot of this coming to you, dickhead.

[Bill Simmons]

Definitely. He has a quick trigger with that punch at soccer. What is that? What's your. What's your hottest take? You got one?

[Kyle Brandt]

I do. Are we sure this actually wasn't a really, really good elite little kid movie performance?

[Bill Simmons]

Get into this. Go on. Let's go.

[Kyle Brandt]

The kid's supposed to be an asshole rich kid. He nails it. You're supposed to hate this kid. Well, mission accomplished. That's how the thing's written. He's great. Cries on command multiple times. Pulls off the arm wrestling thing against Crystal Mapa. Cries seven times. Convincingly breaks out of the mansion, drives a car to the airport. Doesn't doesn't have a nav system or ways like. Just figures out how to get there. He's. He dumps the car in front, figures out how to get on the plane, buy a ticket. Figures out how to sneak out of the plane, ride through the cargo, get out of there, get to Vegas. Right. Figures out where the Hilton is. Somehow brought enough cash with them. Like, he checked every box. The kid's 12, gets in the tournament, everyone's looking for him. Still figures out a way to support his dad for the semifinals. I don't know, man. Maybe we need to reevaluate this.

[Bill Simmons]

I think it's.

[Kyle Brandt]

Might have been a good son.

[Bill Simmons]

Maybe so. I think it's Haley Joel in Sixth Sense. I think it's Anna Paquin, the Piano and this kid, I thought Dakota Fanning.

[Kyle Brandt]

And Man on Fire and David Mendon, over the top.

[Bill Simmons]

I think this kid is a really good actor. I think.

[Kyle Brandt]

I think he is, too. I think he gets a bad rap.

[Bill Simmons]

I tried to find some other Mendenhall for the pod, and you know what I stumbled across shortly after this? He was in an episode of Different Strokes, and he's the little kid in school who's selling drugs. So, like, Arnold meets him for, like, a drug meetup. And I watched the scene. Very good in the scene. Very good. I think he's a good actor.

[Kyle Brandt]

I'll take it one further. He was in General Hospital for years back when I was watching the first part of the 80s. So when he was in over the Top, it was like, oh, the General Hospital kid. He's a good actor. Yeah. Never really worked out, but could he have been Wil Wheaton's character in Toy Soldiers? I think he could have. Could he have been a Mafioso? Maybe.

[Bill Simmons]

It always comes back to Wil Wheaton's accent. Earring and rabbit punchers and toy soldiers. Every pod leads to that. It's a good call, dude.

[Kyle Brandt]

Casting what ifs. Don Johnson, my guy, was the first. First choice for. For Lincoln Hawk before they decided to overpace the loan. It's an interesting movie. I don't know if I'm buying skinny Don Johnson as an arm wrestler.

[Bill Simmons]

Yeah. Or a truck driver.

[Kyle Brandt]

I mean, that's a truck driver.

[Bill Simmons]

Dead Handsome Jack, truck driver. I don't know.

[Kyle Brandt]

Yeah. Rick Zumwalt was the studio's third choice for Stallone's rival. There was some arm wrestling champ, Cleve Dean, and they decided he was too big. And then they tried to get Ox Baker, ironically. And then Rick Zumwalt, who has paid $10,000 to shave his head. And he never grew it back. Best that guy awards.

[Bill Simmons]

Mm.

[Kyle Brandt]

I'm going to make the case for Harry Bosco.

[Bill Simmons]

Oh, really? Wait, what is that Case? He's another stuff. I don't. I don't know him. I know him from this.

[Kyle Brandt]

He's in IMDb and you'll know it after I say it.

[Bill Simmons]

Go on.

[Kyle Brandt]

Referee number three in Karate Kid.

[Bill Simmons]

He's one of the refs in the tournament.

[Kyle Brandt]

He's one of the refs in the tournament. He's not the final ref, but he's one of the refs. He also, for the Cheers fans out there, the greatest sitcom of all time. He has a really important Cheers episode where he's Louis the mailman. Cliff's getting bullied at work by the. Or getting bullied at the bar.

[Bill Simmons]

Yeah.

[Kyle Brandt]

And he decides to bring Louis the mailman with him as, like, protection to beat this guy up. And then Louis figures out why, and he ends up getting mad at Cliff and leaving.

[Bill Simmons]

It was like my bodyguard mailman version.

[Kyle Brandt]

Yeah, a little bit. Yeah. But Cheers at that point was being watched by 20 million people. So Karate Kid and Cheers also. His name is Sam Scarber. Two years in the NFL, played running back for the Chargers. Two touchdowns.

[Bill Simmons]

That guy's a running back. He's huge.

[Kyle Brandt]

CFL for a couple years. There's a CFL tops car to him in 1972. So that's all. And then he's Harry Bosco. That's a pretty good that guy case. Never knew his name. Sam Scarber.

[Bill Simmons]

I would only submit two. Really? I want to big, big ups to Dan Lebatard who appears in the movie during the Smasher arm wrestling fight. Go ahead and watch the Smasher vs Stallone in the bar. The guy in the plaid shirt who officiates it is a dead ringer for Dan Lebatar. Dan Levitard right now? Yes. Like 20, 24. Dan Levitard is in this movie in the Smasher arm wrestling scene. I love it. It cracks me up every time. Now it's my new favorite part. But the guy, the guy who's like, maybe the greatest dak guy ever is the security guard for Mr. Cutler, who says, you're not wanted here, who sends him away with the truck. His name is Alan Graff. You know that guy?

[Kyle Brandt]

Yeah, he's a good. That guy.

[Bill Simmons]

Every Alan Graff. But I like the Case that you made.

[Kyle Brandt]

Dion Waiter's a word. Broken elbow guy. Bo Hurley. Bull Hurley is eligible.

[Bill Simmons]

Well, if it's Bull, then it's definitely.

[Kyle Brandt]

Is he eligible or is he the number three person in the movie.

[Bill Simmons]

Well, my complaint about Bulls. He's not in the movie enough.

[Kyle Brandt]

Yeah, I think he's eligible.

[Bill Simmons]

Yeah. I wanted to give Terry Funk a little love. Mr. Cutler is speaking to you. That's our guy Morgan. In Roadhouse, there was always barber College. But I. Bull Hurley is way better than him in this move. So if Bull's eligible, I would go Bull. And if he's not, I would go dislocated elbow guy.

[Kyle Brandt]

If Bull is eligible, I guess that's my call and I have to make it right now. So. See the number four, he. I don't think he's eligible. I think he's in too many scenes. So broken elbow guy is our guy.

[Bill Simmons]

Yeah. Little man.

[Kyle Brandt]

Recasting couch. Director city. Can we recast Hawk's ex wife and give him Deborah Winger?

[Bill Simmons]

Oh, hell yeah.

[Kyle Brandt]

And really try to step up the acting for those scenes. I think that's a no brainer. I also thought about Gary Coleman as Hawk's son. Just no explanation. Gary Coleman was still pretty hot.

[Bill Simmons]

We've had multiple Gary Coleman references. Would you settle for Emmanuel Lewis?

[Kyle Brandt]

Either. Just. It's not really explained. It's just the kid's so adorable. Really rooting for him. It's a breakout for the kid. You could also have gone Kirk Cameron. Kirk Cameron's in the zone right here.

[Bill Simmons]

Mike Siever would be great. Why not? Why. Why don't we have tattoo from Fantasy island coming?

[Kyle Brandt]

I don't know. Stunt casting for my cause.

[Bill Simmons]

Kirk Cameron would have been awesome. He was doing vice versa with Dudley Moore at the time, I think. Yeah. Body switch. Yeah.

[Kyle Brandt]

Tony Romo, Chris Collinsworth or somebody else for the director's commentary.

[Bill Simmons]

I gotta. I gotta go back to my guy. I'm gonna. I'm gonna do. I'm gonna do Gus. Mike Cock Young fella hanging out crying like a bitch in the parking lot. Oh. Best two out of three. Ha ha.

[Kyle Brandt]

I had Gus Johnson right there. I had him as well. Yeah, Same one.

[Bill Simmons]

Young fucking.

[Kyle Brandt]

He is laying this on fire. There is a strap. He would have gotten so excited for the strap.

[Bill Simmons]

I know, right?

[Kyle Brandt]

The strap would have. Gus would have lost his mind. I think that's a great call. All right. Half ass. Hundred research logic in this movie, which is 750 Bel Air Road in Los Angeles. Feel free to Google Earth. And also the home for the Clampett family in the Beverly Hillbillies.

[Bill Simmons]

Oh, cool.

[Kyle Brandt]

Yeah. There you go. The film was nominated for at the 8th Golden Raspberry Awards in 1988. David Mendenhall oh, no.

[Bill Simmons]

They're gonna go at Mendenhall.

[Kyle Brandt]

Mendenhall won two. He won two razzies. One for worst supporting actor and one for worst news star. Worst new star is really tough.

[Bill Simmons]

Let me ask you. This is. I don't know this. How's Mendenhall doing? Is he still with us?

[Kyle Brandt]

Seems all right. I googled him. Seems. Seems pretty good. Still does a little acting. I think we're all right. Mendenhall.

[Bill Simmons]

I worry about this stuff sometimes.

[Kyle Brandt]

No, he's all right. No, I think he's okay.

[Bill Simmons]

I love you.

[Kyle Brandt]

And then slice the loan. Nominated and lost to Bill Cosby for worst actor for Leonard Park.

[Bill Simmons]

Leonard Part six. Yeah, sure.

[Kyle Brandt]

Which is an awful movie. Rick Zumwalt became an alcoholic after this movie in his early 30s, but then joined a clean and sober fellowship and started working with substance use abuse people for the last like 10 years of his life. And died in 03 after suffering a major heart attack. Okay. So they created an actual over the top arm wrestling tournament to coincide with this movie. They had a qualifier in Beverly Hills, August 1985. Competition, North America, Europe, Israel, Japan.

[Bill Simmons]

Cool.

[Kyle Brandt]

They had the finale in July 1986, which was an 18 hour marathon tournament. The Las Vegas Hilton. They filmed all of it, so a lot of the footage is from that tournament. And then the day after the real finals, Stallone comes in and films all his scenes with the crowds.

[Bill Simmons]

That must have been awesome. He's a huge star. That's cool.

[Kyle Brandt]

He does goes against Mad Dog Madison, played by Randy Rainey in this movie, who then battled him again in Rambo 3. A movie I've only seen once.

[Bill Simmons]

Yeah, I remember it's really bad. And they played this weird sport with the indigenous people there. I didn't like it at all.

[Kyle Brandt]

Yeah, the real guy who won that truckers class over the top tournament won a Volvo, white truck and trail mobile trailer worth about 250,000. His name was John Bresnik.

[Bill Simmons]

Okay.

[Kyle Brandt]

He inspired Lincoln Hawks. There you go. Apex Mountain, Slash. Stallone. Definitely not. No Goal and Globus were kind of in the vicinity because they released 31 movies this year. Bloodsport is in production, over the tops being made. They kind of have figured out who they are. They're doing Runaway Train with Jon Voight, which was actually a good movie. And this is kind of the peak. So I'm going to say yes, because you watch the documentary. This seemed like the heyday.

[Bill Simmons]

Yeah. I'm trying to think watching the doc, what is their best movie? Like, what's the. What's their hall of fame plaque movie. Is it?

[Kyle Brandt]

Is it Runaway Train, Bar Fly and Street Smart were the three kind of best movies they made. But I think Bloodsport's probably the biggest success.

[Bill Simmons]

Fucking awesome. Okay.

[Kyle Brandt]

It has to be, right?

[Bill Simmons]

Yeah.

[Kyle Brandt]

I mean, for you, it's Cobra.

[Bill Simmons]

Definitely Cobra. For me, there's very few movies ever made that I love more than Cobra. Yeah. So, yeah. It's crazy that they didn't make Roadhouse. That feels like something they would have made.

[Kyle Brandt]

They're probably pissed.

[Bill Simmons]

That was our idea of a cooler.

[Kyle Brandt]

And Jasper right here. How did we not have this arm wrestling? Apex Mountain? Unquestionably, yes. I can't imagine it ever got bigger for arm wrestling.

[Bill Simmons]

No. The only other movie I remember seeing it in was in the Fly with Goldblum. He like rips a guy's arm off because he has the powers of a fly.

[Kyle Brandt]

Yeah.

[Bill Simmons]

But this is years and years later. They even just did on Hard Knocks recently when Tyson Bagent was playing. They showed his father and they played the song from the movie. HBO NFL Films did it. And this is going on 40 years later. This is the arm wrestling movie. It's a Citizen Kane of arm wrestling movies.

[Kyle Brandt]

It's not Apex bound for divorce movies.

[Bill Simmons]

Do you have one?

[Kyle Brandt]

It's Kramer versus Kramer, I think.

[Bill Simmons]

Yeah.

[Kyle Brandt]

That won the Oscar. Won multiple Oscars. It's. It's still probably the best one, I think.

[Bill Simmons]

Yeah, I. It was a little before my time. Mrs. Doubtfire fucked me up. I was just. I was going through my stuff with my parents. That movie is such a downer at some points.

[Kyle Brandt]

Bob Beatty, whatever his name is, definitely Apex Mountain. He really important roles. He's a lot of lions. He could have been a Dion Waiter's possibility. The Hilton in Vegas.

[Bill Simmons]

Sure.

[Kyle Brandt]

Probably not. Probably had some big boxing things, but not. Not an unimpressive performance by them.

[Bill Simmons]

Terry Funk. I'm sure Bernard Hopkins fought at the Hilton.

[Kyle Brandt]

Yeah. There must have been a big box thing. Terry Funk.

[Bill Simmons]

No, no.

[Kyle Brandt]

Evil Logia, Scarface. Scarface Evil in Scarface or no. I mean, he put a hit on Tony, but he kind of deserved it. Yeah.

[Bill Simmons]

He's mixed up in some very evil things. I would put. And by the way, I don't think he's the evil one of this movie. I think he's actually trying to be the hero.

[Kyle Brandt]

Annoying kids of divorce. Apex Mountain. Is there been a more annoying kid in a divorce movie? I'm going to probably say no.

[Bill Simmons]

I'm trying to think of those three kids in Doubt Fire. They're all right. They Seem like nice kids. No. Nobody's as annoying as this.

[Kyle Brandt]

Rick Sumwalt. Yes. Truck driving, probably not. Right? Because he's Smokey and the Bandit.

[Bill Simmons]

Yeah.

[Kyle Brandt]

I mean, Jerry Reed in the truck was Smokey or was he Bandit? No, Reynolds was Bandit.

[Bill Simmons]

Yeah. It's probably. As far as I'm concerned, there's not a lot of pure truck driving movies that I watch with regularity. Paul Walker was the one called Joyride. That was like a horror movie.

[Kyle Brandt]

Like Joyride.

[Bill Simmons]

I like Joy Ride.

[Kyle Brandt]

Convoy happened. It really had its peak in the late 70s. Yeah, they made a bunch of them.

[Bill Simmons]

Yeah.

[Kyle Brandt]

Sammy Hagar, unquestionably. Yes. Because this is also the year his first Van Halen album comes out. So he's got Winner Takes It All. Then he comes out with the first van Halen album, 5150.

[Bill Simmons]

That one. This is what dreams Are Made of.

[Kyle Brandt]

By the way. I'm going to defend 5150. I think that album kind of rocks.

[Bill Simmons]

Listen, I'm a big Van Hager guy. I know the take is that he turned the best rock band in the world into Journey.

[Kyle Brandt]

Yeah.

[Bill Simmons]

You know what? I like Journey too. I don't give a shit. I like it.

[Kyle Brandt]

Not true. 5150 is a good album, period.

[Bill Simmons]

I like Carnal Knowledge, too. I don't care. Right now. It's the biggest crystal Pepsi. Pass it over. He's huge. I don't go after Sammy Hagar for that.

[Kyle Brandt]

I really appreciate that.

[Bill Simmons]

Yeah, man, I'm with you. I like that stuff.

[Kyle Brandt]

Van Hagar was good.

[Bill Simmons]

Yeah.

[Kyle Brandt]

Las Vegas. No. And then drinking motor oil. Has it ever been done better?

[Bill Simmons]

He says, I'm gonna go through you like gasoline through a funnel and then drinks motor oil. It's. It's a really. A gimmick. It would immediately kill you, I'm sure. But it fires him up. I like it.

[Kyle Brandt]

It would at least, like, send you in some sort of tailspin for like, five minutes.

[Bill Simmons]

Yeah.

[Kyle Brandt]

All right. This is an easy one. Cruz or Hanks?

[Bill Simmons]

Well, I mean, it's. It's. It's gotta be Cruz. I can't see Hanks in an arm wrestling movie. And it's the added benefit bill of there's really no female with which he has to try to have sexual chemistry with. So that's fine. It can just be Cruz. That he'll kill this role.

[Kyle Brandt]

Yeah, we didn't even talk about that. There's no love interest whatsoever with Stallone in this. He doesn't even, like, interact with the woman in this, except his wife who.

[Bill Simmons]

Gets along with Gray and had ditched 10 years ago and hasn't two phone calls.

[Kyle Brandt]

Yeah, he's Brigitte Neilson. Would get mad if I have a little bit.

[Bill Simmons]

This was prime Brigitte time.

[Kyle Brandt]

I gotta be honest, this is a pretty cruisy Cruise movie. Yeah, like I could have seen him in this in like 1993, 1994 range. Cruz is like really in arm wrestling training for four, four months a day. He was. There's stories about how he was actually arm wrestling the best arm wrestlers. And they can't believe how good he is.

[C]

He plays Mike Hawk in the sequel, Older Mike Hawk.

[Kyle Brandt]

Oh, I like that, Craig.

[Bill Simmons]

Yeah, good job, Craig.

[Kyle Brandt]

Over the top two cruise as Mike Hawk, now an adult, early 2000s.

[Bill Simmons]

He does his arm wrestling jumping off a motorcycle off of a skyscraper and arm wrestles in the sky. And he does it all by himself.

[Kyle Brandt]

And it's just crazy great stuff. Racehorse, rock band, wrestler. Fantasy team name, the Lincoln Hawks.

[Bill Simmons]

This is from my league. I've been in the same league 25 years. My friend Andy Miano had Hawk hauling as one of his fantasy team names for years. Hawk hauling. So that's been done.

[Kyle Brandt]

Picking nits. You mentioned the big one. If it's double elimination, why didn't bro Hurley have to be beaten twice? I just don't understand it. How did a little kid drive to the airport without a navigation system, purchase a ticket, get on a plane, escape the plane and get to the tournament without the Internet or a cell phone?

[Bill Simmons]

Ridiculous.

[Kyle Brandt]

They don't even acknowledge how impossible this. The kid's not 15. What is he, 11?

[Bill Simmons]

I have him at 12.

[Kyle Brandt]

Yeah, he's 11 or 12.

[Bill Simmons]

He. He drives for a quarter mile of the semi truck while his dad helps him, and then he gets a pickup truck and drives it from bel Air to LAX and it's just no problem at all on the 405, which by.

[Kyle Brandt]

The way, is a lot of back roads.

[Bill Simmons]

It's tough.

[Kyle Brandt]

I thought about it like, he. He probably had to take. I'm guessing.

[Bill Simmons]

What do you got for the route?

[Kyle Brandt]

I'm guessing he's probably taking Sunset. Lot of lights on Sunset. And probably taking Sunset. Sunset all the way to 405.

[Bill Simmons]

Yep.

[Kyle Brandt]

If he's leaving middle of the day, I think there's a lot of traffic. Actually.

[C]

Definitely no way he makes it off Sunset. That. That is a harrowing drive.

[Kyle Brandt]

Right? That's true. He probably flips the car on Sunset. I'm going to say an hour 15. But he also would have to know, like, he's got no navigation system, no map. He's like, oh, the exit for to get on 405 is coming up. Okay, I'm gonna go. I'll go south. Oh, no. Now I gotta get on the 10 and hit that way. And I just don't see it.

[Bill Simmons]

No.

[Kyle Brandt]

So for an arm wrestling tournament in 1987, you win a $250,000 truck.

[Bill Simmons]

Yeah.

[Kyle Brandt]

And $100,000 in cash.

[Bill Simmons]

Yeah.

[Kyle Brandt]

That seems super high.

[Bill Simmons]

It's a lot. It's a lot.

[Kyle Brandt]

Like Nolan Ryan was making a, you know, a million dollars in 1987. People are like, Whoa. Michael Jordan was making 400,000 a year playing basketball in 1987.

[Bill Simmons]

When you would go on a game show like Supermarket Sweep, you would walk away with like $800 sometimes. And it was like, wow, big winners today. And like, it's 100,000. I guess they make it that to say that, like, he could start his new life now and he needs more money than that. But a hundred grand? Come on.

[Kyle Brandt]

It would be funny if over the top two was. He's like, now he's back into drug dealing. Now he has enough cash to finally buy the cocaine st from the Colombians over the top two Sicario. So the grandfather, what's he doing all day? Just a rich guy with henchmen. What's his job?

[Bill Simmons]

He's some sort of magnet.

[Kyle Brandt]

Like a, like a bond. Like, like he's like a Michael Milken selling junk bonds. What's he doing?

[Bill Simmons]

I think he's closer to an older Gordon Gecko. Like, I think he has worked really hard. Yeah, like self made, all of that. Which is why he says he has no family other than Michael. So, like that's. He's self made finance guy. Like super, super powerful.

[Kyle Brandt]

You think he owned like staples? Like the chain of staples. Those stores that sold, you know, like computer stuff and.

[Bill Simmons]

Yeah. Office supplies, things like that.

[Kyle Brandt]

Office supplies, Yeah.

[Bill Simmons]

I think he owned like a whole shitload of Kmarts. Like in the, in the 80s, Kmart was big and Burlington Coat Factories, but definitely retail outlets. And he owned a shitload of them.

[Kyle Brandt]

He created Foot Locker. Like he had his own plane. This guy was fucking loaded. His house was gigantic. The employees are going to wear referee shirts. He's got henchmen with him at all times.

[Bill Simmons]

He's all time. When you're a henchman rich, definitely. Yeah.

[Kyle Brandt]

That's a whole other. Your own plane and you have your own henchmen. You're like almost a billionaire.

[Bill Simmons]

You can greenlight a child abduction in public rich. Like, yeah, you can move Mountains, man.

[Kyle Brandt]

Why wasn't he just wearing pajamas all day? I'm surprised it was a pajama wedding. Lincoln Hawk was the only one who knew how to do the over the top trick. I have as a nitpick. Nobody else had that in their arsenal. I have one big one, but do you have any other nitpicks?

[Bill Simmons]

Two. Two quick ones. First of all, 20 to 1 seems way low as the odds for Lincoln Hawk. They said there's 500 people in it and they refer to him as a newcomer. And 20 to 1 is supposed to be looked at as astronomical. I think it should have been at like 70 1, right?

[Kyle Brandt]

That's like the Eagles right now are like 20 to 1.

[Bill Simmons]

Yeah, yeah, the Eagles look really good. In week three, there's a five time repeating champion who's never lost and you have 20 to 1 odds. The other one, the stupidest scene in the whole movie, and that says something, is the scene when he first gets Michael and he says, let's just sleep in the cab. Like, let's just sit up here and tilt, tilt back and put our heads down and we'll sleep in the cab in our clothes, sitting up. First of all, Link, you just want $1,000 cash off the smasher. Maybe you spring 30 bucks for a red roof in hotel night. It's the worst day of this kid's life. He's terrified and you're saying, oh, maybe you can lean on me.

[Kyle Brandt]

Like, Jesus Christ, I got a shoulder for you.

[Bill Simmons]

Yeah, terrible, terrible scene. I hate that scene.

[Kyle Brandt]

Great.

[Bill Simmons]

What else you got?

[Kyle Brandt]

I thought Bull should have been DQ'd when he punch Hawk in the nose. That should definitely be that.

[Bill Simmons]

Definitely.

[Kyle Brandt]

Maybe it was a double elimination. That's a dq. So now he's lost one and you only have to beat him one more time.

[Bill Simmons]

Now that like in, like in Karate Kid 3 when he gets points detracted for like contact to the face and stuff like, that's what it should be. He gets one fall taken away for the punch to the face.

[Kyle Brandt]

What was that guy's name? Barnes.

[Bill Simmons]

Mike Barnes.

[Kyle Brandt]

Yeah, Mike Barnes. Yeah.

[Bill Simmons]

Terry Silver's protege.

[Kyle Brandt]

All right, so just bear with me geographically the first 40 minutes of this movie.

[Bill Simmons]

Yeah.

[Kyle Brandt]

So we start in Colorado, I'm pretty sure. Okay, we're heading to California, to LA, pick up the kid.

[Bill Simmons]

Yeah.

[Kyle Brandt]

And around the 20 minute mark, now we're near the Grand Canyon area. Arizona, like five minutes later, we're like Arizona, Utah area. But now we're back in California 12 minutes later.

[Bill Simmons]

Yeah.

[Kyle Brandt]

Heading to Vegas. But Vegas is Near that Arizona, Utah border. It would have been really easy just to go to Vegas. I don't know where Hawk's driving for the first 40. He's just driving. He's got stuff. We're done. Not. We're not explaining what the cargo is do is they have job. I got. We got to go to Arizona and then I got to take. Take some stuff back to la. Like.

[Bill Simmons]

Yeah.

[Kyle Brandt]

Nothing. We're just driving around for no reason in different parts of the West Coast. I don't get it.

[Bill Simmons]

I'm with you.

[Kyle Brandt]

He.

[Bill Simmons]

He mutters something about it that he has to do another pickup. And then there's a timeline laid out a few days he has to get back to California, but it's lost. It's totally aimless. I think it's like a whole truck full of narcotics too, but.

[Kyle Brandt]

Right. He should have gone to Mexico. When we get back from Mexico, like, don't say anything to the. To the border police.

[Bill Simmons]

Well, just keep it real low. Don't be talking all that all the time. Well, listen, what's. Z was in Mexico, right? That might be the next day.

[Kyle Brandt]

Hey, Mike, I need you to put this balloon up your ass just for. Just for an hour, okay?

[Bill Simmons]

Take off that stupid ass jacket with one sleeve. You little.

[Kyle Brandt]

All right. Sequel, Prequel, Prestige tv. All black cast are untouchable. So I actually wrote down sequel, Mike Hawk. And then Craig finished it off with Tom Cruise and I think we're done.

[Bill Simmons]

Yeah, Craig, nice job.

[Kyle Brandt]

But pro wrestler. This Mike Hawk is a pro wrestler? Is he in heels? Does you know the TV show heels? Is he like one of those type things or is he. What? I don't know what it is, but.

[Bill Simmons]

It'S something with my car into trucking. You know, it's just. That's just he's in the family business. It's nothing good that. I don't think that's happening.

[Kyle Brandt]

Maybe Mike Hawk is. Is in the first Fast and Furious. He's doing trucks, but they're stolen cars. And now he's involved with Dom Toretto. Paul Walker's chasing him totally into that.

[Bill Simmons]

They named him Mike Hawk on purpose. Right? Like they understood the joke. They had to. Right that they would you.

[Kyle Brandt]

If you were Mike Hawk, would you be Mike Hawk or Michael Hawk?

[Bill Simmons]

I got to go. Michael.

[Kyle Brandt]

Michael. Right.

[Bill Simmons]

They also could have named him Lincoln Hunt, and then it would have been even dirtier for his son.

[Kyle Brandt]

Well, that's Crystal Metzappa should have said that to him. Hey, Mike, you'd be sucking my cock in a second.

[Bill Simmons]

I'll show you Mike Hawk. Right now. I'm the smasher. Yeah.

[Kyle Brandt]

Is this movie better with Wayne Jenkins, Dana Trejo, Sam Jackson, J.T. walsh, Byron Mayo, Harling Mays, evil laughing Ramon Raymond or Philip Baker Hall? The answer is clearly Byron Mayo, who just should have been the grandfather. They should have mixed up rich guy character with Byron Mayo. And he's just shirtless, holding. Holding like a Narragansett at the top.

[Bill Simmons]

And when he goes to Vegas, he's getting at all kinds of shit.

[Kyle Brandt]

He just turns into Byron Mayo in Vegas. He's like Mike and the presidential suite.

[Bill Simmons]

Yeah.

[Kyle Brandt]

Yeah. Lincoln. Maybe you need to work off some steam. Shout out to CR Mr. Mayo is speaking to you. Just one Oscar. Who gets it? Obviously, Hagar. I don't know what won best song that year, but winner takes it all. Had to.

[Bill Simmons]

Winner takes it all. Yeah. Give it to him.

[Kyle Brandt]

Can you imagine the Oscars and the nominees are. And Sammy Hagar for Over the Top. And he could have performed it.

[Bill Simmons]

Well, you have to perform if you're nominated. He would go up there. The red rocker, late 80s. Just blow the roof off that place. The Shrine Auditorium.

[Kyle Brandt]

Wait, so that would have been the 1988 Oscars?

[Bill Simmons]

Yeah. Google it.

[Kyle Brandt]

Do it on the Fly Song. I'll do it on the Flash. You know, I thought I was really prepared for this, but you were.

[Bill Simmons]

Come on.

[Kyle Brandt]

Oh, man, this is a really good category.

[Bill Simmons]

Oh, you're gonna. You already got cold feet about winner takes at all.

[Kyle Brandt]

Nominees.

[Bill Simmons]

Give me the bangers.

[Kyle Brandt]

Cry Freedom from the Cry Freedom movie. I can't speak to that. I remember that one. Nothing's gonna stop us now from Mannequin.

[Bill Simmons]

Nothing's gonna Mannequin. Coming up again.

[Kyle Brandt]

That's a good song. I mean, crazy.

[Bill Simmons]

What do they know?

[Kyle Brandt]

Shakedown from Beverly Hills Cop Tube from Bob Seger. Shake down your bus Breakdown. Yeah, that sounds good. Storybook Love from the Princess Bride. Music and lyrics by Willie deville. So maybe Cry Freedom or Princess Bride could take that spot. But the winner. The winner of the Oscar. No. Of Heard the Time of My Life.

[Bill Simmons]

Oh, that.

[Kyle Brandt]

Yeah. I mean, that would. That's not better than that. But I think winner takes it all kind of snuck in there.

[Bill Simmons]

I would like an. I would like a nomination. So Haggard can be sitting there. So Sammy Hagar could be sitting next to all those other ones. I like Shakedown, Breakdown. I'm gonna listen to that after the pod.

[Kyle Brandt]

That sounds really good. Probably unanswerable questions. Did Harry Bosco get cheated? We end up with that. How did Trucker Impossible drug dealer Lincoln Hawk end up with a billionaire's daughter in la.

[Bill Simmons]

I know, Great question. How did he pull? Well, she obviously hated her father and was revolting.

[Kyle Brandt]

Probably. She was probably doing some drugs, right? Maybe she was. That was her contact, Bill. That's how she ended up getting sick. Because she was like basically Jenny gumping it for 10 years.

[Bill Simmons]

Well, dirty needles. Yeah. A new virus they haven't identified yet. Yeah, we know what the virus is, Jenny.

[Kyle Brandt]

Yeah.

[Bill Simmons]

Yes, Good call.

[Kyle Brandt]

And then what would the sport be in the 2024 version of this? Probably that stupid slap league slap fight.

[Bill Simmons]

Which I won't and can't watch. Sorry, not for me. Love mma. Don't like that.

[Kyle Brandt]

Any other unanswerables?

[Bill Simmons]

Yeah. Do you think it might be just kind of awesome to be a truck driver?

[Kyle Brandt]

It seems great. I think that your ass would be sore and you're probably constipated would be the two things. Probably not as. Not as awesome.

[Bill Simmons]

You're driving through the mountains, Bill. You're just crushing pods. You stop off for a steak like you work out when you want to. It's a solitary life. I kind of like, I remember during like the Goodfellas pod at one point you guys were talking about Henry Hill and C.R. was like, I think I just kind of want to own a fucking bar in the middle of the movie. And I really felt that at some point I watched this movie. I'm like, next life, man. I think I might drive a truck. I think I might be into that different life.

[Kyle Brandt]

I would like the stops and how you know the different people in the different towns. You're like, oh, I'm in Phoenix. I'm going to say hi to Dolores. She's my favorite diner waitress.

[Bill Simmons]

Yeah, I like that.

[Kyle Brandt]

That and then there's like a little. There's people you would know in each place and Yeah, I. I would assume there's a lot of cigarettes. Yeah, you're probably super bored.

[Bill Simmons]

Yes, cigarettes. But this, listen, this is all pre pods, pre smartphones. Like you probably have a sweet truck now. I don't know, maybe next life. The only other one I had is unanswerable. Who would win an arm wrestling tournament in the entire ringer verse if there's just all hands on deck who's coming on top of that?

[Kyle Brandt]

I mean the answer is always Brian Curtis. Yeah, I don't. Yeah, Brian Curtis, like crazy strength not.

[Bill Simmons]

Could it be him and Rossillo in the finals?

[Kyle Brandt]

I'd still take him. Brian Curtis. I would go down a dark alley with Brian Curtis. Yeah, he's like, the toughest guy at the ringer.

[Bill Simmons]

No disrespect to Brian. I just know Russello is, like, always, like, in the cage and training. He does kettlebells and all that stuff.

[Kyle Brandt]

By the way, Rossillo might be a truck driver. It's not. It can't be ruled out. He's jacked. Like, he might have been inspired by this movie. He might be just driving around in a truck. I don't know where he is right now. Best double feature choice. It's got to be Cobra.

[Bill Simmons]

Come on, Bill.

[Kyle Brandt]

You gotta be talking about here.

[Bill Simmons]

Cobra.

[Kyle Brandt]

And then over the top. Like, if that was on a bill at some small theater, you would be delighted.

[Bill Simmons]

Absolutely. Awesome.

[Kyle Brandt]

You take your kids to that.

[Bill Simmons]

I might even choose that as my double feature. Just with all movies at my disposal, I would choose that. I think that's my favorite one. Not even for this movie, just generally.

[Kyle Brandt]

We should mention you started hitting me up to do this, like, six weeks ago. Would you watch it on a plane or something?

[Bill Simmons]

I'll tell you why it is. It's because every time, Bill, I ever post anything on social media about rewatchables, there's like, multiple people in the comments who are like, great, now when are you gonna do over the top? When are you doing over? It doesn't matter what we're doing. Rudy, Naked Gun, anything they always want. I could be tweeting about Dak Prescott and they'll say, great, what are you doing over the top? They wanted it. So here we are.

[Kyle Brandt]

I don't know. Then what. What's the new draft choice going to be?

[Bill Simmons]

I don't know. We got to go back to the list.

[Kyle Brandt]

This was like. Because we've done it. We've done a few good Schwarzeneggers. We've done some Van Damme. There's some cigar left. There's some meat on the cigar bone. And we're going to have to end up doing On Deadly Ground at some point.

[Bill Simmons]

Well, out for justice is sitting there and it's. Anybody seen Richie? So we may revisit that. But I also noticed the rewatchables feed tweeted that Sloan now with this episode, is in the Ten Timers Club. This is the Ten Timers Club Stallone movie that we've done. I've done, I think, four of them. And there's still some meat on the bone. There's still sly movies. Like, there's still Demolition Man. There's still other shit out there.

[Kyle Brandt]

I'm glad you brought this up. Cause I figured this out today. Cruise is at 15, Pacino's at 13, De Niro's at 12, Denzel at 11, Hanks and Damon and now Stallone at 10. But the weird thing about Cruise is he's got like five or six left that we haven't done. That are clear Cruise movies. So. So I think he'll be the first to 20. But Keanu's kind of starting to climb up the ladder. I listened to Keanu. I think Keanu's at nine. So anyway, okay, the Indian reds are not award for what happened. The next day, Lincoln ends up with 240,000 plus a $250,000 truck. Where did he live? Where does his son live? Did they start a business? Is he back into selling big scale drugs? Cocaine, heroin? Do they move to Mexico? What happens?

[Bill Simmons]

At one point, Michael hits him between the eyes with it. And he's like, what would our life be like? What would we have? And he's like, oh, we just have each other. This makes no sense. Like three days after being on the road with his dad, he'd be like, dad, I got soccer practice. I got a Nintendo. I gotta go home. This is not. I'm 10, I'm 12. I gotta go back to my friends and stuff.

[Kyle Brandt]

Dad, I'm discovering my body. Can I go in the back of the truck for like a half hour? Can you? Does the door lock?

[Bill Simmons]

I bet it does.

[Kyle Brandt]

Yeah, I probably. He probably goes back to the grandfather within about five weeks. Yeah, I mean, maybe he's better off with you. Well, if you're Lincoln Hawk, the son's in this mansion in Bel Air. He's probably going to an awesome private school. He can drive.

[Bill Simmons]

He's going to the military academy.

[Kyle Brandt]

Right. So maybe he gets an apartment, you know, on Sunset, Uses that and can see his son every once in a while and shares cousin. Like, use the grandfather as an asset. He's not going to be in the truck with you just driving around in the west coast. He's in sixth grade.

[Bill Simmons]

I just don't know. Can hang on Sunset. Like, he's going to have to park that big rig, like, right in front of Miyagi's or whatever was there back in the day. That's going to be a tough fit, man.

[Kyle Brandt]

Yeah, Dad's going to be late. He can't park his truck on the. On Sunset. It's going to take another 40 minutes.

[Bill Simmons]

I'm trying to back it in in front of the Saddle Ranch.

[Kyle Brandt]

It's like Meadow Soprano. The memorability you'd want from this movie. I'd have it narrowed down to the black cap at the end of the shoot, which he wears, which apparently he gave to Sammy Hagar and then autographed it and then it went for charity for $10,000. But I think it has to be the Hawk at the top of the truck. Right?

[Bill Simmons]

The Hawk is really cool, especially if you could find a way to affix that to your actual car, like whatever car, like whatever Volkswagen or whatever you drive. You put the Hawk there. I actually made an alternative choice, but it's the same category. If there's one of my favorite things on Hawk's car, around Hawk's truck, he has those mud flaps, and it says, pointing this way, passing side. And then the other one says, suicide and don't pass that way. And I just imagine myself pulling up to, like, a travel baseball practice for my son, like, going with them. Those mud flaps on my ride. That's what I want. Or the banger shirt from Bull Hurley. I like banger, too.

[Kyle Brandt]

That was good, coach. Finstock award for best life lesson. And the world meets nobody halfway.

[Bill Simmons]

Nobody. No. That's a big deal.

[Kyle Brandt]

Remember that, kids who won the movie? Because it probably wasn't Sylvester Stallone.

[Bill Simmons]

I think. I think the winner of the movie was arm wrestling. I think if you were to arm wrestle your friend right now, you make a reference to this movie. Everybody, all roads in arm wrestling lead to over the top some 40 years later. I think it's arm wrestling won.

[Kyle Brandt]

If Tyson Badgent.

[Bill Simmons]

Yeah.

[Kyle Brandt]

Was still the Bears starting quarterback and had this whole moment, and now he was a guy, you could argue maybe he was the belated winner of it because really nobody else won. The other possibility is Golden Globus, but they lost money on the movie, so I don't know how they won on that, so.

[Bill Simmons]

And by the way, what I've seen through three weeks, like, I hope Tyson Beige is not playing quarterback for the Bears sometime soon because Caleb's getting a shit kicked out of him. So I hope we don't see that kid.

[Kyle Brandt]

Yeah. What's the play where he just goes backwards, four guys chase him, and then he gets hit by three of them as he throws it up for grabs.

[Bill Simmons]

Is that called the Tecmo Bowl? You just run backwards and then eventually they grab you and you can't zigzag enough.

[Kyle Brandt]

They didn't know that they couldn't block when they did this whole thing.

[Bill Simmons]

No, but it's all right. It's all right. But we got all these wide receivers and running backs and stuff. It'll be Fine. And the coach is totally venerable. He's been through a lot of stuff. It'll be fine. It'll be fine.

[Kyle Brandt]

Tough times for the Bears fans. Well, I'm nervous, but we're going to bring in Craig Horlbeck, our producer, who had not seen this movie, and the only advice we gave him was don't give up in the first 55 minutes. Just stick with.

[Bill Simmons]

Yeah.

[Kyle Brandt]

Craig, your review.

[C]

It's great. It's great. I have you guys. I have nobody, literally nobody else in my life I could talk to about these movies. Look, is this one of the better of this category? Probably not. Do I love it and will I treat it like a child? Yeah. The first half is really rough. I'm not going to lie. I think this made me push back when I want to have kids by, like, a year. Hated that kid.

[Kyle Brandt]

Yeah.

[C]

I didn't know this was good. I was expecting, you know, some version of Cobra. Did not realize this was like a father son drama with an arm wrestling through line, which just. I was laughing at myself. Forty minutes into this movie. I was like, what are we doing? We're just, like, driving around. There's a sick mom. I don't even know why she's sick.

[Kyle Brandt]

Yeah.

[C]

Like, the fact that these things get greenlit with one of the biggest stars in the world, truly shocking. I had some qualms, though. I wish it was more like, we need more 80s edge, you know, I'm used to, like, unnecessary nudity. There was no gratuitous nudity in this movie. We needed that.

[Kyle Brandt]

Well, they were trying to make it like a. Like a family action drama.

[Bill Simmons]

Is this a kids movie?

[Kyle Brandt]

Yeah. I don't. I don't know who it was for in high school. It definitely wasn't for me, but we liked it anyway. But it wasn't, like, a cool thing to go see this on a Friday night. I want.

[C]

It was a little antiseptic. There's no drugs. There's no cigarettes. There's no. They don't even really drink. Stallone doesn't have a beer. I don't think, like, I needed more.

[Kyle Brandt]

To this, but as soon as Hagar comes in, you understood why. Why you were there and why we're doing this.

[Bill Simmons]

Come on. Last half hour.

[C]

I mean, it felt like a prequel to the movie. I wanted to see. Like, I wanted. I wanted to see Stallone full arm wrestling. I don't. You know, the rest of it is all prologue.

[Kyle Brandt]

What did you think of arm wrestling in general as the featured sport of an actual 80s movie?

[C]

It's not a very visually appealing thing. It's not very cinematic. It's tough to get there. There's not a lot of movement. I will say I did appreciate the, like, the quick slam was like a fun. A fun closing move.

[Bill Simmons]

I like Craig, when these. They show the guys and they're warming up and they're doing, like, shadow arm wrestling, like, getting loose, like, going like that.

[Kyle Brandt]

Like they have a whole routine to do. It's the only way they could warm up.

[Bill Simmons]

Yeah.

[C]

One thing I did appreciate, I don't think you guys mentioned this, I liked Sly using his own semi truck as, like, a workout machine.

[Bill Simmons]

Yeah, yeah.

[C]

He was using, like, the grill from the front grill of the truck to, like, do curls. That was. That was unique. That was innovative. I had never seen anyone work out with a car like that. That was innovative.

[Kyle Brandt]

I think Sly has figured out more unconventional ways to work out in a movie than any other actor. I mean, he's in Rocky 4 is the peak of that. Right. He's just like, what do we have around this log cabin that we could use for the montage?

[Bill Simmons]

I'm going to pull a sled through the snow and I can beat this unbeatable Russian dude.

[Kyle Brandt]

Yeah, right. He's just doing upside down chin ups. Just hanging from a log beam and no pain. No pain.

[C]

Was this whole era of Stallone considered, like, a big step down for him. This guy 10 years ago wrote a best picture winning movie, and now he's just making Cobra and over the top.

[Kyle Brandt]

You know what's funny about it? It really was great. The entire time, it was that the step down part didn't happen till the late 80s. Everything he released, I loved. I loved all of it. Cobra, Rambo 2, whatever it was, I was. We were all in. We were like, all right, Stallone's cooking again. It was almost like we all had season tickets for Stallone, no doubt.

[C]

Nobody was like, hey, maybe lean back into something that's a little bit more prestigious, awards worthy.

[Kyle Brandt]

They were like, well, that's what he ends up doing that. When he kind of has the Stallone reboot in the 90s, he does cliffhanger, which is like a really smart, big budget action movie version of what he should be. And he tries to do the Specialist, but then eventually does Cop Land, which was his attempt to try to win the Oscar.

[C]

That's my favorite Stallone.

[Kyle Brandt]

Yeah.

[Bill Simmons]

The only comp I can think of is Nicolas Cage wins the Oscar for leaving Las Vegas and then is doing, like, Con Air and Face off in, like, these Popcorn action movies. What the fuck? Why would you do that? I don't know. It's just what he liked to do.

[Kyle Brandt]

Yeah, it's. I'm really. I don't know. I can't speak for Kyle, but I'm delighted with the Stallone IMDb no, it's so good. I love how it played out. Like, we haven't done Lockup yet. That movie is just abjectly insane.

[Bill Simmons]

I know.

[Kyle Brandt]

He just. He basically. We hit the mid-80s and he's just like, how much I'll do it. And that's how he. And because I think he knows he can't beat Schwarzenegger. Right? Schwarzenegger is this whole other animal. And James Cameron's trying to work with him and Stallone's like, all right, God bless him.

[Bill Simmons]

I had my run just two nights ago. I showed my 10 year old Terminator 2 and it blew his fucking mind. I don't think Stallone's ever made anything like that.

[Kyle Brandt]

He's never. Rocky's the closest, right? Yeah.

[Bill Simmons]

70S, you know.

[Kyle Brandt]

All right, that's it for the rewatchables. Thanks to Craig Korbeck for producing. Thanks to our guy Kyle Brandt. We'll have to figure out a new. Yeah, everyone's begging us to do this one because I feel like over the Top was the number one. We'll get. We'll hear from the feedback, but you can watch this as well on The Ringer Movies YouTube channel. Guys, great to see you. Thank you.