August 26, 2023 • 29 mins
Kevin Kinkead joins the show and talks literally ALL things Philly and national sports. Phillies, James Harden-Sixers, Eagles, College Football, Union, and the unfortunate passings of Bray Wyatt and Terry Funk this week.
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Episode Transcript
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(00:01):
Almost heaven, West Virginia, BlueRidge Mountain, and the river life is
old, older than up trees,younger than the mountains, growing like a
(00:24):
reef. Country Roll. Take MeHome to the Place I lie, West
Virginia Mountain, MoMA, Take MeHome, Country Road. Welcome back to
(00:48):
the Tough Cover Radio Show, closingit down in the twelve o'clock hour with
a great guest here, Kevin Kincaidfrom Crossing broad You can follow him at
Kevin Underscore kink Aid. You couldcheck out the It's Always Soccer in Philadelphia
podcast. Kevin, thanks so muchfor coming on. Man. How you
doing, I'm doing great. Howyou guys doing. We got a lot
to talk about. I mean,we're all over the board. We're right
(01:12):
getting into the swing of things ina lot of different areas. And of
course the Sixers keep poking their headsinto the conversation and making us talk about
them. But we got a lotto talk about. Let's start it out
on a weird on a weird note. Actually, I'm gonna I'm gonna talk
about the Phillies real quick off thetop here. We haven't talked much about
them on the show because I feellike after the seven to win right now,
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there's they're they're kind of just they'relocked into the playoffs. In my
opinion, there's not a ton totalk about like there has been as of
late when there's been so much controversy. But you wrote a really good,
uh blog I'm crossing broad when youwent to the game. You're in the
stadium for the walk off home run, and you said how nice it was
to be in the stadium where fanskind of didn't give up as soon as
(01:57):
they got down in the game,and you aren't on Twitter and watching all
the comments come in and all thenegativity. And I agree with that totally,
and I've talked about that that onthis show too. The the environment
at the stadium is so much differentthan what you see on like Phillies Twitter,
So part of why we brought youon you you yelled at me and
Nick Pacona and told us to goto our rooms correctly. When me and
(02:20):
Nick pocon were yelling at each other, I wanted to see what you what
your thoughts were on kind of thishas kind of been a season long argument
between me and Nick pocone. Arepeople being too negative about the Phillies as
a whole Where do you think thatdiscourse is coming from. Is it just
based on the expectations of making theWorld Series last year, or what do
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you think about kind of how thefans have talked about the Philly I think
it's it's turned since the standing oha big time, but before that,
and even still when we lose,the sky still falls a little bit.
But what are what are your kindof thoughts on kind of the season long
argument me and Pacona have been having. Well, I mean, I'm a
pragmatist, right, so I thinkthere's probably too much Nagadelphia and Philadelphia in
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general, you know. I meanour big thing on Crossing Broad during the
Eagle seasons of the Gannon stuff.You know, it's like, well,
you know they're eight, no,but are they playing too soft? Right?
You know? And then it's likewhen they lose their first and then
they lose their first game, it'slike you get the polls they're asking if
Jonathan Gannets should be fired, youknow, So it's not you're trying to
like, you know, consider thisbig like macro level shift. I think
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like a younger generation of Philadelphia sportsfans are a little bit more you know,
they don't do the knee jerk emotionalreaction thing as much, and they're
willing to kind of like let itbreathe and let things live a little bit,
you know. I mean it's harderto do, and base baseball is
easy to kind of flip back andforth because there's so many games. It's
such a short amount of time,you know. I mean you're like ride
and high one night before and thenyou know that's you know, less than
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twenty four hours later. You know, somebody's going over four of the plate,
right, So, I mean it'skind of kind of lends itself to
that kind of roller coaster of emotionsand whatnot. But I need to look.
I think expectations are just a fivelyhigh after last season, but I
mean ever since they kind of turnedit around after the poor start, I
mean, they've been playing pretty goodbaseball for a couple of months now.
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You know, this is not somenew not some new thing. Which it
makes me laugh about the trade turnerpivot point, because you know, they
had they had been one of thebest teams in baseball em before that.
You know, that month, themonth before that's when I see these like
tweets like, well, you know, the trade turner evasion saved the season.
I'm sitting there thinking like, well, I mean they were pretty damn
good, you know, in themonth leading up to that, you know,
and uh, you know, ironicallylike the trade. The thing that
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the genesis of the trade turner evasionwas a fielding error, you know,
not a not anything at the platewith him. But yeah, it's funny
how that kind of got it unstuck, and I think it just unlocked kind
of that fan kind of kind ofbuying, you know what I mean.
I think it was less about youknow, what they were doing on the
field, more like, okay,turning point, Like, I think this
this team starting to I think we'revibing with this team now, and I
think some people who were kind ofyou had, like a foot dangling off
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the bandwagon are squarely back on now. Yeah, I agree, and I
think that they're they're is kind ofthat that bandwagon mentality that Jimmy Rollins called
us out about a long time agoand everyone got all upset about. But
he was absolutely right, to bequite honest, but kind of speaking speaking
of expectations and moving over to theteam that you know, half of that
fan base that's Negadelphians, for thePhillies are going to forget the Phillies exist
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because the Eagles are about to play. So the Eagles are coming on,
They're they're you know, this isabout to be the time where the Eagles
take over the takeover the Phillies sportsworld from the Phillies at least until the
playoffs. And speaking of expectations,I don't think that there has ever been
as sky high of expectations for ateam in my lifetime honestly as there is
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for the Eagles. And you couldsay, obviously the year after you win
the Super Bowl and the year afterthey won the World Series in oh eight,
I almost feel like you don't havethe pressure though that this team has
kind of because they want to knoweight and they want in seventeen. I
think you could argue that this isthe most super Bowl or championship or bust
season that we've seen in a whilein Philadelphia sports. Would that be a
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fair characterization for the Eagles this year? Yeah, And normally, like I
would laugh off something like that entirely, but but for real, I mean,
like the truth is, like,you know, because people who are
saying, like, well, theyshould go back to the Super Bowl.
I mean, like, what arethe odds? How often does it happen
that a team goes to Super Bowltwo years in a row? Right?
I mean you just look at thenumbers game on that. But I mean
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when you look at their competition inthe NFC, what it would is precluding
them from getting back there. SanFrancisco and Dallas. Really, I mean,
like that's it? Yeah? Isthere any other team in the NFC
that any of us can sit hereand legitimately say is is a huge threat
to the Eagles this year? ButI don't, I don't see it.
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You know, Washington Giants, theVikings, the Lions. I mean,
Naron Rodgers is gone. You know, the South looks terrible on paper,
you know, so so I don'tthink that's crazy. And normally I would
say that's crazy. You're gonna havethose kinds of high expectations. But but
I don't think it is. Imean, the offense is going to be
just as good as not better,but it was last year on the question
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marks are on the defensive side,you know. But now I don't think
that's that's crazy at all. That'sa deviation from what I would what I
would normally think. Yeah, it'snot something I would normally say either,
to be quite honest, and Iwould throw my whole thing. This all
season has been I'm a big Seattleguy. I love what they did this
all season and they I love whatthey did in the draft. I think
they'll improve on it. I meanit's hard. I think they will win,
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Like I think they're gonna win alot of games in the regular season,
but it's hard for me to say. I think that they're a legitimate
playoff contender with the Eagles, andit's just tough. I don't I'm not
as high on San fran or Dallasas a lot of people are either.
So I just think the NFC isreally bad. So I'm totally with you.
I got Schaan Bernardi. Who's gonnaask a question about two teams you
just mentioned there? Yeah, andKevin. You put up an awesome blog
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on crossingbro dot com which was titledforty nine Ers put the final nail in
Trey Land's career by trading them tothe Cowboys. We saw that breaking news
yesterday. The forty nine Ers,just two years after trading three first round
picks in a second four Trey Lanceshipping them off to Dallas for just a
fourth round. Are really giving upfor nothing. I think it's a horrible
management of assets overall. But what'syour whole take on the situation there?
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Yeah, I mean, look whenyou look at what they traded to go
up and get him, only toturn around and flip him for a fourth,
it's just, you know, it'sit's so weird. It's such an
outlier for what San Francisco has beenable to do and roster building otherwise,
you know. I mean they've gota great defense. They always have a
great defense. They've got weapons allover, you know, the offensive side
of the ball. But it's like, think, just like the quarterback position
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for them just always seems to belike, no, now we're just gonna
whatever guy we're we're on right now, we're gonna put him in there,
you know, Jimmy g. Brock, Purty, Trey Lance, you know,
whomever. And uh, it's justthat's like really just the thing holding
holding them back. I don't yousay what you want to say about Trey
Lance. And he's come back frominjury, he's not ready, you know,
he still needs time to develop.That's fine, but I don't.
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I don't think Brock Purty and SamDarnold are the answer, right, you
know, And I wish, youknow, in a way, I wish
that he didn't get injured in theNFC Championship Game last year because I would
have liked to see the Eagles burythe Niners within in there, just to
eliminate the whole depose Samuel and youknow, all the complaints afterwards of well,
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you know, we would have wonif our quarterback didn't go down and
all that stuff. You know,I'm not like, is anybody out there
a Brock Party believer? I meana serious question, you know, But
yeah, I mean, it's juststrange that they bungled the Trey Lance way
they did from a from an organizationthat otherwise, you know, it's pretty
flushed with talent everywhere else. Yeah, definitely, And it feels like like
Trey Lance is almost the outlier inthe way they viewed quarterbacks. That there's
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all this talk about like the plugginplay guys that Jimmy garoppolos the Brock Party.
It's very clear the Niners are verymuch on board the Brock Party wagon,
and he really can save the faceof this trade by being the quarterback
if that is his guy, ButI just don't see the ceiling for him
in the way that I don't knowif they do. Like honestly, if
I was to pick a ceiling forbrock Party, it's probably like Jimmy Garoppolo
and say what you want about TreyLance. I know the injuries, he's
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still very unprone, but at leastthere's some sort of juice there and some
sort of other things that he coulddo, elements he could add to an
offense. So I don't know,it's confusing to me to just give him
away rather than at least hold ontoit until brock Purty shows he's the guy.
But yeah, I was very surprisedby that, and I honestly don't
hate it from the Cowboys perspective ofadding it for just the mid round pick.
Yeah, no, I mean it'sit's a it's a buy low,
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you know, it's a it's alow risk, high reward kind of kind
of move on their part for sure, you know. And uh, you
know, I don't go back tolike the Jimmy g thing too. I
don't can anybody like really say thatbrock Purty ceiling is gonna beet higher than
Jimmy G ceiling was No. No, yeah, I mean so that's that's
my thing. Like it feels likea lateral move at best, going from
going from Jimmy G to Brock prettyI know people talk about you put him
(10:43):
in a shanahand kind of offense.You can plug and play kind of anybody
in there, but uh, Idon't know if if the ceiling is some
kind of like Alex Smith, kindof like game game Manager, and I
don't even use game I don't evenuse game manager in a derogatory term.
I think that's a I think thatcan be a compliment in a way because
just somebody plays within themselves and thatdoesn't try to too much. But I
don't, I don't, I don'tsee. I think I think Brock Purty's
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floor certainly is much higher than TreyLance is for it, but I think
his ceiling is lower. Yeah,Lance is ceiling, do you know what
I'm saying. I think that's definitelyfair. And everyone's gonna kill san Fran
for making the trade in general toget Trey Lance, and I still kind
of think like if that would haveworked out, I think it would have
you know, I understand the movestill, Like I it was a high
upside move and they ended up beingtoo good to kind of let it wait
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an wait around. Yeah, Ijust think that the timelinees never matched up
there. But I mean sometimes,look, I'll give you an Eagles like
example in that regard. You know, like they went out and got Andre
Dillard in the first round. Heended up not working out, but the
diamond in the rough seventh round guydid and Jordan my Love. Yeah,
So I mean that's kind of aTrey Lance brock Purty first round, seventh
round kind of developmental thing that youstill don't expect it to work that way,
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but sometimes it does. So.But yeah, I'm look, they
went for it. I think everybodythought at the right at the time it
was the right thing to do,and you know, some of those work
out, some of them don't.Yeah. No, that's a great example.
That's a great comparison. And I'mgonna do a complete one eighty shift
here over from the Eagles all theway over to the world of professional wrestling,
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because I saw obviously had two blogsand it's been a rough week for
for wrestling fans. Obviously. TerryFunk one of the all time legends or
the business ECW legend for those outthere who aren't wrestling fans. ECW was
basically Philadelphia's wrestling promotion. Obviously,it was all across the Northeast and big
in New York, big in Chicago, big kind of and a lot of
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I think it even went down toFlorida for a couple of like Hardcore Heaven,
a couple a couple of pay perviews in that era. It was
definitely also down there in Florida inthat area, but Philadelphia was the home
base obviously in South on South Philadelphia, the corner Swanson and Writtner, Terry
Funk, all time legend, greatblog that you posted. I know you're
a big ECW guy. And thenalso obviously the more heartbreaking news obviously just
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due to the life circumstances of it, is Bray Wyatt passing away, which
I talked about in the last segmentand at the age of thirty six,
which is just insane and just beyondsad from a human standpoint, from a
wrestling standpoint, from from every standpoint, just absolutely awful. What do you
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obviously you talked about, Terry Funk, why do you think that Terry Funk
is so iconic and even for LABSfans for bray Wyatt, because I was
talking last segment, how I knewa couple of LABS fans and even they
were drawn to bray Wyatt because itwas kind of a from a past era
from a LABS fan perspective. Whatwas kind of your thoughts on bray Wyatt
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and obviously your thoughts on Terry Funk. Yeah, Terry Funk man, I
mean, like he was the longevityof his career was incredible. I think
I don't know if people even realizedthis when he came to ECW on the
nine. Do you see it alreadybeen wrestling for twenty five to thirty years,
you know, he had a coupleof decades in Japan. I think
he was a w c W.I think he had early stint with WWS
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before going back then and doing theChainsaw Charlie routine. But I mean he
so this this guy was, youknow, in South Philly wrestling as like
a fifty something year old, youknow, doing all this crazy hardcore stuff
with guys who are like half hisage, you know, and and not
skipping a bally. Terry Funk stilla lot of blood in South Philadelphia,
you know. I mean he wasjust as crucial to you think of guys
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who were like known for like theirtheir start in ECW or who made it
big and eac w in it youryour Rob Van, Damon sav Who's and
Taz is that there's a lot ofguys who had wrestled before they came in
and who are who even elevated themselvesat different levels. I mean, he
was just a perfect fit for that. And we were talking to it to
Brian Heffron, the blue meanie localguy who's still really active in the scene,
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earlier this week, and he washe he said, his name with
Terry was just like he was alwaysthere for the younger guys, and you
know, and there was people gatekeeping and saying like, you know,
we're not gonna let you in.You know, he was kind of opened
all the young talent coming up andsaying, hey, let's let's develop your
gimmicks here sid fights, here's whatyou can do, and and and all
that kind of stuff. So soyeah, I mean for his what he
did for younger guys and just youknow how hardcore he was and how perfect
(15:05):
he was for eacud. I meanthat's what I remember, Gray. Why.
You know, look, I meanI stopped watching wrestling consistently, probably
in two thousand and five, butI remember, like, you know,
his dad Irs was like a huge, was huge back in the day,
and so he comes from this pedigreeof like this wrestling family that's like heralded,
you know. And I just remembereven just watching Casualty, like the
themed entrances and all the showmanship andwhatnot. The craftiness and the creativity and
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the artistry of like the gimmick wasjust was just incredible, you know,
especially when you get to a pointwhere a lot of things in wrestling have
been done, you know, overX amount of years. I mean,
it just felt like like refreshing,and his stuff is unique, and yeah,
just sad circumstances, right thirty sixyears old, you know. So,
yeah, that was tough to see. Yeah, a tough week for
the wrestling world, man, youknow, just yeah, that's absolutely brutal.
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And what you said about you know, ECW not just starting careers but
allowed people to kind of level up. And obviously the two iconic ones are
fully in Austin. And what Iwant to say, because I heard someone
else mention this when they were talkingabout Terry Funk's death. I don't think
you can even talk about Terry Funkwithout talking about Mick Foley at this point,
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because I think to the to theto the wrestling public, and not
just to the ECW fan or whatthe w W fan, whatever it is.
I think mcfoley has done such anincredible job at making sure nobody forgets
Terry Funk's legacy and making sure thatwhen people talk about mcfoley is the hardcore
legend all that stuff, he's like, no, I mean that's Terry Funk,
Like he gave that to me,and I think that's you know,
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mc foley's like my personal probably firstor second favorite wrestler of all times.
So well, they were like attachedat the hip for a long time too.
I mean, like you know,Cactus Jack and Chainsaw Charlie wrestled together
at w W, They've they wrestledagainst each other in ECW and other promotions.
I mean they were like interconnected,you know, one A and one
D really and don't know, it'sfunny because you know, Nick Folly took
off and became this huge superstar,but I mean Terry Fonk was kind of
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like, you know right there everystep of the way. You know,
maybe he didn't have the gimmick orthe character or whatever they kind of put
him over the top on the nationalstage, but I mean he had so
much respect from from from everybody inthe community. Bit yeah right, I
mean when he when he passes,you know, you look just google his
name and looking all the tributes thatare out there for him. That tells
you what you need to know.Yeah, And it's this is the thing
with Bray that I said in thelast segment, It's it seems like every
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time this happens, it's like,you know, it's always the guy that
nobody has anything negative to say about. It's always the guy that you know,
the whole locker room seems to love. It's like the owen Hart thing
where it's just everyone's favorite guy,it seems. And it's just brutal.
And to switch gears a leg again, Yeah, I'll let's Sean get back
to get back to sports instead ofdepressing wrestling deaths. But yeah, yeah,
we're kind of hitting on everything here. Of course talking with Kevin Kinkaid
(17:48):
of crossing Brad. But I knowyou had a six years kind of I
guess here taking a break from alittle while, but diving back in.
I would be remiss if I didnot bring up the holiday we were cell
bringing today is it is James Harden'sbirthday. So Kevin, I just want
to get a little three thoughts onyour outlook for the Sixers of the whole
with this James Harden situation. Iguess my question for you specifically is who
blinks first? That do you thinkDarryl Morny gives in and trades James Harden?
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Are we going to continue to seethis drag out and see James Harden
continued to cause the noise that he'scurrently causing. Oh God, well,
it can't be any word, can'tbe any worse than the Ben Simmons thon
kenn It. I mean, thatthing went until you know, it couldn't
go anymore. You know, Idon't know the whole thing. It's just
like like I'm defeated. You know. I put the moratorium up on the
website because I just didn't want todo anything more with it than Kyle Pagan
(18:33):
decided that he was just going tobreak the more ittory to write whatever he
one is. I was like,you know what if you want to handle
all that crap, that's final minute. I mean, you write all the
James Harden updates. You know.It's just I mean, part of this
is a part of this is abyproduct like honest to God of like the
player and powermn Era. So like, yeah, he's the Harden is not
the only slopping that is going onin the NBA, right Like he got
(18:55):
Dame Lillard, you got all theseother situations that are always like that,
you know. But I think it'sI haven't even recovered from Benson's thing yet.
So I just wish that these guyscould. I feel like just putting
Harden and Maury in a room andsaying, just figure it out, right,
just act like grown ups here,figure it out. If Maury,
if you said something this guy,if you gave him a handshake, wink
wink, you gotta honor that,you know. And James Harden, if
(19:19):
you know, you look you optedin, man, are you here or
you know, do you want tobe here? Did you have to be
here? Yeah, It's just it'sjust exhausting. It's just like it's just
childish stuff, you know, andit should think the NBA has got to
step in and they gotta they gottacurb this, this ridiculousness of the player
empowerment era, which has just resultedin guys just deciding they're not going to
honor their contracts, they're gonna forcetrades. They're a player where they want
(19:41):
to play, and it's just notgood. So it's the only thing it's
good for is gossip headlines like onTMZ and crossing broad and it doesn't that
it's not good for anybody else thatKyle from San Francisco here, I mean
breaking the moratorium. He's a realrule breaker, Kyle from San Francisco.
Yeah, yeah, he kind ofdoes what he wants, you know.
But when you have artistic types likeyou just kinda let them, let them
(20:03):
do their things to be grudgingly,you know. And you did make the
comparison to the Ben Simmons situation.Now, I would go as far as
say that I do think that thisis worse than the Ben Simmons situation.
And the reason that I would saythat is, at least there was kind
of an ounce of hope during thatera that it felt like maybe this works
out at least, you know,Joel didn't get along with Ben already that
we've seen the playoffs, shortcomings,the issues that Ben Simmons had, This
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feels like the end of the road. That it feels like this was the
move. The Allen move was getJames Harden. That's the addition. I
know that Tyrese Maxie could take anotherleap, but there's really just not that
much more that we have to workwith. So do you think that they're
in a worst spot now than theywere in the past. Holdout, it's
ridiculous that we even have holdouts tocompare to and all those things. But
I guess how would you stack upthese Simmons versus hard and hold out and
the outlook for the six Ers?Yeah, rank your top five six ers
(20:48):
holdouts? Yeah no, But it'sa it's a good point because right,
it's like, where did you gofrom here? I mean, at least
it Ben Simmons. Everybody kind ofinevitably knew that, like, you're gonna
be able to get something back fromme, still a young player with upside
you as there's a tangible path totraverse here. But right, I mean,
and in that case, we everybodykind of thought it was his camp
(21:10):
versus the Sixers, and that youknow, you know that he was kind
of the head case and you havethe whole mental health thing and all that
stuff. In this case, it'slike Darryl Moorey. Yeah, there's concerns
about like, hey, is hedoing the right thing? Or the crack
starting show in the Sixers front officearmor, you know what I mean.
But even even before this whole sloppiness, we were sitting here saying to ourselves,
like what move is out there thatthe Sixers can do that makes them
(21:33):
better than just bringing back Hard ButI mean that was a discussion before the
opt in and I'll hold out andall that stuff, right, I mean,
like what trade is available? Whatfree agent move can you make?
What makes you better than what youwere last year? You know. I
mean we're trying to talk ourselves intothe idea of running it back with a
different coach. You know. Soeven before all this, I'm not sure
what the what the move was,right, I Mean, there wasn't any
(21:56):
obvious thing, you know, infront of them, So that that's the
thing to consider too. I Mean, this is extra sloppiness that I think
there was some concerned general concern goinginto the off season, even before it
happened. Yeah, and to swingit full gear. We'll jump into another
sport here and dive into this likeour fifth sport or topic we're hitting.
We're fine what I do man?And how many other people can do this?
(22:19):
This is the jack of all tradesfor real? For real? But
Kevin Kinkaid one of my sources forPhiladelphia Union news. Him and Joe Tanzi
are the two guys that I getmost of my news from, for sure.
I did want to ask first,bring it back to the messy coming
to Chester a couple of weeks ago, now one of the cooler sporting events
really in the failure area that I'veseen throughout my lifetime. That it was
cool, How excited generally everyone gotfor that? What were your thoughts on
(22:42):
that game? Obviously super disappointed tosee the Union come out flat, and
for me, I think it waspersonally frustrating that that felt like a premier
moment where the Union kind of hadthese spotlight and to see him come out
flat, to see the quick goaland to see things fall apart from there,
how much damage do you think thatdoes? Love? The damage?
I mean, it was a disgracefulembarrassment of the performance. They played scared,
(23:03):
they were set up to lose,and you know they should be embarrassed
by the performance. Yeah, theywere starstruck in a place that they normally
played pretty well. You know,Andre Blake didn't look anything like himself.
Jim Curtin got it wrong from thebeginning, and uh, you know,
it's frustrating because you go you goon, you know, like I did
a radio show the day, Ilove that game, you know, talking
(23:25):
about the Union and yeah, they'repretty good. You know, maybe you
watch him and you know, maybeget them some love them, but you
know, every time it feels likethey get to uh, they get somewhere,
then they kind of fall flat whereit's like, you know, they
suffer a defeat like that, andthen you have people saying that, well,
maybe this team actually stinks, youknow. So you know, you
get these opportunities and then you blowthem. It's like that guy in Greek
mythology who kept pushing the boulder upthe hill and then every time you got
(23:48):
to the top the boulder which justfall back down. You know. So
that was certainly frustrating for sure.Yeah, they salvage they got third place
in the tournament and they qualified forthe Champions League next year, so that's
a good silver lining on that.But you know, twice this year they've
gotten to the semifinals of the Cupcompetition and then they were just totally outclassed.
So you know, it's like it'snot only that they're hitting the ceiling
like they're they're smashing their head onthe ceiling, like bumping it, like
(24:11):
very hard on the ceiling. Yeah, and there's two guys that you brought
up there, and as a wholeof the Union season has been pretty impressed
and pretty solid over all, butit is frustrating these kind of moments.
But Andre Blake you touched on,He's been a guy who's been a foundational
piece of this Union team, beenwith the organization for years now and really
has grown into one of the starsacross the MLS as far as goalkeepers go,
and just as a talent overall.It was super frustrating to see him
(24:33):
be a guy that came up smallin the moment that he just looked a
little caught off guard. And thenJim Cart, and you also brought up
there's a growing reputation of Jim Cartand not being able to win big games,
and that's frustrating because on all theirother accounts, he's been terrific as
the head coach, the longest tenuredhead coach in Philadelphia at this point.
And what is kind of your thoughtson the balance there? And do you
think it was just a bad gamefor Andre Blake, one of those they
(24:53):
get you or is there anything moreto that? He's no, I don't
think there's anything more too. Ithink they just came out flat and the
moment was a little too big forhim. You know, It's just funny
because if I went back and ifI told you before the game that the
biggest concerns would be a Jim currentand Andre Blake, you know, he
would have looked at me like Ihad three heads or something. But no,
(25:14):
look, I mean Jim, Jimhas done so much with so little.
You know, he oftentimes, youknow, he gets the semifinals or
a cup, finally gets into theplayoffs and he does not have as much
talent to work with as as theopponent does. But look, I mean
the reality of the situations that ifyou're good enough to get there, then
you shouldn't, you know, falloff as hard as you do in some
of these occasions. You know thatthis game from last week of a week
(25:36):
before they had the Champions League semifinalthis year where they lost three up,
and in the second like twenty eighteenUS Open Cup final, they lost three
and up and then we're just blownoff the field by Houston. So there's
there's there's some instances where they playedtough and they just didn't have enough talent
where I would not blame Jim forany of that at all. I mean,
there's some occasions in these big gameswhere they just come out completely flat
and they're not ready to play andthey just kind of get their doors blown
off. So I think it's fairto ask that question. I certainly think
(26:00):
bit Jim is uh still carrying hisuh, you know, his knife to
a gunfight. Right to pick ananalogy there, but right, yeah,
I mean it's fair you can answerthose questions. Thanks so much for coming
on, Kevin, Kevin kincaid,that was great stuff. Like you said,
I mean, who's covering all thosebasses? Who who's got soccer,
baseball, basketball, football, allw w EECB. I mean that was
(26:22):
we hit all the all the stuffwe needed to hit there. Thanks so
much for coming on Kevin, thosegreat stuff. Yeah, no problem.
Next time we'll get into astro physicsand yeah, yeah, pick what you
want to throw it at me.I'll try. Got you. You can
check out Kevin at Kevin Underscore Kincaid. Check out his stuff over at Crossing
(26:44):
broad He does great stuff over there, him and Kyle from San Francisco,
Kyle Kagan, and check out theCrossing broadcasts that they do weekly. Yeah,
it's it's great stuff over there Crossingbroad I am going to about I'm
gonna give you four baseball picks andunder sixty seconds. How about that instead
of donkey brains, will erase thedonkey brains. I'm not getting Jeremy,
I won't. I'm sorry, norno bray Wyatt talk. But I did
(27:07):
it. I did it for whenwhen you were in the bathroom. It
was great stuff. Go check itout any under twenty seconds. Any thoughts
Jeremy, Oh just restipeaced Gray whyjust one of the most creative minds and
all the wrestling business and uh reallysad and touching. Yeah, it's it's
beyond beyond brutal, beyond brutal.But let's let's talk. Let's shift gears,
(27:29):
no way to do it, butfour picks in the MLB my least
favorite pick. I don't have anystats on it. Eight ten over nine
Reds d Backs, two gas Canson the mount. I don't have any
stats on it. One unit playthey both both those pitchers stack at four
ten over eight and a half Royals, Mariners, Mariners, along with every
other team in baseball of great BVPnumbers against Jordan Lyles. He's the worst
pitcher in baseball. Surprising part isthe Royals hit four hundred and forty four
(27:51):
at bats against Logan Gilbert. Ismy best bet of the day. Four
units. Rules are ten and threein their last thirteen to the over,
Mariners are ten and two in theirlast twelve to the over, five straight
overs, and their five games thisyear between Seattle and casec at six ten.
I like over eight and a half. Astros Tigers. Hunter Brown has
deteriorated down the stretch, as hasHouston. Tigers hit three O eight against
him. Astro has a hit aton against Edward O. Rodriguez, and
(28:14):
they hit two eighty eight eight andtwo in the last ten for the over
for Houston three and one in thelast four for the over for Detroit.
Three of their last four games havewent over this year. Phillies minus one
and a half. My take fromwatching the Cardinals lately, they stink.
Give me the Phillis minus one anda half because they've hit the coda Hudson.
Well, they hit two eighty sixagainst them in fifty at bats.
Wheeler has dominated the Cardinals Phillies minusone and a half, two units.
(28:37):
Any thick, I got nothing,nothing, nothing, all right, that's
fine, that's fine. Any takethis rock. The Bryce Harper home run
line is something you should be watchingon a regular basis, that the power
is back with Bryce Harper checked thatvalues on a nightly basis, and I
think that's what has happened on prettyoften. All Right, there you go,
Bryce Harper, red hot. That'sgonna do it. For the Tough
Cover Radio show, it was hectic. I had. This was you know,
(28:57):
it's like week zero from me.This was this was my week zero
Tough Cover Show. Next week we'llbe ready for week one. Oh we
better be. Oh yeah, there'sa slate coming, so keep it locked.
The Green Legion Radio coming up nextat one o'clock right here on the
gambler, but for now tough covercountry that's right
Almost heaven, West Virginia, BlueRidge Mountain, and the river life is
old, older than up trees,younger than the mountains, growing like a
(00:24):
reef. Country Roll. Take MeHome to the Place I lie, West
Virginia Mountain, MoMA, Take MeHome, Country Road. Welcome back to
(00:48):
the Tough Cover Radio Show, closingit down in the twelve o'clock hour with
a great guest here, Kevin Kincaidfrom Crossing broad You can follow him at
Kevin Underscore kink Aid. You couldcheck out the It's Always Soccer in Philadelphia
podcast. Kevin, thanks so muchfor coming on. Man. How you
doing, I'm doing great. Howyou guys doing. We got a lot
to talk about. I mean,we're all over the board. We're right
(01:12):
getting into the swing of things ina lot of different areas. And of
course the Sixers keep poking their headsinto the conversation and making us talk about
them. But we got a lotto talk about. Let's start it out
on a weird on a weird note. Actually, I'm gonna I'm gonna talk
about the Phillies real quick off thetop here. We haven't talked much about
them on the show because I feellike after the seven to win right now,
(01:34):
there's they're they're kind of just they'relocked into the playoffs. In my
opinion, there's not a ton totalk about like there has been as of
late when there's been so much controversy. But you wrote a really good,
uh blog I'm crossing broad when youwent to the game. You're in the
stadium for the walk off home run, and you said how nice it was
to be in the stadium where fanskind of didn't give up as soon as
(01:57):
they got down in the game,and you aren't on Twitter and watching all
the comments come in and all thenegativity. And I agree with that totally,
and I've talked about that that onthis show too. The the environment
at the stadium is so much differentthan what you see on like Phillies Twitter,
So part of why we brought youon you you yelled at me and
Nick Pacona and told us to goto our rooms correctly. When me and
(02:20):
Nick pocon were yelling at each other, I wanted to see what you what
your thoughts were on kind of thishas kind of been a season long argument
between me and Nick pocone. Arepeople being too negative about the Phillies as
a whole Where do you think thatdiscourse is coming from. Is it just
based on the expectations of making theWorld Series last year, or what do
(02:43):
you think about kind of how thefans have talked about the Philly I think
it's it's turned since the standing oha big time, but before that,
and even still when we lose,the sky still falls a little bit.
But what are what are your kindof thoughts on kind of the season long
argument me and Pacona have been having. Well, I mean, I'm a
pragmatist, right, so I thinkthere's probably too much Nagadelphia and Philadelphia in
(03:04):
general, you know. I meanour big thing on Crossing Broad during the
Eagle seasons of the Gannon stuff.You know, it's like, well,
you know they're eight, no,but are they playing too soft? Right?
You know? And then it's likewhen they lose their first and then
they lose their first game, it'slike you get the polls they're asking if
Jonathan Gannets should be fired, youknow, So it's not you're trying to
like, you know, consider thisbig like macro level shift. I think
(03:25):
like a younger generation of Philadelphia sportsfans are a little bit more you know,
they don't do the knee jerk emotionalreaction thing as much, and they're
willing to kind of like let itbreathe and let things live a little bit,
you know. I mean it's harderto do, and base baseball is
easy to kind of flip back andforth because there's so many games. It's
such a short amount of time,you know. I mean you're like ride
and high one night before and thenyou know that's you know, less than
(03:47):
twenty four hours later. You know, somebody's going over four of the plate,
right, So, I mean it'skind of kind of lends itself to
that kind of roller coaster of emotionsand whatnot. But I need to look.
I think expectations are just a fivelyhigh after last season, but I
mean ever since they kind of turnedit around after the poor start, I
mean, they've been playing pretty goodbaseball for a couple of months now.
(04:09):
You know, this is not somenew not some new thing. Which it
makes me laugh about the trade turnerpivot point, because you know, they
had they had been one of thebest teams in baseball em before that.
You know, that month, themonth before that's when I see these like
tweets like, well, you know, the trade turner evasion saved the season.
I'm sitting there thinking like, well, I mean they were pretty damn
good, you know, in themonth leading up to that, you know,
and uh, you know, ironicallylike the trade. The thing that
(04:30):
the genesis of the trade turner evasionwas a fielding error, you know,
not a not anything at the platewith him. But yeah, it's funny
how that kind of got it unstuck, and I think it just unlocked kind
of that fan kind of kind ofbuying, you know what I mean.
I think it was less about youknow, what they were doing on the
field, more like, okay,turning point, Like, I think this
this team starting to I think we'revibing with this team now, and I
think some people who were kind ofyou had, like a foot dangling off
(04:54):
the bandwagon are squarely back on now. Yeah, I agree, and I
think that they're they're is kind ofthat that bandwagon mentality that Jimmy Rollins called
us out about a long time agoand everyone got all upset about. But
he was absolutely right, to bequite honest, but kind of speaking speaking
of expectations and moving over to theteam that you know, half of that
fan base that's Negadelphians, for thePhillies are going to forget the Phillies exist
(05:17):
because the Eagles are about to play. So the Eagles are coming on,
They're they're you know, this isabout to be the time where the Eagles
take over the takeover the Phillies sportsworld from the Phillies at least until the
playoffs. And speaking of expectations,I don't think that there has ever been
as sky high of expectations for ateam in my lifetime honestly as there is
(05:41):
for the Eagles. And you couldsay, obviously the year after you win
the Super Bowl and the year afterthey won the World Series in oh eight,
I almost feel like you don't havethe pressure though that this team has
kind of because they want to knoweight and they want in seventeen. I
think you could argue that this isthe most super Bowl or championship or bust
season that we've seen in a whilein Philadelphia sports. Would that be a
(06:05):
fair characterization for the Eagles this year? Yeah, And normally, like I
would laugh off something like that entirely, but but for real, I mean,
like the truth is, like,you know, because people who are
saying, like, well, theyshould go back to the Super Bowl.
I mean, like, what arethe odds? How often does it happen
that a team goes to Super Bowltwo years in a row? Right?
I mean you just look at thenumbers game on that. But I mean
(06:26):
when you look at their competition inthe NFC, what it would is precluding
them from getting back there. SanFrancisco and Dallas. Really, I mean,
like that's it? Yeah? Isthere any other team in the NFC
that any of us can sit hereand legitimately say is is a huge threat
to the Eagles this year? ButI don't, I don't see it.
(06:46):
You know, Washington Giants, theVikings, the Lions. I mean,
Naron Rodgers is gone. You know, the South looks terrible on paper,
you know, so so I don'tthink that's crazy. And normally I would
say that's crazy. You're gonna havethose kinds of high expectations. But but
I don't think it is. Imean, the offense is going to be
just as good as not better,but it was last year on the question
(07:08):
marks are on the defensive side,you know. But now I don't think
that's that's crazy at all. That'sa deviation from what I would what I
would normally think. Yeah, it'snot something I would normally say either,
to be quite honest, and Iwould throw my whole thing. This all
season has been I'm a big Seattleguy. I love what they did this
all season and they I love whatthey did in the draft. I think
they'll improve on it. I meanit's hard. I think they will win,
(07:29):
Like I think they're gonna win alot of games in the regular season,
but it's hard for me to say. I think that they're a legitimate
playoff contender with the Eagles, andit's just tough. I don't I'm not
as high on San fran or Dallasas a lot of people are either.
So I just think the NFC isreally bad. So I'm totally with you.
I got Schaan Bernardi. Who's gonnaask a question about two teams you
just mentioned there? Yeah, andKevin. You put up an awesome blog
(07:50):
on crossingbro dot com which was titledforty nine Ers put the final nail in
Trey Land's career by trading them tothe Cowboys. We saw that breaking news
yesterday. The forty nine Ers,just two years after trading three first round
picks in a second four Trey Lanceshipping them off to Dallas for just a
fourth round. Are really giving upfor nothing. I think it's a horrible
management of assets overall. But what'syour whole take on the situation there?
(08:11):
Yeah, I mean, look whenyou look at what they traded to go
up and get him, only toturn around and flip him for a fourth,
it's just, you know, it'sit's so weird. It's such an
outlier for what San Francisco has beenable to do and roster building otherwise,
you know. I mean they've gota great defense. They always have a
great defense. They've got weapons allover, you know, the offensive side
of the ball. But it's like, think, just like the quarterback position
(08:33):
for them just always seems to belike, no, now we're just gonna
whatever guy we're we're on right now, we're gonna put him in there,
you know, Jimmy g. Brock, Purty, Trey Lance, you know,
whomever. And uh, it's justthat's like really just the thing holding
holding them back. I don't yousay what you want to say about Trey
Lance. And he's come back frominjury, he's not ready, you know,
he still needs time to develop.That's fine, but I don't.
(08:54):
I don't think Brock Purty and SamDarnold are the answer, right, you
know, And I wish, youknow, in a way, I wish
that he didn't get injured in theNFC Championship Game last year because I would
have liked to see the Eagles burythe Niners within in there, just to
eliminate the whole depose Samuel and youknow, all the complaints afterwards of well,
(09:15):
you know, we would have wonif our quarterback didn't go down and
all that stuff. You know,I'm not like, is anybody out there
a Brock Party believer? I meana serious question, you know, But
yeah, I mean, it's juststrange that they bungled the Trey Lance way
they did from a from an organizationthat otherwise, you know, it's pretty
flushed with talent everywhere else. Yeah, definitely, And it feels like like
Trey Lance is almost the outlier inthe way they viewed quarterbacks. That there's
(09:37):
all this talk about like the plugginplay guys that Jimmy garoppolos the Brock Party.
It's very clear the Niners are verymuch on board the Brock Party wagon,
and he really can save the faceof this trade by being the quarterback
if that is his guy, ButI just don't see the ceiling for him
in the way that I don't knowif they do. Like honestly, if
I was to pick a ceiling forbrock Party, it's probably like Jimmy Garoppolo
and say what you want about TreyLance. I know the injuries, he's
(09:58):
still very unprone, but at leastthere's some sort of juice there and some
sort of other things that he coulddo, elements he could add to an
offense. So I don't know,it's confusing to me to just give him
away rather than at least hold ontoit until brock Purty shows he's the guy.
But yeah, I was very surprisedby that, and I honestly don't
hate it from the Cowboys perspective ofadding it for just the mid round pick.
Yeah, no, I mean it'sit's a it's a buy low,
(10:20):
you know, it's a it's alow risk, high reward kind of kind
of move on their part for sure, you know. And uh, you
know, I don't go back tolike the Jimmy g thing too. I
don't can anybody like really say thatbrock Purty ceiling is gonna beet higher than
Jimmy G ceiling was No. No, yeah, I mean so that's that's
my thing. Like it feels likea lateral move at best, going from
going from Jimmy G to Brock prettyI know people talk about you put him
(10:43):
in a shanahand kind of offense.You can plug and play kind of anybody
in there, but uh, Idon't know if if the ceiling is some
kind of like Alex Smith, kindof like game game Manager, and I
don't even use game I don't evenuse game manager in a derogatory term.
I think that's a I think thatcan be a compliment in a way because
just somebody plays within themselves and thatdoesn't try to too much. But I
don't, I don't, I don'tsee. I think I think Brock Purty's
(11:03):
floor certainly is much higher than TreyLance is for it, but I think
his ceiling is lower. Yeah,Lance is ceiling, do you know what
I'm saying. I think that's definitelyfair. And everyone's gonna kill san Fran
for making the trade in general toget Trey Lance, and I still kind
of think like if that would haveworked out, I think it would have
you know, I understand the movestill, Like I it was a high
upside move and they ended up beingtoo good to kind of let it wait
(11:26):
an wait around. Yeah, Ijust think that the timelinees never matched up
there. But I mean sometimes,look, I'll give you an Eagles like
example in that regard. You know, like they went out and got Andre
Dillard in the first round. Heended up not working out, but the
diamond in the rough seventh round guydid and Jordan my Love. Yeah,
So I mean that's kind of aTrey Lance brock Purty first round, seventh
round kind of developmental thing that youstill don't expect it to work that way,
(11:48):
but sometimes it does. So.But yeah, I'm look, they
went for it. I think everybodythought at the right at the time it
was the right thing to do,and you know, some of those work
out, some of them don't.Yeah. No, that's a great example.
That's a great comparison. And I'mgonna do a complete one eighty shift
here over from the Eagles all theway over to the world of professional wrestling,
(12:09):
because I saw obviously had two blogsand it's been a rough week for
for wrestling fans. Obviously. TerryFunk one of the all time legends or
the business ECW legend for those outthere who aren't wrestling fans. ECW was
basically Philadelphia's wrestling promotion. Obviously,it was all across the Northeast and big
in New York, big in Chicago, big kind of and a lot of
(12:31):
I think it even went down toFlorida for a couple of like Hardcore Heaven,
a couple a couple of pay perviews in that era. It was
definitely also down there in Florida inthat area, but Philadelphia was the home
base obviously in South on South Philadelphia, the corner Swanson and Writtner, Terry
Funk, all time legend, greatblog that you posted. I know you're
a big ECW guy. And thenalso obviously the more heartbreaking news obviously just
(12:52):
due to the life circumstances of it, is Bray Wyatt passing away, which
I talked about in the last segmentand at the age of thirty six,
which is just insane and just beyondsad from a human standpoint, from a
wrestling standpoint, from from every standpoint, just absolutely awful. What do you
(13:13):
obviously you talked about, Terry Funk, why do you think that Terry Funk
is so iconic and even for LABSfans for bray Wyatt, because I was
talking last segment, how I knewa couple of LABS fans and even they
were drawn to bray Wyatt because itwas kind of a from a past era
from a LABS fan perspective. Whatwas kind of your thoughts on bray Wyatt
(13:35):
and obviously your thoughts on Terry Funk. Yeah, Terry Funk man, I
mean, like he was the longevityof his career was incredible. I think
I don't know if people even realizedthis when he came to ECW on the
nine. Do you see it alreadybeen wrestling for twenty five to thirty years,
you know, he had a coupleof decades in Japan. I think
he was a w c W.I think he had early stint with WWS
(13:58):
before going back then and doing theChainsaw Charlie routine. But I mean he
so this this guy was, youknow, in South Philly wrestling as like
a fifty something year old, youknow, doing all this crazy hardcore stuff
with guys who are like half hisage, you know, and and not
skipping a bally. Terry Funk stilla lot of blood in South Philadelphia,
you know. I mean he wasjust as crucial to you think of guys
(14:18):
who were like known for like theirtheir start in ECW or who made it
big and eac w in it youryour Rob Van, Damon sav Who's and
Taz is that there's a lot ofguys who had wrestled before they came in
and who are who even elevated themselvesat different levels. I mean, he
was just a perfect fit for that. And we were talking to it to
Brian Heffron, the blue meanie localguy who's still really active in the scene,
(14:41):
earlier this week, and he washe he said, his name with
Terry was just like he was alwaysthere for the younger guys, and you
know, and there was people gatekeeping and saying like, you know,
we're not gonna let you in.You know, he was kind of opened
all the young talent coming up andsaying, hey, let's let's develop your
gimmicks here sid fights, here's whatyou can do, and and and all
that kind of stuff. So soyeah, I mean for his what he
did for younger guys and just youknow how hardcore he was and how perfect
(15:05):
he was for eacud. I meanthat's what I remember, Gray. Why.
You know, look, I meanI stopped watching wrestling consistently, probably
in two thousand and five, butI remember, like, you know,
his dad Irs was like a huge, was huge back in the day,
and so he comes from this pedigreeof like this wrestling family that's like heralded,
you know. And I just remembereven just watching Casualty, like the
themed entrances and all the showmanship andwhatnot. The craftiness and the creativity and
(15:31):
the artistry of like the gimmick wasjust was just incredible, you know,
especially when you get to a pointwhere a lot of things in wrestling have
been done, you know, overX amount of years. I mean,
it just felt like like refreshing,and his stuff is unique, and yeah,
just sad circumstances, right thirty sixyears old, you know. So,
yeah, that was tough to see. Yeah, a tough week for
the wrestling world, man, youknow, just yeah, that's absolutely brutal.
(15:54):
And what you said about you know, ECW not just starting careers but
allowed people to kind of level up. And obviously the two iconic ones are
fully in Austin. And what Iwant to say, because I heard someone
else mention this when they were talkingabout Terry Funk's death. I don't think
you can even talk about Terry Funkwithout talking about Mick Foley at this point,
(16:17):
because I think to the to theto the wrestling public, and not
just to the ECW fan or whatthe w W fan, whatever it is.
I think mcfoley has done such anincredible job at making sure nobody forgets
Terry Funk's legacy and making sure thatwhen people talk about mcfoley is the hardcore
legend all that stuff, he's like, no, I mean that's Terry Funk,
Like he gave that to me,and I think that's you know,
(16:41):
mc foley's like my personal probably firstor second favorite wrestler of all times.
So well, they were like attachedat the hip for a long time too.
I mean, like you know,Cactus Jack and Chainsaw Charlie wrestled together
at w W, They've they wrestledagainst each other in ECW and other promotions.
I mean they were like interconnected,you know, one A and one
D really and don't know, it'sfunny because you know, Nick Folly took
off and became this huge superstar,but I mean Terry Fonk was kind of
(17:03):
like, you know right there everystep of the way. You know,
maybe he didn't have the gimmick orthe character or whatever they kind of put
him over the top on the nationalstage, but I mean he had so
much respect from from from everybody inthe community. Bit yeah right, I
mean when he when he passes,you know, you look just google his
name and looking all the tributes thatare out there for him. That tells
you what you need to know.Yeah, And it's this is the thing
with Bray that I said in thelast segment, It's it seems like every
(17:26):
time this happens, it's like,you know, it's always the guy that
nobody has anything negative to say about. It's always the guy that you know,
the whole locker room seems to love. It's like the owen Hart thing
where it's just everyone's favorite guy,it seems. And it's just brutal.
And to switch gears a leg again, Yeah, I'll let's Sean get back
to get back to sports instead ofdepressing wrestling deaths. But yeah, yeah,
we're kind of hitting on everything here. Of course talking with Kevin Kinkaid
(17:48):
of crossing Brad. But I knowyou had a six years kind of I
guess here taking a break from alittle while, but diving back in.
I would be remiss if I didnot bring up the holiday we were cell
bringing today is it is James Harden'sbirthday. So Kevin, I just want
to get a little three thoughts onyour outlook for the Sixers of the whole
with this James Harden situation. Iguess my question for you specifically is who
blinks first? That do you thinkDarryl Morny gives in and trades James Harden?
(18:11):
Are we going to continue to seethis drag out and see James Harden
continued to cause the noise that he'scurrently causing. Oh God, well,
it can't be any word, can'tbe any worse than the Ben Simmons thon
kenn It. I mean, thatthing went until you know, it couldn't
go anymore. You know, Idon't know the whole thing. It's just
like like I'm defeated. You know. I put the moratorium up on the
website because I just didn't want todo anything more with it than Kyle Pagan
(18:33):
decided that he was just going tobreak the more ittory to write whatever he
one is. I was like,you know what if you want to handle
all that crap, that's final minute. I mean, you write all the
James Harden updates. You know.It's just I mean, part of this
is a part of this is abyproduct like honest to God of like the
player and powermn Era. So like, yeah, he's the Harden is not
the only slopping that is going onin the NBA, right Like he got
(18:55):
Dame Lillard, you got all theseother situations that are always like that,
you know. But I think it'sI haven't even recovered from Benson's thing yet.
So I just wish that these guyscould. I feel like just putting
Harden and Maury in a room andsaying, just figure it out, right,
just act like grown ups here,figure it out. If Maury,
if you said something this guy,if you gave him a handshake, wink
wink, you gotta honor that,you know. And James Harden, if
(19:19):
you know, you look you optedin, man, are you here or
you know, do you want tobe here? Did you have to be
here? Yeah, It's just it'sjust exhausting. It's just like it's just
childish stuff, you know, andit should think the NBA has got to
step in and they gotta they gottacurb this, this ridiculousness of the player
empowerment era, which has just resultedin guys just deciding they're not going to
honor their contracts, they're gonna forcetrades. They're a player where they want
(19:41):
to play, and it's just notgood. So it's the only thing it's
good for is gossip headlines like onTMZ and crossing broad and it doesn't that
it's not good for anybody else thatKyle from San Francisco here, I mean
breaking the moratorium. He's a realrule breaker, Kyle from San Francisco.
Yeah, yeah, he kind ofdoes what he wants, you know.
But when you have artistic types likeyou just kinda let them, let them
(20:03):
do their things to be grudgingly,you know. And you did make the
comparison to the Ben Simmons situation.Now, I would go as far as
say that I do think that thisis worse than the Ben Simmons situation.
And the reason that I would saythat is, at least there was kind
of an ounce of hope during thatera that it felt like maybe this works
out at least, you know,Joel didn't get along with Ben already that
we've seen the playoffs, shortcomings,the issues that Ben Simmons had, This
(20:25):
feels like the end of the road. That it feels like this was the
move. The Allen move was getJames Harden. That's the addition. I
know that Tyrese Maxie could take anotherleap, but there's really just not that
much more that we have to workwith. So do you think that they're
in a worst spot now than theywere in the past. Holdout, it's
ridiculous that we even have holdouts tocompare to and all those things. But
I guess how would you stack upthese Simmons versus hard and hold out and
the outlook for the six Ers?Yeah, rank your top five six ers
(20:48):
holdouts? Yeah no, But it'sa it's a good point because right,
it's like, where did you gofrom here? I mean, at least
it Ben Simmons. Everybody kind ofinevitably knew that, like, you're gonna
be able to get something back fromme, still a young player with upside
you as there's a tangible path totraverse here. But right, I mean,
and in that case, we everybodykind of thought it was his camp
(21:10):
versus the Sixers, and that youknow, you know that he was kind
of the head case and you havethe whole mental health thing and all that
stuff. In this case, it'slike Darryl Moorey. Yeah, there's concerns
about like, hey, is hedoing the right thing? Or the crack
starting show in the Sixers front officearmor, you know what I mean.
But even even before this whole sloppiness, we were sitting here saying to ourselves,
like what move is out there thatthe Sixers can do that makes them
(21:33):
better than just bringing back Hard ButI mean that was a discussion before the
opt in and I'll hold out andall that stuff, right, I mean,
like what trade is available? Whatfree agent move can you make?
What makes you better than what youwere last year? You know. I
mean we're trying to talk ourselves intothe idea of running it back with a
different coach. You know. Soeven before all this, I'm not sure
what the what the move was,right, I Mean, there wasn't any
(21:56):
obvious thing, you know, infront of them, So that that's the
thing to consider too. I Mean, this is extra sloppiness that I think
there was some concerned general concern goinginto the off season, even before it
happened. Yeah, and to swingit full gear. We'll jump into another
sport here and dive into this likeour fifth sport or topic we're hitting.
We're fine what I do man?And how many other people can do this?
(22:19):
This is the jack of all tradesfor real? For real? But
Kevin Kinkaid one of my sources forPhiladelphia Union news. Him and Joe Tanzi
are the two guys that I getmost of my news from, for sure.
I did want to ask first,bring it back to the messy coming
to Chester a couple of weeks ago, now one of the cooler sporting events
really in the failure area that I'veseen throughout my lifetime. That it was
cool, How excited generally everyone gotfor that? What were your thoughts on
(22:42):
that game? Obviously super disappointed tosee the Union come out flat, and
for me, I think it waspersonally frustrating that that felt like a premier
moment where the Union kind of hadthese spotlight and to see him come out
flat, to see the quick goaland to see things fall apart from there,
how much damage do you think thatdoes? Love? The damage?
I mean, it was a disgracefulembarrassment of the performance. They played scared,
(23:03):
they were set up to lose,and you know they should be embarrassed
by the performance. Yeah, theywere starstruck in a place that they normally
played pretty well. You know,Andre Blake didn't look anything like himself.
Jim Curtin got it wrong from thebeginning, and uh, you know,
it's frustrating because you go you goon, you know, like I did
a radio show the day, Ilove that game, you know, talking
(23:25):
about the Union and yeah, they'repretty good. You know, maybe you
watch him and you know, maybeget them some love them, but you
know, every time it feels likethey get to uh, they get somewhere,
then they kind of fall flat whereit's like, you know, they
suffer a defeat like that, andthen you have people saying that, well,
maybe this team actually stinks, youknow. So you know, you
get these opportunities and then you blowthem. It's like that guy in Greek
mythology who kept pushing the boulder upthe hill and then every time you got
(23:48):
to the top the boulder which justfall back down. You know. So
that was certainly frustrating for sure.Yeah, they salvage they got third place
in the tournament and they qualified forthe Champions League next year, so that's
a good silver lining on that.But you know, twice this year they've
gotten to the semifinals of the Cupcompetition and then they were just totally outclassed.
So you know, it's like it'snot only that they're hitting the ceiling
like they're they're smashing their head onthe ceiling, like bumping it, like
(24:11):
very hard on the ceiling. Yeah, and there's two guys that you brought
up there, and as a wholeof the Union season has been pretty impressed
and pretty solid over all, butit is frustrating these kind of moments.
But Andre Blake you touched on,He's been a guy who's been a foundational
piece of this Union team, beenwith the organization for years now and really
has grown into one of the starsacross the MLS as far as goalkeepers go,
and just as a talent overall.It was super frustrating to see him
(24:33):
be a guy that came up smallin the moment that he just looked a
little caught off guard. And thenJim Cart, and you also brought up
there's a growing reputation of Jim Cartand not being able to win big games,
and that's frustrating because on all theirother accounts, he's been terrific as
the head coach, the longest tenuredhead coach in Philadelphia at this point.
And what is kind of your thoughtson the balance there? And do you
think it was just a bad gamefor Andre Blake, one of those they
(24:53):
get you or is there anything moreto that? He's no, I don't
think there's anything more too. Ithink they just came out flat and the
moment was a little too big forhim. You know, It's just funny
because if I went back and ifI told you before the game that the
biggest concerns would be a Jim currentand Andre Blake, you know, he
would have looked at me like Ihad three heads or something. But no,
(25:14):
look, I mean Jim, Jimhas done so much with so little.
You know, he oftentimes, youknow, he gets the semifinals or
a cup, finally gets into theplayoffs and he does not have as much
talent to work with as as theopponent does. But look, I mean
the reality of the situations that ifyou're good enough to get there, then
you shouldn't, you know, falloff as hard as you do in some
of these occasions. You know thatthis game from last week of a week
(25:36):
before they had the Champions League semifinalthis year where they lost three up,
and in the second like twenty eighteenUS Open Cup final, they lost three
and up and then we're just blownoff the field by Houston. So there's
there's there's some instances where they playedtough and they just didn't have enough talent
where I would not blame Jim forany of that at all. I mean,
there's some occasions in these big gameswhere they just come out completely flat
and they're not ready to play andthey just kind of get their doors blown
off. So I think it's fairto ask that question. I certainly think
(26:00):
bit Jim is uh still carrying hisuh, you know, his knife to
a gunfight. Right to pick ananalogy there, but right, yeah,
I mean it's fair you can answerthose questions. Thanks so much for coming
on, Kevin, Kevin kincaid,that was great stuff. Like you said,
I mean, who's covering all thosebasses? Who who's got soccer,
baseball, basketball, football, allw w EECB. I mean that was
(26:22):
we hit all the all the stuffwe needed to hit there. Thanks so
much for coming on Kevin, thosegreat stuff. Yeah, no problem.
Next time we'll get into astro physicsand yeah, yeah, pick what you
want to throw it at me.I'll try. Got you. You can
check out Kevin at Kevin Underscore Kincaid. Check out his stuff over at Crossing
(26:44):
broad He does great stuff over there, him and Kyle from San Francisco,
Kyle Kagan, and check out theCrossing broadcasts that they do weekly. Yeah,
it's it's great stuff over there Crossingbroad I am going to about I'm
gonna give you four baseball picks andunder sixty seconds. How about that instead
of donkey brains, will erase thedonkey brains. I'm not getting Jeremy,
I won't. I'm sorry, norno bray Wyatt talk. But I did
(27:07):
it. I did it for whenwhen you were in the bathroom. It
was great stuff. Go check itout any under twenty seconds. Any thoughts
Jeremy, Oh just restipeaced Gray whyjust one of the most creative minds and
all the wrestling business and uh reallysad and touching. Yeah, it's it's
beyond beyond brutal, beyond brutal.But let's let's talk. Let's shift gears,
(27:29):
no way to do it, butfour picks in the MLB my least
favorite pick. I don't have anystats on it. Eight ten over nine
Reds d Backs, two gas Canson the mount. I don't have any
stats on it. One unit playthey both both those pitchers stack at four
ten over eight and a half Royals, Mariners, Mariners, along with every
other team in baseball of great BVPnumbers against Jordan Lyles. He's the worst
pitcher in baseball. Surprising part isthe Royals hit four hundred and forty four
(27:51):
at bats against Logan Gilbert. Ismy best bet of the day. Four
units. Rules are ten and threein their last thirteen to the over,
Mariners are ten and two in theirlast twelve to the over, five straight
overs, and their five games thisyear between Seattle and casec at six ten.
I like over eight and a half. Astros Tigers. Hunter Brown has
deteriorated down the stretch, as hasHouston. Tigers hit three O eight against
him. Astro has a hit aton against Edward O. Rodriguez, and
(28:14):
they hit two eighty eight eight andtwo in the last ten for the over
for Houston three and one in thelast four for the over for Detroit.
Three of their last four games havewent over this year. Phillies minus one
and a half. My take fromwatching the Cardinals lately, they stink.
Give me the Phillis minus one anda half because they've hit the coda Hudson.
Well, they hit two eighty sixagainst them in fifty at bats.
Wheeler has dominated the Cardinals Phillies minusone and a half, two units.
(28:37):
Any thick, I got nothing,nothing, nothing, all right, that's
fine, that's fine. Any takethis rock. The Bryce Harper home run
line is something you should be watchingon a regular basis, that the power
is back with Bryce Harper checked thatvalues on a nightly basis, and I
think that's what has happened on prettyoften. All Right, there you go,
Bryce Harper, red hot. That'sgonna do it. For the Tough
Cover Radio show, it was hectic. I had. This was you know,
(28:57):
it's like week zero from me.This was this was my week zero
Tough Cover Show. Next week we'llbe ready for week one. Oh we
better be. Oh yeah, there'sa slate coming, so keep it locked.
The Green Legion Radio coming up nextat one o'clock right here on the
gambler, but for now tough covercountry that's right
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