If Bill Simmons is going to accept Pablo Torre’s invitation/challenge to appear on his podcast, it appears as though it will be a home-and-home.
At the start of Tuesday’s episode of his eponymous show, Dan Le Batard revealed that Torre will be making an upcoming appearance on Simmons’ podcast amid their ongoing feud. The drama stems from Simmons’ criticism of Torre’s recent reporting regarding Bill Belichick and Jordon Hudson, which prompted the Pablo Torre Finds Out host to publicly invite The Ringer founder to join his show.
“Pablo Torre will be appearing on Bill Simmons’ podcast here,” Le Batard casually mentioned at the start of The Dan Le Batard Show with Stugotz before further dissecting the sports media beef.
Torre’s upcoming appearance on The Bill Simmons Podcast comes one a week after the Boston native took aim at his fellow ex-ESPNer during the May 27th episode of The Rewatchables. While discussing the 1973 film “Heaven Can Wait,” Simmons saw an opportunity to slam Torre’s reporting regarding Belichick and Hudson, as well as his subsequent media appearances regarding college football’s most famous couple.
“Pablo Torre would’ve done a long podcast about Leo Farnsworth trying to practice with the team, and then done a media tour about it afterwards,” Simmons said. “I’ve never seen anybody dine on a stupider story for a week and a half while pretending you’re a journalist. What the f*ck was that? Seriously.”
“Belichick’s dating a girl. ‘Oh, let me do nine shows about it,’” he later added. “Settle the f*ck down.”
As co-hosts Chris Ryan and Van Lathan each reacted with apparent shock at the amount of animosity in which Simmons was displaying, the former Grantland founder indicated that his biggest issue was with Torre’s “media tour,” which included multiple interviews and features in publications including Vanity Fair and The Athletic. Curiously, Simmons’ comments didn’t make the rounds until Monday morning after they were shared by an X account dedicated to the Bill Simmons subreddit. Once they did, it didn’t take long for Torre to publicly respond.
“Dear @BillSimmons: Since you have such a strong public opinion about my work… I happen to have a few questions for you, specifically,” he wrote while quote-tweeting Awful Announcing’s story on the comments. Unless you’re afraid of @pablofindsout and someone just ‘pretending to be a journalist,’ of course. Thanks, Pablo.”
At this point, it’s unclear whether this will be a one-off or if Bill Simmons will return the favor by also appearing on Pablo Torre Finds Out. Either way, here’s to hoping The Sports Guy gives Torre the opportunity to ask him those question, even if their conversation will almost assuredly be less contentious than their recent public comments might indicate.