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From https://americanmotorcyclist.com/ama-101/about-the-ama/ama-staff/
Mike Pelletier is the Race Director. We all know others are involved but he is THE GUY. You defiantly sharing the blame across the others in turn taking the accountability away from Pelletier looks suss. It looks like you're covering yourself.
Have you listened to the Pulp main show or the review show? Matthes has been yelling about this since Saturday and sure as hell is not holding back. Seems the same from RV (on his show) and Kellen among others.
See, I just don't get that. Consistently, across podcasts and articles, I've said all of this from the AMA is an absolute joke.
But, because on one podcast, I used "AMA" rather than "Pelletier" there's a conspiracy? Message is the same.
If you can find one piece of evidence where I am at all lenient on any AMA call recently, then there's merit.
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I believe the heat is coming from you not wanting to single out Pelletier. But he should be singled out because he is the lead and ultimately responsible. I understand you being reluctant to single him out because your livelihood depends on it. It would be pretty shitty for him to pull anyone’s credential based off of their personal opinion on a ruling or how it was mishandled. I don’t know Pelletier and have no idea if he would go all Napoleon on you guys or not though.
What he said. ^^
It's not about being lenient on a particular call, it's about you being lenient on Pelletier.
You're still doing it. You're trying to take the attention away from Pelletier to the calls themselves.
He's the leader of the group that hands out the penalties. He SHOULD have insight into every call made, because these aren't immediate calls. Letting him off the hook because he may or may not have made the call on the floor is ridiculous.
With that leadership role comes the responsibility for the guys underneath you, and if a call is unanimously evaluated as wrong, guess what? It's on Mike.
If one of my guys makes a bad call in the field, of course they will be evaluated, but it ultimately ends up on my shoulders and rightly so. When you have the privilege of leadership, you have the burden of responsibility.
He needs to own up to what happened and at the very least show a path forward where these kinds of insane calls won't be repeated.
If he still stands by the calls last weekend, well he still needs to make that publicly known. He's no doubt aware of the press its all getting this week.
Yeah, but every reporter who covers a niche beat is faced with this same dilemma. It's a different scenario for reporters who cover ball and stick sports. Those beats are big enough to support unabashed journalism without repercussions to the reporter.
Lewis knows there's a difference between legitimately calling out Pelletier for making bad calls and impugning his character. Pelletier knows by now that he screwed up here, so I think he would have to respect Lewis' honest take on the implications of these bad calls.
There really isn't much more for podcasters to say about the AMA except they acted like complete idiots at Birmingham, will be interesting to see how the rest of the season plays out in regards to officiating they kind of already screwed up the license points system they just rolled out.
Lewis has a good energy for podcasting, I like ML and Kellen but their vibes are just too low for an audio format by themselves but they both work when paired with Big Lew. Wheeler and Lew do great on the MXGP show.
"Low vibes"... That's probably why I like listening to ML ten times more. Thanks for pointing it out, I've been wondering for a while...
That's what I learned on Friday.
😄
Just take the L on this one. Your “Prado is good to go” tweet was understandable, you went with the info given. This take is just terrible.
I listen to LVK every week (among all the other pulp pods lol), I usually side with you on things to be fair. This time I was WAY out on your response to Kellen. He was bringing up a very fair and valid point and actually I think I speak for most of us when I say we appreciate him saying what the other 90% of people following this sport are saying.
Seemed like you didn't want to speak on it directly and got very worried you would receive a talking to and be shunned from the cool kids club. Mike P should be addressing this shit directly ITS LITERALLY HIS JOB. I am not sure why you were so caught on the back foot by what Kellen was saying he was just providing examples of Mike doing exactly the opposite of that.
The part that really bothered me the most was you telling Kellen "I've done all these other pods this week and everyone agreed with me and now you are catching me offguard" somehow making him seem smaller and insignificant to the other "bros" club that sits in the press box and gets high on their own supply.
You’re saying the same thing as me. I understand Lew’s reluctance to completely throw Pelletier under the bus because he could take actions that would interfere with him doing his job. I think Lewis was also trying to get Kellen to chill a bit for the same reasons, he was looking out for him.
It says more about Pelletier being a terrible leader with people having to tiptoe around sharing their opinion than anything negative towards Lewis. If Pelletier is doing crazy shit towards riders, I’m sure he wouldn’t hesitate to pull a media credential from someone he didn’t like.
He has decent insight and is quick witted, but totally agree about limited doses. LVK is ok, I get bummed when he’s the Pulp MX co-host though because it feels like 5 hours of pompousness 😂 that’s just me tho
For the most part I like Lew. He does like to argue about generalities and specifics particularly with Kellen(not with Steve) which can get tiresome. It's come across as arguing for the sake of arguing sometimes.
Can we talk about the repetitive, over the top and cringe Sexton interviews? Or the inability to present any unbiased analysis of Chase?
This weeks show was even worse. I don’t understand why Lew is acting like everything Kellen says is wrong or just laughs it off. Dude comes off as a dick
Pit Row
Definitely an overload of useless bickering with a side of useful information.
Do u understand that the show is called lewis vs Kellen ?
No shit…it’s turned from them having altering opinions to lew thinking everything Kellen says is wrong or stupid. As someone said above, it’s constant bickering now with a touch of information. I value what lew and kellen have to say, so it would be sick if it went back to them discussing the sport without one of them acting like the show is a waste of his time
I got to agree unfortunately. Recently Lew is turning to semantics when it suits him and it becomes a back and forth about nothing. Kellen can't say anything general like "there seems to be a growing frustration amongst riders, teams and fans with the AMA" and Lews comeback is something like "Who did you talk to? Which team? Which rider specifically? That's not true if you can't directly name people"
You don't have to directly interview everyone to have an opinion or raise a question. Just see forums, YouTube comment sections, other interviews with riders and team managers, other pods, AMA themselves coming out doing damage control interviews etc. It's pretty obvious.
Absolutely love them both, but sometimes love just ain’t enough- they need a mediator to keep things on track for the same reasons as Steve and JT alone on a podcast wouldn’t work. Blair would be perfect
Never listened, and going by this thread, I probably never will.
Lewis has gotten strangely bulldozerish the last few months to a year. He has a weird arrogance that’s grown a lot. I really liked him awhile ago and now I think his quirky attitude turned into a pompous quirky attitude
Lewis, here is some unsolicited advice. Keep doing what you are doing and don’t change anything for the vocal minority. You have become the #1 journalist in the sport for a reason.
Checked the show out again since this thread resurfaced.
This week, around 18 minutes in, Kellen starts making a point about lappers and how the teams should be bringing footage of lappers affecting front runners to the AMA to be penalized. Lewis's rebuttal is that teams only go to the AMA with something if it will be beneficial to their rider, not detrimental to lappers, and while this may be true in itself, this doesn't necessarily negate Kellen's point. Kellen was talking about what the teams should do, Lewis's rebuttal was about what the teams currently do. Made it to the dismissive "...cool, man" before I had to turn it off.
I think I'd take a "Lewis and Kellen" show over "Lewis versus Kellen". The current format just doesn't make for an enjoyable listen.
This week's show was awkward. Kellen kept trying to talk and make his points and Lewis kept interrupting him. Kellen kept continuing to speak when Lewis would just keep repeating himself until Kellen would stop so Lewis could make his point. Almost acting like what he had to say is more important than what Kellen is saying. Im not sure why Lewis does this because in the Vital pod and Pulp show he seems to be more respectful to ML and Steve and guests. He seems to be more aggressive with Kellen and try and play this superior Alpha role with an inflated ego. He's really only like this on LVK so I find that odd. The show has been better and I've listened to just about every show. This thread and criticism seems justified.
I really do enjoy Lewis on those other shows. The only reason I can think he's starting to act this way is maybe the ratings shot up with the last show so he is doubling down to try and continue those ratings?
It seems generally a lot of the subject matter of moto podcasts has become pointless contradiction, with no resolution sought or actual information exchanged. Shows under the Matthes umbrella are the worst. Like on Pulp MX who was the biggest benefactor of Hunter's wreck ad naseum bullshit, or who does/doesn't attend races, and the Kellen/Lewis bickering. And I think by now we get the joke that Weege is cheap. The endless contradictions on opinion based specifics has gotten childish, like a did not, did to argument. Perhaps some listeners enjoy this. I think I will be skipping some of the airings for the next few weeks, I hope this nonsense dies down.
Two pages complaining about a podcast?
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