The Bear Wasn't Prepared For Him: Jon Finkel on BEAR BRAWL (No Spoilers)

[00:00:09] All right, guys, today we are joined by two special guests. Before we get to the man of the hour, we're here with Mark, patron of the podcast, longtime thriller podcast faithful. And Mark is the one who suggested that I pick up Bear Brawl. The second he got his copy, he told the whole entire ThrillerPod group, you guys must pick this one up. And Mark, thank you for the recommendation. Of course, it was a good read. Yeah. And so I'm glad you're the one joining me tonight. So let's just go ahead and introduce.

[00:00:39] The man behind the books and biceps platform. He has been called the meathead getting other meatheads to read. He has a huge, huge CV of articles, sports writing and all things the art of manliness. Welcome to the manliest man we've ever had on the pod. Jon Finkel. That is an amazing I'm just gonna wear a shirt that says the manliest man everywhere I go now. So thank you for that intro.

[00:01:06] I mean, you're the one who came up with a story with a dude bare knuckle fighting a bear on a revenge mission. So I mean, just take us back. Who is Jon Finkel? Let's enter the Finkel verse. And how did all of your writing and newsletters lead up to you writing a thriller about man versus bear? Yeah, that's that we can go way back, but I'll go a little bit back mainly to like, uh, I used to write all the, um, sports cover stories for muscle and fitness and men's fitness.

[00:01:33] I was on staff there in my late twenties. And so I did all the sports. So we did NFL guys and a lot of WWE guys. And back then we also did a lot of UFC guys. So I spent a lot of time in, in gyms. And one of my little, one of my little things was always, um, I would do the workouts either with the guys or we'd get the work ahead of time. And I would kind of write like that old, you know, that old thing where you would jump into the actual workout. So I could talk about that to, you know, instead of just saying like, here's the set, here's this, here's that.

[00:02:02] It was like, okay, two hours in, this is what this is like. And this is what it feels like to do these certain things. And, um, the hardest one actually I ever did was a Michael Phelps workout, which was like two, two and a half hour sessions in the pool. Um, I'm a, I have a shooting background, so it wasn't out of nowhere, but, uh, the hardest part of that was his, his caloric intake, which I tried to match. If you remember from the Olympics was an insane, I got to like 8,000 calories and had to tap out.

[00:02:27] Uh, but I ended up something like 8,000 meters that day. So I did a lot of those kinds of stories. And so I could, I could easily tap into that. Um, when I started thinking of this particular topic. All right. So you're doing these workouts, you're, uh, you're, you're a health and fitness guy. What about the whole writing career and how did that really take off? Especially your articles and GQ and the athletic and so many other platforms. Yeah. So I wanted to, I was wanting to write, I was like that dorky kid who was reading all the biographies that showed up in your school library.

[00:02:57] I read one from sports illustrated for kids to sports illustrated. Um, I always wanted to write for magazines. Um, as I was the only one I actually never got to write for, I ended up moving more into the, you know, I always joke. I can has men's or health or fitness or some kind of muscle thing in it. I wrote for them and I was on staff for them. You mentioned GQ as well. And eventually doing those cover stories, um, I would build pretty good relationships with some of these guys. Uh, you'd spend a decent amount of time with them a weekend or sometimes longer if there was a photo shoot or if they were in training camp or something like that.

[00:03:26] And some of them that I became buddies with, I always would just kind of throw out like, Hey, if you're ever going to do a book, I'd be, it'd be awesome to do a book with you or autobiography or something along those lines. And we did a story a while back on, um, Nate Robinson. I don't know if you're a basketball fan. He was, uh, one of the three, uh, three NBA dunk contest, uh, titles. Um, he's like five, eight was an incredible athlete in high school, Mr. Basketball and Mr. Football in Washington, the state of Washington.

[00:03:52] And, um, he wanted to do a book and that was my first actual book that I worked on was the autobiography of Nate Robinson. We went and flew, uh, flew spent a week in Seattle and that was a pretty, it did really well. And so after that, it was kind of my blueprint for a bit. Um, I would kind of get to know some of these athletes through the stories.

[00:04:09] And if they had a compelling case or for some reason they were, there was not a biography on them yet, I would kind of throw my hat in that ring to either do an autobiography like I did with Nate or, um, you know, the legendary mean Joe green, which was incredible experience with him. And then I moved into biographies more of just under my own name, the kind of the journalism side of, uh, like Charlie Ward. And then I did some other pop culture stuff. And then my book before this was the definitive biography of the macho man, Randy Savage, which was like my bucket list biography that I'd wanted to write. So I was like 10 years old.

[00:04:42] So obsessed with WWF growing up. I was like my childhood. It was just, you know, man, you say macho man, Randy Savage, two things are popping off my mind. One's the word macho sticking out. Got to pick up the book to find out what the macho connection is there. But, um, okay. So, uh, that got you into writing and now a thriller, you know, a nature man versus bear thriller. Like what, how did you transition from biography and research and sports writing to this idea for fiction? Is this your first fiction work?

[00:05:12] Yeah. So yeah, I'd been wanting to get into fiction for a while. Um, I had a series of books that I wanted to write in, uh, on the nonfiction side. And like I said, the macho man book took a very long time to make. I had to get his brother, Lanny Poffel on board who had passed away while we were writing. But, um, you know, you do these books and it's hundreds and hundreds of interviews, thousands of resources. You're listening to every old radio interview and magazine that you're pulling up and all this stuff.

[00:05:36] And it's a lot and it's great. It's that when you're doing that, but I always kind of yearn for like, I just want to make stuff up. I want to like really have fun. And, and, and you mentioned books and bioseps earlier. You know, I've recommended probably 400 plus books. I've been doing it for eight or nine years now and over half are fiction. I read a lot of fiction. A lot of authors that you've had on and the books that you guys like, I like, it was a genre. I've always wanted to get into, uh, kind of the bigger, the, the bigger Ted poll type pieces, more like the Michael crying side of these big ideas and explore them. Um, and so after that,

[00:06:06] after macho was done, there was another biography that I was very close to doing that kind of fell apart. And I was like, you know what? I'm not, what am I, I'm not waiting anymore. I really want to do this. I had the idea, uh, which I can get into where that came from, but I had the idea come out back pocket as like, this is going to be great. I'm just going to do this and see what happens. It's a good experiment then do more things and see what happens. Great experiment. Yeah.

[00:06:39] The background that I came originally starting in newspapers and into magazines with the deadlines, you're kind of built in that journalism fold. And then the, the friction side is just, it's so freeing, you know, it's like when you're writing a big biography where you've got, you know, literally 200 interviews transcribed and you've got all the stacks of all this stuff. And you want to go from one scene to the next. Yeah. Can't just make up a great jump cut or a thing.

[00:07:03] Oh, you know, you so many times at matchup, like if he just said this, or if, if Hulk Hogan or Andre the giant had just said this, I'd have the best easy segue here, but I don't have this. So now I got to find all these other ways to do that. And so with fiction, um, you can just do it. You can, anytime you say like, wouldn't it be awesome if this happens or oftentimes if they're writing this kind of fiction, wouldn't this be a disaster for the character? If this happens, you can just kind of go down that rabbit hole. And sometimes you're like, well, this won't work, but sometimes it does.

[00:07:29] And when it does, um, you just get in this flow and you're not interrupted by, oh wait, this isn't, this isn't how it happened. Or I have to, you know, people were alive and they saw this. This is, you can kind of just make it up. So, so that was where, uh, that was where the, the, the impetus, you know, my, my, my thought process, I mean, came from was like, just go have fun with it. And I don't, I'm not going to turn back. I'm, I'm excited. This is way more, way more fun. I think I've had my, you know, there's, there's seasons in life and seasons in writing. And I think my, my, my, my nonfiction journalism side is over. And this is, this is a lot, this is a lot more fun to write.

[00:08:00] Okay. I feel like you have to be accurate and consistent in a different way. It's still the same kind of principles, but that accuracy is, you know, you're the master of the universe. So you just have to be consistent with what you've said in the book prior and what your characters have been through in their backstory and their relationships. So you, you've practiced being true to character with real life people and representing them accurately. And now you get to do that with this imaginary sandbox of people you've created soup to nuts.

[00:08:29] And to get into the book, you, you built some backstories here. So tell us about brick Bridger. Tell us about his life, his, his childhood, his growing up, his wrestling career. You really made a very memorable character and built somebody who I kind of hope we get book two for, but I don't know. Is that in the cards? Thank you. Yeah, no, there's, there's a lot of, a lot of things we can do with him. So the, the backstory is the, the, the way I came up, the idea of the book was like the coolest way ever.

[00:08:56] So my, my, my family and I, for, for many summers with me and my wife and my kids, we would go to national parks. Um, we decided like before they become teenagers and don't want anything to do with us, like let's do fun things outdoors where they're still like, have a, have a little bit of chance at wonder and awe of a bison or a buffalo or a waterfall or, you know, seeing all these elk and things and that.

[00:09:16] So we did that for, for many years when my son was, you know, eight, nine, 10, 11, we did like a grand Tetons and, you know, Yellowstone and Wyoming and, you know, all that whole area of the country. And every time you do any kind of hiking up there, every time you get on the trail, right at the front, it's big sign, you know, aware of bear sign. And there's always park rangers walking around and my, you know, my son who's nine, 10 at the time is always like, wow, like I'm going to hopefully see a bear. Hopefully you see some black bears, he's some stuff.

[00:09:43] But like the question was always like, dad, if you saw a bear, like what would you do? You know? And of course my answer is, you know, as an athlete and a guy who lifts in his garage gym, I'm like, I'd fight the bear, of course, you know? And he's like, yeah, no, I know you'd fight him. We'd talk about it a lot. And then eventually the question would move from, could you fight him to, could you win? You think you could win? And then it's like, well, okay, now we're having a conversation here. And so the last two years we went, we would have this discussion and it just so happened that I was wrapping up the Macho Man book.

[00:10:11] So my son, like us, was just so dead into wrestling at that time. Like you could not be more of a diehard wrestling fan as he was. And so it then became like, okay, well, you know, I'm like, you know, 5'11", 200 pounds, like probably not big enough. But like, is there a WWE guy, like a wrestler who maybe could historically take down a bear? If we could just like conjure him up if a bear came. And so we kind of settled on a couple of different guys. Then it became like the Brock Lesnar avatar. Like, okay, he's 6'3", 6'4".

[00:10:40] Or I did, I spent a long time with him during his training camp with Randy Couture. He's one of the most incredible physical specimens you'll see. The speed of his feet for a man of his size. Just people don't understand what that's like in person to see someone 250, 260, 275 with like, honestly, like ballet feet. Like it's really, it's really jarring. So we landed on a guy like that. And then, you know, we'd have these conversations and how would you do it? What would you do it?

[00:11:07] And we talked to park rangers and what were, you know, any of the incidents that you've seen, what were those like? And that just kind of goes, right? And I was like, as the conversations happened, I was like, this would be such a fun book. My favorite, you know, fiction books ever. I have them on my desk here. Jaws and First Blood and Jurassic Park. And they're all about these, you take this idea that's kind of crazy to its logical extreme. Be serious with it and do it. And so when I decided to move into this world of writing fiction, it was just sitting there.

[00:11:36] And I was like, I'm going to do this. And to get to your, the long way to get to the beginning of your question was like, so that was where the idea came from. And now I need to build a person who would be A, physically capable and have the background to do it. And, you know, obviously an MMA type background, a wrestling, you know, good old, good old boy background. You know, that's why Arkansas was like, I could just picture this guy growing up on a farm. His dad's a monster. They're kind of old school. They have a cabin somewhere. They do all this stuff.

[00:12:06] Very humble. Just grew up the biggest kid on the block. The biggest kid in the neighborhood. Always kind of the caretaker. And so he would be the guy with the background physically that would be able to maybe do something like this. And then, of course, the next thing is, you know, what would be the motivation? Like, realistically, what wouldn't get a guy like this who's a logical, normal guy who obviously, you know, is obviously a fighter, but a pretty, you know, not a crazy person, not a Tyson type. What would get him motivated?

[00:12:37] Yeah. What would get him motivated enough to do something like this? And so naturally it's like, okay, what if we made him just like a huge mama's boy, a big family guy. And he's like a punctual guy. He prides himself on doing these things. And the one time he's running late, this rogue bear shows up and kills his mom, puts his brother in a wheelchair. And he, you know, and he's just racked with, if I had just been there, it would have been different and I would have saved them. And he has to live with that while his mom's in a coma for a little while.

[00:13:06] And he sees his brother, who's his best friend and their business partners in the wheelchair every day at his wrestling academy. His brother was also a promising wrestler. And he just, it just consumes him. He's a sponge for all of it. And he has this epiphany, which leads to the book, which is, I'm going to, I'm going to fight this bear. And that's, that's it. Yeah. Yeah. Mark, what did you think when you picked this up? Cause you told the group chat about it. And I think a lot of us are, we were like, well, that's so out there.

[00:13:35] This is kind of a wild idea. But Mark, you sold us on this book has a great buy-in. Like you believe it. It's realistic. You kind of buy it through and through. Yeah. I would never forget it. The, I was at Bush gardens, Wormsburg. I'm with the family and I get this message out of the blue. Hey, you're a Boston sports fan. You like thrillers. You know, I think we'll be like, we're good friends. I'm like, all right, who's this person messaging me? I assumed it's some AI bot, you know, I get tons of those guys.

[00:14:04] And I was like, and I think it was right after, um, bear week, fat bear week, um, up in Alaska where they measure out the fattest bears. And who wins? So I was already following a bunch of bear stuff. And now here it comes. Bear brawl. I'm thinking, of course, AI's got me there. I'm looking up bears. It's the algorithm. It's the algorithm. Exactly. And so I'm like, okay, send me a copy. I'd love to read it. First page in, I'm like, okay.

[00:14:33] Second page, third page. Actually, no, I can't stop reading. I message you guys like, guys, I got this book. I'm not going to lie. Hear me out. Sounds crazy, but it works. Yeah. Yeah. That's awesome. That makes me so happy. And each day I kept giving more and more updates. Like, guys, I'm not even kidding. You gotta check this book out. I was living for the updates. Yeah, I was living for the updates.

[00:14:58] And it's so funny because, John, you reached out to me shortly after, right when I'm on the edge of my seat waiting for Mark to tell me, like, he's not giving us the spoilers of what happens. But he's telling us, like, yo, halfway through, I can't believe I'm this into it. And I'm almost done. And the action at the end is insane. And so I was just enjoying those moments of getting updates. And then you reached out. And I was like, absolutely. You know, to have you on the pod just is phenomenal. Yeah. This makes me happy.

[00:15:23] I'd seen, you know, in my books and biceps thing you mentioned, I had guys like Jack Carr and Brad Thorne. I know you guys have had those guys on. So I'd seen your pieces with them over the years. And I was like, man, you know, these guys, they get it. And it's a different kind. It's not some military character and all that. It's a different one, you know, a different, like, level of action. But I just, it's one of those where, like, I knew if you like that, you'll like this, even though they're not the same kind of, you know, specific genre.

[00:15:50] I think that's another thing that made me appreciate it is it's outside the genre, but it's not outside the genre. Like, how many shoot them up? I call them nuke on the loose books. You know, a guy who's not supposed to be that good with a gun ends up having insane skills and can shoot everybody accurately. And kill 30 guys and escape out of bondage. And there's a torture scene. And I think we're all craving something just a little different. It still gets our adrenaline pumping. It still has edge of seat action.

[00:16:18] I think intriguing characters and relationships because we haven't even talked about that. But yeah, I thought it was just going to be a man and a bear, not much else. But you built a whole community around Brick. And you really made us believe there were people in his corner. And this kind of became a community, a team effort in the end. And so I really like the texture of that. So I think you were balancing like the traditional thriller verse, but totally putting your own stamp on it. So I appreciate that.

[00:16:43] I put a lot of work into it, into that part of it, because, you know, I'm a I'm sort of a natural born like meathead where it's like predator. And like, you know, I'm thinking of Terminator and these are all good. But all those movies, you know, not Predator Pride in particular, but most of those ones that have worked on a different level, there's heart there and there's a belief there.

[00:17:03] And in this case, it's like the minute you realize that Brick is a good guy and who is just happened to be born gigantic and a dominant fighter. And I even say as you go through, like he wasn't some ferocious, vicious guy. He wore guys down. You know, the way he fought and the way he did things, he was just a mammoth guy. And he cared and he cared for his brother. He cared for his mom and he cared for his dad. And and here he is in this position where for the first time in his life, he couldn't do anything about it.

[00:17:33] And there had to be some soul to it. There had to be a reason why he would do it. And my favorite part of like my breakthrough, because, you know, when you're writing books like these, I know you've had other authors now where you get to these moments where you're like, OK, do I care? Am I just inserting something because it makes sense or is this a real? Will does this what this happen? You know, obviously, it's a man bear thing. So you're creating a circumstance. But is this true to this guy that I've made basically?

[00:18:00] And is this how he's reacting or am I making him react like this? And so if you build enough in there, like big mama's boy took over for the family when his dad died young, like always looking out for everybody. And then this tragedy happens. This is really the only thing a guy like that might get obsessed about. What's he going to do? Like meditate? He's not going to do that. He's he's going to put his mind to something physical.

[00:18:23] And everybody in the book, as you guys read, like they're not all just like cheerlead, like the whole time they're all trying to tell him how dumb it is. Yeah. Yeah. But that's realistic. That's again, not writing because you want to put it in there. That's writing because that's how we would all act for friends and family who tell us about this crazy death wish that they have. Yeah. Yeah. Like we would all want to talk you out of it. We'd all call you an idiot. And you also get a lot of the ribbing, right? Like whether it's coach or him and his brother or these other two these other two Rangers, you know? The Rangers.

[00:18:53] I mean, you just get a lot of good natured, real honest conversations. The way we want the podcast to kind of be like, you know, bros hanging out talking about their favorite books. Yeah. I feel like I was with your characters just in a ride along the way they were they were chit chatting and talking. That's awesome, man. Yeah. I mean, it helps. I'm very close to my brother. I'm very close. A lot of my portraying Rose McCallum and stuff. So I was like, I do put myself into the spot of like, what if my brother told me this? There's a moment of like, of course, you're going to. Yeah. Rip on him and whatever.

[00:19:23] But at a certain point, it's like you're accepting that this is happening. You're not going to cut him out of your life. So now you're just going to roll with it as if they're, you know, it's a new girlfriend or a stupid new idea or they're taking up knitting or whatever their new hobby is. Everybody's always like, it's ridiculous. Then eventually they're like, so you still doing that thing? And then and then you just bust your balls about it. And so this was like the perfect venue of, OK, now we're all going to buy in. And then the idea of like, it's such a long shot. Right. It's like not only the fight, but like finding that, like nobody knows what is what's going on with this stuff in the book as far as will they find it.

[00:19:53] They all kind of admit, yeah, we went along with this because we just figured like. The chances of this ever happening were so slim. Sure. And I always say like that. I was doing an interview the other day and it's like, no, there's no there is a gigantic, massive bear fight. Like there's no chickening out of it doesn't happen. So so there's no real spoilers because the cover is the finale. Like, you know, eventually there is a face. So, yeah. All that.

[00:20:18] So it makes me think like, did did you ever consider or think it was a risk to be that gung ho to have him so in on the mission that nothing was going to stop him, that he was going to MacGyver it and figure it out and strategize. And like he was never going to have even. A shred of doubt, like he was never going to question himself once. He's kind of cocky and pompous. And for a minute I was like, is that a turnoff or not? And then I thought, no, he's an MMA guy.

[00:20:47] I was like, yeah, everything I know about the MMA guys is they are true to the bone, like to the core. They they have to be cocky or they're dead. You know, you're getting knocked out if you even think there's a doubt that you can't get into the octagon and face the guy. And so as soon as I was like, this guy is literally thinking, acting and decision making as if he's a peak specimen, which he is just like I've heard so many MMA guys over the years.

[00:21:13] I mean, just the way you hear so many days, you know, Ilya and all of them, they all talk this way. Like they're just there's complete psychos. And I felt like he had that edginess to him. Yeah. You know, the the pitch he gives to Sam, the zoologist who helps him eventually is what you're talking about. It's like she has a line in there that I'm quoting myself. And I always put like she's like he's talking about fighting a bear, like how you would discuss like folding a T-shirt.

[00:21:40] Like this is just this is and I put that line in in particular as plain as possible. What you know, what a what a nonfighter would think about is like this is just what he would do. That's why I think it's that's why I have so far people reading it in the feedback. That's why I think it works. He's not coming out being like, I'm going to I'm going to he's like, I get what I'm saying. Yeah, but this is how I'm approaching this. And if you think I'm going to get killed, help me out. You know, help me figure out a way to do this.

[00:22:09] And and and, you know, she says her reaction, which I don't want to spoil people. And then he goes to his old wrestling coach and his wrestling coach does an analytical breakdown of basically all the ways he's going to get his ass kicked and probably die. And Brick's like, good points. But I have this I think that I'm not going to spoil and the idea. And it's like, OK. And then as they all they get it as the readers get it, as we get it, like, OK, so now we're all going to we're all going to agree. There's like a point five percent chance. Yeah, it's not.

[00:22:38] OK, that's enough. You know, that's enough. It's enough. Yeah. Going back to Sam, you know, all your characters, coach Sam, they've all felt like they were real people. Yeah. Did you base them on people in my world? Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Did you base them off somebody like I'm listening to the conversation with or reading it with Brick and Sam about and she's going through all the stuff. Like if it's a grizzly bear, you're dead. It's a polar bear. You're dead. All she's going to death.

[00:23:04] I'm almost just like I feel like John, you talk to a zoologist. He's just like this is what would happen. Yeah. How did that? So I did talk to I did talk to a zoologist. So in the Palm Beach Zoo here, they have a bear exhibit of two two black bears. And the the there's a that scene, which I won't spoil part of, but she refers to like a chart. Like they're in the kids area of like the zoo exhibit for bears that exists. It's it's here in Palm Beach. And it's actually amazing.

[00:23:34] When I used to take my kids there when they were younger, there's a wall and there's a they're all life size. There's like, you know, they're all like this. And there's the polar and then there's the Kodiak slash grizzly. And then there's the brown bear. And then there's like there's an Asian, some other bear. But like they're all the black bear. They're all there. And I did go there and I didn't specifically say what the research was for. I just kind of was like with my son, just kind of asking these questions. And it was that person actually was a very boring person. So the character was not based on them whatsoever.

[00:24:03] But but the idea of like having that visual to work off of was from a real place and me having to explain what it was. And then the characters. Yeah, like the best version of her, I could say, from like a literary influence is like Ian Malcolm in Jurassic Park. Right. Like the the reason you get the reason I've always felt Jurassic Park, the book works even better than the movie, as much as the movie is amazing. They're both it's one of those where they're both amazing, obviously.

[00:24:30] But like in the book, when you're reading it, the premise is beyond anything we could think of. But he's the audience's voice throughout the book. But he's also the smartest person. So he's the one who's like saying this is this is why it's not going to work. And here's the smart reasons why you as a reader are thinking what you're thinking. And so in a way, Sam is that proxy in the book for all of us. We're like, OK, well, she's the bear expert. And now she's saying all the things I'm saying, too. So it's OK to think this guy's nuts.

[00:25:00] It's always fun when you get the smartest person in the room to be against you. Yes. But you see them hesitate. You're like, oh, wait, but that's why I love that conversation. Mark's like that. When people read it, as as it swings and you're like, whoa, what? What did he just do there? Yeah. But you're saying there's a chance. You're not saying. Yeah. Yeah. He has a couple of good lines in there that I like workshopped out loud. I was like, I would say this probably. And OK, this sounds good. Yeah. And Mark, that was a great point about all the characters feel real.

[00:25:28] There's another two, which we can't say too much about, but there's a father and a son as well. Yeah. And I mean, that was just one of the most gripping things. So obviously you knew you were going to get to the climax. The end of the book was going to be the meat. Like everybody knows this has to happen, but you throw in a couple of little side things. Yeah. There's a second plot point that leads to like to me, like I like doing the no look passes. Yes. That's the way I know people call them like twists and turns.

[00:25:58] But for me, I'm a sports guy. These are no look passes. These are like you're following this way and you're like, whoa. OK, now we're over here. And I like that a lot. That's like the fake punt, you know, or the Philly special. It's just one of these oddball things. And to tie it back to traditional thrillers that we're all a fan of. Yeah. You get a lot of this pull the rug out from under your feet or this twist or the turn. And the big thing is it doesn't always land. We've we've we've read books on the pod. We've had to critique books on the pod.

[00:26:26] And a book can fall flat once that doesn't land and you don't buy in. You have a couple of twists and turns that just you can't put it down. I took this book on my lunch break to school. I'm a middle school teacher. I have never once had a minute to myself in the building. I'm always running around scrambling. I took my lunch break today. Lock the door. I said, don't bother me. I got 20 minutes to myself right now. Oh, I love that. And I'm reading this book. So it has that unputdownable feature to it. It's just it's just an incredible.

[00:26:54] It's so gratifying to hear because the whole book's like real time, 10 hours or something. It's like it's pretty short, too. It's short. Yeah, I've I used to have a joke with a lot of my friends who like I have most of my friends are not literary guys. They don't read a lot. And so I have a group on my chat where it's like the only books they've read are my books. So I always say, like, I lead the league in books that guys read who they're like, this is my first book I've read in a long time since college or high school.

[00:27:22] And so I was like, look, if guys are going to read this stuff, I'm not going to write. And I wouldn't probably want to do like a 400 page, 500 page. And look, there's plenty, you know, there's plenty of books that are amazing that you don't feel that way at all. But I like the idea of like, look, realistically, like give yourself like four nights, five nights and you can knock this out. You're going to enjoy it. You're not going to be feeling like it's just going to be going on and on. There's no I think. I think there's no fat, like there's really nothing left to take.

[00:27:50] I took out there was another couple of things, obviously, that edited out. And we got to the final version, you know, with Blackstone, we're all reading. I'm like, I'm obviously biased, but I'm like, this is like a freaking fighter plane. Like there is no there's nothing else to take off at this point. How'd that pitch go? I'm curious. How were you nervous telling a publisher like, I got a book? So, yeah, this is where I think having books and biceps really helped a lot.

[00:28:17] I've interviewed many of the authors you have and even many more in other genres and stuff. And so I was able over the years just kind of to slowly gauge like which publishers would be good for this. And I knew, like you said, like, I mean, the publishing, you guys do a lot. I'm probably mostly, I would guess, books in this genre where it's like guy books, dad books, dude, whatever you want to call it. But publishing is really largely like a female run. Like it's like 75% women. So, like, it's just it's not going to land.

[00:28:46] This idea in general, you're already cutting out. You know, a couple that I thought of in the past, it's like I've had ideas even with macho man pitching where you're like, okay, so you're just if you didn't grow up wrestling, there's just no chance. Like this is just not going to do it for you. So I had known early on when I was pit when I was writing it, like, I'm going to go to Blackstone first. And mainly because a couple of the books they did that I really liked were sort of adjacent to this.

[00:29:12] They did last year a book by my friend Ryan on a Billy the Kid, like basically like a kind of a historical fiction of Billy the Kid's like first rise to becoming who he was. Then they did a nonfiction book called Bare Knuckle with my friend State Bonner did, which was a big bestseller. And like it's a great cover of the number one bare knuckle guy ever, Bobby Gunn, on the cover. And I was like, okay, there's not many people making these kinds of books. So I had met their senior editor or senior acquisitions editor through something.

[00:29:42] And I emailed, I was like, look, this is what it is. You know, and I kind of pitched it. I'm like, it's Jaws meets Rocky. And if that doesn't make any sense, here it is. You know, a 6'6", 265 pound ex-UFC guy, former heavyweight, you know, champion in college, wrestler. His mom's killed by a rogue black bear. He thinks he could have done something about it. But he decides to enlist a zoologist and his, you know, and his ex-coach to train to fight the bear. No, you know, no guns, no knives, just revenge.

[00:30:13] And my favorite tagline, which I brought early on and I started using it because I just think it's such a, it's such a Hoss like tagline is revenge enters the food chain. I like if this was a movie poster in the 90s, we were like a high school and it was in the theater. You go and you saw revenge. It'd be just like, okay, I've already bought my tickets. I'm in. Well, I thought you were going to go with on the back Fight Club meets The Revenant. That's a good one, too. We have a lot of those. This meets that. They're all movies.

[00:30:38] Although, you know, it's funny because like most people don't realize how many of these amazing books, movies they like were books. So it's like we're both both of those books. You know, it's like Jaws meets Rocky. It's like also, you know, Rocky was in a book, but like Jaws was. And then it's kind of like Jaws meets First Blood or something. It's like, well, that was a book. Dave Morrell's First Blood's like the greatest action book maybe ever. So, yeah, they're all in there. Man. And we could even pull a quote from your book. This is one I had to write down.

[00:31:07] He hadn't been prepared for the bear, but now the bear wasn't prepared for him. Yes. Yeah. Dude. I live in this world, but thank you. Those are like. You're killing it with things like that. That's a gem. That's an absolute gem. I did a lot of headline writing back in the day, and I think that really helps when you're promoting a book like this because you can just kind of. You've got to have fun with it. You can't really try to be on the nose. You kind of got to, especially with this kind of book, you kind of have that like chest pounding type lines.

[00:31:36] And I always look at like, what are the lines like that? That's one of my favorites as well. That like you're just going to repeat. I know books don't do that. They don't have the movie quotable thing, but I try to put them in anyway. Speaking of a movie, any thoughts? Because, man, this would be a fun one to see. And one, who would play Brick Bridger? I'm sure you've thought that through. And two, would you ever want to go that route? Yeah.

[00:32:02] So one of the other reasons I went with Blackstone is they have a really good track record getting these things made. So it's out to all of the people you would expect that you're probably going to list. And I'll let you guys list first who you think. Like a couple of production companies, you know, you know how these things go. It's like I always I say it's like a Hail Mary and then a Hail Mary. It's like a Hail Mary that someone is in on it. You know, we had Macho optioned and all that kind of stuff. And that never happened. And that's just how it goes.

[00:32:28] So it's like I've been down this road many, many times with several books where it gets optioned and nothing happens. Or it's like so close and nothing happens. But this one, it's the first fiction one. I feel like you could have a lot of fun with it. But so I'm I'll say cautiously optimistic with some options that are out there. But yeah, who do you guys do you guys have lined up for your Brick Bridger casting? You want to go first, Mike? I don't I don't have that much in mind. I mean, just because maybe it's the Reacher stuff.

[00:32:58] But Alan Rich and Richson came right to mind. That was the first person that came to mind as I was reading it. That was yours. But when you said Brock Lesnar before, I was like, oh, shit, like that, like that's a good fit. Grant did not really in movies and stuff. But when we were talking WWF, I was thinking a little Triple H more my time a bit earlier. Yeah. Like he came to mind. Yeah. They have to be sizable. And sometimes. Yeah. The 280 is tough. Yeah. Well, I made it.

[00:33:27] I made him this big. Obviously, he doesn't be as long as he's probably over like six to six, three in real life. I think you could pull it off in the movie. So, yeah, the guy there's a guy named Tom Hopper who plays he's in the Terminalist. Rafe. I love Tom. Yeah. A great, great character. I love I love him in Jack Carr's books. And he would be he's he's a monster. He would be great. And he's built just like it. The the wild card, which came out about recently. And again, I have no idea where this will go with it.

[00:33:56] But his like Henry Cavill's actually Superman. Like he's he's pretty big. The other guy, the new guy who played Superman, who's in this new football movie coming out. So big dudes, basically, you know, be good. Richard, you know, he would be amazing. I feel like he's just such the go to for every giant guy out there. I think Chris Hemsworth would be a good version of this guy if he's big enough. I think he'd almost have to like be less. It sounds so big meatheady, but like less cut and more like kind of bulky.

[00:34:24] He's a little too pretty boy muscles for a wrestler. No, the most MMA guys do not have they're not worried about the shreddedness. They want like the horsepower. So probably the heavyweights. So, yeah, there's a lot of guys out there. And then there's always, you know, some unknown whoever who I haven't thought of. It would be huge if you put on some weight. But but your point is correct. Like I I wrote this. I'm looking at, you know, I keep books when I'm writing a book. I always it's like a dorky thing.

[00:34:50] But I keep books that like influence me like on my desk while I'm just to kind of keep my head into what the space is. And I have Jaws, First Blood and Jurassic Park. All books all became amazing movies. So, yeah, I mean, that's obviously I'm writing it with that speed in mind, you know. Dude, absolutely love that. Anything else, Mark? Because I know you're itching to talk spoilers, but anything? There's like the bear bra video game. How did you come up with that? Oh, yeah. Yeah. Yeah. That's a marketing thing. Yeah.

[00:35:20] Thank you. That was one of those random things were like, you ever go to explain something and you don't know where you're going with it? And then something just pops in your head and you're like, well, OK, good job. Subconscious like that's the muse. Like, yeah, like nine months ago, I was talking. We had our first, you know, when you do these books, you have your kind of a year out. We signed the contract in April of 2025. So you're not really talking about this till eight or nine months out of your first meeting with your marketing and team and all those kind of things.

[00:35:49] And they were talking about a promo and they've seen some. I did some pretty out of the box stuff with Macho Man and some of my other books. And I was like, you know, I don't know why when I picture a bear versus brick, like there's scenes in the book and there's things in the book that very 90s feel, even though it's today. But it's like kind of old school. I don't have big. There's no tech. Ideally, this could be read 100 years ago or 100 years from now. You don't really need to know there's not really a lot of pop culture references. The book stands on what it stands on.

[00:36:16] But I was like, it reminds me almost of like those old, like early Nintendo games, like, you know, Double Dragon or any of those where it's just like two characters. And I was like, it'd be cool if we do like a what if we did like an 8-bit or a 64-bit like a man versus bear game to go along with it. Because I know I had just seen something on like Lovable or one of these new AI building apps that it's like it's actually just you kind of just do it, dictate it in there. And there's more to it than that. But one of the guys who's on the team, Shane, was like, I actually been dabbling in this for a while. I'm a gamer.

[00:36:46] Like, I've been trying to figure out how to do my own game. Like, let me see what I can do. And it's a fun. It's a fun-ass game, man. I haven't beat Macho yet. I've lost every time I've tripled. Today we had, I don't know if you saw on Twitter, probably like follower. But today we had a winner. Somebody wrote me in. They have a screen, which I had not seen yet. You know, it says Brick wins. And so we have a winner after, you know, we've actually had, we've had almost a thousand plays, which is pretty funny for like a fake game. But it's literally just, yeah, yeah, it's cool. It's a fun little marketing thing.

[00:37:15] It's fun to share. You know, books are weird now, right? We're in a weird time. Like, unless you've got, it feels like unless you've just got this massive following from either like a detective or police or like military background and you're a guy as a writer, it's very hard to just not, you know, that genre is great. The dad book genre is great. I read all of them. I've got all those guys books here, but there's so few outside of that that just get through.

[00:37:38] So it's like you need all these different ways to reach guys who would like these books and an old school, like almost like an NBA jam version of a man versus bear was one of our ideas. So I'm glad you like it. Thank you for playing. And one day we'll be macho. We'll see. Yeah. One day I also beat macho. I was touring around with think you could win as well on your website. That was my that dude. I did that in like an afternoon. I was like, you ever those choose your own adventure books? You guys know those? Yeah. Yeah. I was like, what if you could do this?

[00:38:06] And this is one of those things where the tech has just caught up where all of my goofy ideas are now two hours of just typing in stuff into like code and then copying, pasting it into some of these things. And it's like, oh, this is this is done. This would have been like a four person, $10,000 project five years ago. Yeah. And I've lost every time. Every time I put myself in there, I've lost. I'm dying to macho. I've played around with it. I gave I made my guy beast as well. He loses.

[00:38:33] I'm trying to mess with the algorithm to see. There is one. It's so funny. So that what he's referring to is a it's a can you be the bear and you can pick your your size, your height, your weight, your strength and your fighting style. And it'll tell you if you can be macho or not. Oh, there is one combination that can win. And I don't remember what it is because I was doing it. I'm trying. Yeah.

[00:38:58] There's I think there's something like because of the law of like arithmetic and large numbers, like the combinations over eight selections over whatever. There's hundreds. But there is one that wins. It's a surprising one. It's not just the biggest and the strongest. But, yeah, that one. That one's really cool. I actually have to promote that more because that was that was the first iteration of the video game that came out. Yeah. That sounds like the marketing you've done. Yeah. Marketing is really fun. I share everything. I've been touring around with everything.

[00:39:28] And there's some people, you know, I could tell they don't care in terms of they have their own team to do all that stuff. They're going to write the book and move on. I could tell that you've been putting in some effort in getting this stuff out there and seeing unique things. Yeah, I appreciate that. You have to have fun. These books, what I always like any book you write, any author will tell you you're just alone. Right.

[00:39:52] So, you know, you're sitting there wherever your favorite spot is or, you know, I don't have one of these cabins in the woods that some of these guys have. You know, the growing up was always like, oh, yeah, I was on deadline and I went to my cabin. I'm like, I don't have a cabin. I don't have a penthouse somewhere over the water or whatever. I have, you know, coaching and kids and I'm doing some of it while my oil is getting changed, you know, doing all the things that we really do. So you've got to have fun with it. I don't have a team. It'd be nice one day to probably have at least a couple people running this stuff for you. But, like, I still think it's awesome being involved in all of it.

[00:40:21] And part of the book launch experience is enjoying all of it. Right. And having these conversations about a bunch of different things in addition to the book itself, but the marketing and all that. So I'm glad that stuff hits home. It means a lot because a lot of it is just you're walking the dog and it's like, you know, it'd be awesome. And you do it. And now here we are talking about it. Yeah. You put yourself out there. You put in the time. You put in your reps. And you're going to see the results. It's just like, you know, your workouts, I'm sure. Yeah, yeah.

[00:40:50] I think so. It's different. It's so different from the fiction, the nonfiction side because, like, there was always a built-in audience for all those books. So you're not worried. Like, I'm not writing Macho Man worried about thinking, are there Macho Man fans? I know they exist. I'm one. There's millions. Like, if I do a good job, which I think I did, like, the book's going to be, you know, you're going to deliver on the promise of a great Macho Man, Randy Savage biography, 2D Millions of Macho Man fans that exist.

[00:41:18] And it's the same thing with a Charlie Ward biography. These people have, you know, fandom. That's the whole point is you're delivering something to a fan base. This, for me, is so different because it's like it just has to stand on its own. And no one's even read it yet. You guys have been lucky enough to read it. But, like, all the pre-orders that have come in and all the stuff, it's really just a leap of faith at this point. And it's a different thing of, like, the opening week. And, like, pre-orders on a book that no one's read for fiction is almost like a ridiculous ask.

[00:41:47] It's like, please, please, please do it. But I need them and we all need those that matters. But it's really going to be the reading and the word of mouth that's going to make this book what it's going to be. Yeah. And tell us where you are on that path. And tell us how people can pre-order, find you, follow your newsletters. And it's next week, pub day. Is that right? Yeah, November 10th is the pub day. As you guys know, every single pre-order counts. It shows momentum and it shows the sales team that people are buying in.

[00:42:13] And it helps with the local bookstores and the Barnes & Nobles decide what to stock and how much. And so, you know, I always say, order it wherever you order your books. I'm not picky. But if you want to have some of the fun that we've been talking about, bearbrawl.com is the spot that has the NES game. It has the Could You Beat a Bear game. It has three paws right there from Barnes & Noble Bookshop on Amazon if you want to buy them.

[00:42:36] And if you, on the bottom, you get two free chapters, that's basically a sign up for my Books and Biceps newsletter, which has like 30, over 30,000 readers every week. So it's not some small community. And it's every week I recommend a book. Although recently it's mine, but 300, you know, let's say like 51 weeks of the year, it's not mine. It's other authors who likes books. So it's not just me pumping my own stuff. Although if you join right now for the next two weeks, it will be. But after that, there will be other people's books.

[00:43:04] And usually a workout and gym motivation and some other meathead-y stuff. But a lot of author interviews too that I get in there. So yeah, bearbrawl.com or just, you know, go me, johnfinkel.com. And then I'm all over, I'll use Twitter and Instagram a pretty good amount. And that's at john underscore finkel. But the main thing is just go buy the book so that when it comes out, you get it in the, you know, you get it in your mailbox that week. I got, you know, send me pictures. That's the best thing I love to see is people getting the pictures.

[00:43:32] I have a bunch of bookmarks and cool things to give away. So yeah, man, I appreciate this is a lot of fun. I love that. Yeah, that's so great to hear. Wish you nothing but success. I know you will be a massive success once this one drops. But we've got to keep a tradition alive. Yeah. We always write limericks for our guests and our authors. So if you don't mind, before we let you go, I'm going to leave you with a limerick.

[00:43:57] Brick Bridger squares up for the scrap with macho caught right in his trap. Raw muscle and grit trading hit after hit till one takes a permanent nap. Oh, I love that. That's great. You got to send me that. That's one of the best ones yet. That is perfect. Perfect. This book will not make you take a nap. But at the end, there is a nap that is very crucial to the story. Very interesting ending to this brawl. And another thing we should say, no cocaine with this bear. I feel like we have that cocaine bear movie. Yeah, yeah.

[00:44:27] Straight up. This one's straight up. And even somebody was like, who was I talking to? Oh, like last week. And they're like, so you say no guns or no weapons. What about like traps? And I'm like, look, there's no gimmick. He's not. This isn't like he lures him into, you know, both his legs are in bear traps. And then he just hits them in punching bag. I'm like, you will be happy. This delivers. There is a fight. Like, that's what I always wanted to say. Like, when you said like on the nose up front about the cover, it's like the book is what it is. You're going to get it. You're going to get where you are.

[00:44:57] Speaking of the cover, can you just tell us a little insight? Was this all Blackstone? Did you come to them with an idea? I mean, we even got the scratches on his neck from another previous encounter. Yeah, everything that is they executed. But that was all all me. I have, you know, I think I've always felt that like I think this is probably the greatest book cover of all time. The job like when it because it's very reminiscent. It's easy there now to be like, oh, yeah, everybody saw the movie. But like when this was this came out, there was no movie.

[00:45:27] This like this was a absolute like stopper in a bookstore. It was so new and so different. And so my idea was like, look, I want one of those things. You know, every book, even the big names now, when you go into a bookstore, they all kind of look there's a scene in the big name. And I was like, yeah, I want it where it's like, what is that? That was really my thing of like I needed that moment of like whale fall did it very well, too, with the when the book came out where I literally did never heard of the author

[00:45:56] or the book or anything till I saw it. And I just literally bought it because I thought the cover was great. And I want to bear by one of those where you're like, what? All right. All right. If this is if this is this really what it is, it's called bear ball. There's a guy fighting a bear. Yeah. But that's what you that's what you want, because I feel like two pitfalls we've seen with covers where we criticize them or they kind of miss the mark. Yeah. One, if it's too generic and very much they might put a silhouette of a man or a face or a kitted out operator just because they think it looks cool. Yeah.

[00:46:26] But then again, it's like it's too on the nose. What does that or it's too generic? It could have been any other book. And then another one is we judge a cover by the book. So the cover has to really be something from the story. And so if this thing's called bear brawl, there's like Jaws is about a shark. You want the shark. Yeah. Whale falls about the whale. You want the whale like bear brawl. I want a man and I want a bear. And that's it. I just want to see. I loved. And we toyed with a couple of different angles. And I was like, it's all it's so I just kind of landed on.

[00:46:55] It's really good if we don't see his face. This is what he's up against. And you're with him. That's the point. That's how it is. Yeah. You're seeing through his eyes. Yeah. You know, the beast that he's looking into. Yeah. Yeah. So. So that was well. They put it together. But I had I had pretty specific instructions on that one. Yeah. Well played. Well played. Thank you. Well, John, guys, go out there. Yeah, let's get into some spoilers. So, folks, pick up the book, preorder it, post about it, leave your review and then come back here.

[00:47:25] We will be posting after publication, after release. So you'll have to wait until a little later in the month. But we're going to come back with a little spoiler section. Really talk about what happens when Brick Bridger goes up against a 500 plus pound bear.