The Sevan Podcast - 2023 CrossFit Games QF Men's Power Rankings w/ Brian Friend #900

Episode Date: May 3, 2023

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Bam, we're live. This is cool. Okay. Brought to you by Paper Street Coffee, 2023 semifinals power rankings. The yellow is great. It's popping. Look at this.

Oh, someone wrote nice shirt. Oh, okay. Lowlands Throwdown. Yeah, that's the event director of the Lowlands Throwdown, Robin Stallman, a good friend of mine, big supporter of mine for a long time, and I was happy to be able to help him with his semifinal last year. Robin, it looks like whoever posted that tried to fade out the Lowlands Throwdown. happy to be able to help him with his semifinal last year.

Robin, it looks like whoever posted that tried to fade out the Lowlands throwdown. No, that's just how the shirt is. Don't get all excited, Robin. Okay. Oh, shit. I already ruined it. There we go. Oh, shit.

Oh, shit. Wow. It's kind of a crazy year for CrossFit, right? In terms of just the shuffling of all the athletes. Yeah, there's how many people, I guess how many people who aren't competing like the likes of Tia? There are, well, that's really one of the main reasons that I did the power rankings at this time of the year is because, and as the article on the website explains, I think since August on the men's side, there's close to 40 athletes that I had in the original 100 power rankings last season or after the games last season that are not competing individually this season. And when you say, sorry, you said 40, that's both men and No, no, just on the men's side, I think. Oh, shit. Wow, what a shitty reader I am.

I thought I read the article last night and it said 24 on the men's side, which would be a quarter of the people, nearly a quarter. It's this right here, right? This article where Justin's biting the coin? Yeah. By the way, if anyone wants to follow along, you can open up. I'll put the link in the um you can keep watching you might be right about the total okay uh you can keep watching and uh

click the link um the audio probably won't go away on youtube i'll put the link here down in the comments and it's just b like the letter b and then friendly oh no so there was e-friendly fitness.com and then you can follow along and see the articles we're looking at and the list of the power rankings. Go ahead, Ryan. Actually, surprise.

I was right again. I was getting kind of, I actually felt bad for being right. If I was right. So between August and January, there were 17 men that I removed from the list

because they weren't competing in the season. But between January and now, there were 24 more at male athletes that I removed from the list because they weren't competing in the season, but between January and now there were 24 more at male athletes that I removed from the list. So that's a total of 41. And that's why I give myself a partial correct for that. Yeah. Okay. Not full retard. Just, just not, not fully paying attention. And that's, you know, that's why I thought it was necessary to do it again because that's,

you know, a quarter of the field of the top 100 athletes that I thought, you know, that's why I thought it was necessary to do it again, because that's, you know, a quarter of the field of the top 100 athletes that I thought, you know, were competing this year in just three months are no longer in the competition, which is obviously, like you mentioned, you know, we'll shake things up, but it creates a lot of opportunity as well. And so I was like, well, we should, you know, fill in another 24 guys so that the fans in various parts of the world or all over the world can have the opportunity to be at least like a little bit familiar with these names

because some of them will do, you know, cool things at semifinals, even if they don't make the games. If you go to PaperStreetCoffee.com, it's paper and then just S-T street. No, sorry. Take two. If you go to PaperStreetCoffee dot com, but you don't spell out street, just paper S.T. Coffee and use the code word seven on you can get. It's a big discount. I forget what it is, but I think it's more than 10 percent. I want to say even 20 percent on your coffee. And it's always great to support Gabe. It's the only coffee that I drink. I assume now it's the only coffee that I shouldn't say only. That's not true.

When my coffee machines busted, I drink strong coffee, but they don't sponsor me. And I would also like to say that if you have trouble following along on this podcast, it's probably because you lack mental clarity or something is wrong with your testosterone. So you should go to CAHormones.com. If you're in California, New York, Florida, Arizona, you have to look at the states, but there's places where you can actually get the free blood work. And then everyone who uses the code word SEVON can get the free consultation. If you want to know also more about CAHormones.com, Andrew Hiller has a show called Testosterone Tuesday, where he talks about

his experience with CAHorm hormones. And finally birth fit. I just want to say like, if you're interested in getting your knowing more about the baby making process, the growing of babies and women and the birthing of babies, you want to do it to make a mama and baby the happiest. It's something I'm hugely passionate about and a huge supporter of birth fit and that community.rian has a new website uh it is called be friendly is it new it's new

it's today is new it's like new yesterday new yeah i guess technically we made it live last night but as of this morning we had announced that it was live uh for the first time and it is um i've already found one or two inaccuracies things things that I would, I don't know, inaccuracies too strong, things that I would be, I think are contentious. He's claiming it is the aggregator of all the best content in the CF community from the best, also creators and reporters in the community. And I resent that, but it's nearly, I would,

I would go as far because i think that about the seven podcast i would go as far as to say it is it is uh nearly exclusive in its um uh aggregation curation of the best content on the um web and uh and now we really have two powerhouses to be honest with you two people who are obsessed with crossfit in the field um him and brian spin if you like using the um internet uh and and reading shit and being up to date on crossfit that's you want to be a junkie those are the i think those are the places you'd want to go do you wouldn't you say yeah i would say uh you know spin especially is going to be really, really fast.

And he's, he doesn't, I would say he's less selective about what he puts out there. Like if there's something that comes across his plate and he thinks the community should know about it, then he's going to write something about it and spit it out faster than probably anyone. I'm a little bit more selective in what I put out there. A lot of the stuff that I work on has, you know, it takes time to produce. It's a more evaluative or analytical, so it might not be as timely as his. So you should definitely follow him for that kind of stuff. And then, you know, we will address some of those topics, but usually not in the same quick turnaround that he will. Spin will let you know if he gets a photo of katrin david's daughter

and um a street horner holding hands and he'll also let you know that the leaderboard is fucked up as fast as he can brian you can come over to brian's if you in six hours later and brian will explain to you how the leaderboard is fucked up and post the correct version for example okay uh the website's cool it's beautiful it's crazy easy to navigate um Post the correct version. For example. Okay. The website's cool. It's beautiful. It's crazy easy to navigate. And here we are.

You know what's crazy, Brian? This is to show you how much outgunned I am. Yesterday when I was preparing for this podcast, I went to your post from last year for your power rankings. And I was reading the comments and I was like, these comments don't make any sense to me. And it took me literally like 10 minutes of reading all the comments from last year's post to realize, oh, that's last year's post. So, so that was part where I told you that that was a little embarrassing to be online last night, but the Instagram posts want to be up to this morning, just in one year out the other, maybe. Well, I just, I saw this and I just,

yeah, I guess I'm like, Oh, he went, he went early. So this is last year's. This is August of last year. So that was right after the games.

Okay. And then at that point I was, you know, I just kind of zoomed out all the people that weren't involved in the CrossFit games this year, for whatever reason, I included them in those rankings. And then as the offseason progressed, as we mentioned, we find out that several of those

men won't be competing because whatever, team, injury, retirement. And then again, as the season goes on a few more months, we have more people on that list. So these are just links back if you wanted to see. So in some cases, you might be a fan or you might go to the gym or your coach might be someone on this list. So these are just links back if you wanted to see. So in some cases, you might be a fan, or you might go to the gym, or your coach might be someone on this list. And you could go back and see, oh, in August, they were 80th. But with these people that have dropped out, now they're up there in the top 50 or something like that. Whenever we do these power ranking shows, I always start the show by asking Brian, what exactly are the power rankings? I am going to

ask him that. But i do i want to read you this uh opening line here um from the actual article that published uh last night men's semi-final power ranking it says i've been creating my own power rankings for the sport of crossfit for nearly a decade it begins as a mean to try to beat my friends in a version of fantasy crossfit that i created leading into the 2014 CrossFit Games. And I think that contextualizes it pretty good. What are the power rankings, Brian? Yeah, so it's basically at this point in the season or just in general,

these are the guys that I think are the top 100 fittest on earth. And I think that it can be tricky to assess exactly what that means because, you know, there are data points that we have, um, in recent memory that are opening quarterfinals for these athletes. Every athlete on this list is also registered to compete at semifinals. So there's, you know, a high likelihood we'll see them all in a live competition for the first time in the game season in two to five weeks from now. And so sometimes there's athletes that do really, really well in those competitions, the online competitions. And it's like, well, what do you do with them? Because I have seen

too often over the past decade, that's that sometimes there's an athlete that pops up there, has this amazing online performance, maybe back-to-back in recent years when they do opening quarterfinals, but then they get to a semifinal and they can't replicate it. There's other times where I think that the opening quarter – so in that case, I'm not really weighing that heavily, that athlete's performance on the power rankings. Even though they might be top five in whatever competitive region they are,

I'm like, I still need to see something more from them in live competition. But there are other situations where athletes end up having a good competition that you may not have expected. Maybe they haven't competed in a couple years. They're coming back from an injury. They had something unusual like Annika Greer had last year happen to them, so we didn't necessarily get to see what she would have done in the semifinal. And there's a lot of athletes that fall into those categories that I put a little bit more weight into their performances. And

sometimes it's athletes that are a little bit more that are later on in their career. And I'm just, you know, I think that especially on the women's side, we'll have a lot of conversations around this where I'm looking at really specific things like, you know, how well are they handling weight? And I guess there's been some heavy tests. And what's that going to look like when we get to a really, really narrow field where most of the athletes are younger and stronger than them? So there can be a lot of different things that go into it. It's definitely not just like, oh, this is how well they did in quarterfinals. And this is why. So I'm just going to like copy and paste into it. It's definitely not just like, Oh, this is how well they did in quarterfinals. And this is why.

So then I'm just going to like copy and paste into this. I try to evaluate the athletes against each other in a narrow range. You know, I kind of group them by maybe tens and then I kind of look and see if there's someone that I think can do very well. And sometimes I take a risk on an athlete, you know, there's some athletes that I see and I just based on, you know, 10 years of studying this sport, I think to myself, OK, athletes that have had these three kind of pieces of DNA are generally ones that break through in the sport within one to two years. And if I see that in someone early on, I'll take a gamble and put them kind of higher on my rankings than they would show up on most others.

show up on most others. Brian, if I were, we have a friend, Tyler Watkins, he has a app called lawn chair leaderboarding. I call it the Tyler Watkins. What do I call it? Tyler Watkins fitness app, Tyler Watkins, fantasy fitness, fantasy fitness league, Tyler Watkins, fantasy fitness league. If we play that this year, should I just, should I just pull this up and just play right off of here so as we're doing the draft um the practical application of your list i could just be like okay jr picked justin brian picked uh roman and uh john young picked patrick velner no one's picked

adler and i just pick him you think that's just is it literally is it like that i would i mean possibly but you know you might just say i don't i don't really like adler i'm a hopper guy i'll take okay he's close on the list but it would be like but i got the gist of it the spirit of what i'm saying is accurate yeah however you know um as you see these these guys are coming from different competitive regions so going into each semifinal weekend, I will actually make predictions that are specific to those semifinal regions for men, women, and teams. And if you're playing Tyler's app or his games during that time,

those would probably be more helpful because they'll condense the list for you to the ones that are directly applicable. If this was the games, we'd only have 40 men left and that might work really well. And like Heidi's calls it the Tyler Watkins experience. I like that a lot. But like she said, but then you have to decide who you're going to plug into each events. And obviously there's some nuances to it. If you already have an endurance guy, you wouldn't pick two endurance guys you

might go down the list but but the general the spirit of what i'm saying is correct i'm just trying to for for people like me that helps me understand basically you're saying if these people had a competition out of the hopper um uh you know 10 or 13 events this is this is how you think they'd finish yeah okay i like it it's awesome fantastic and um there are some uh columns here um uh rank athlete those are obvious a competitive region obvious previous previous being the list you made in january okay and then change would it be if there's no minus does that mean that they all these people moved up are these all? Yeah, I don't think I had anyone that moved down on the men's field. Now explain why that is.

How is it on the first 25 no one moved down? Do you want to explain that? Well, basically, there were just some guys from this list that, like Ricky Garrard was third on the list, and he dropped off. So everyone is moving up one. Willie George, Travis Mayer and Scott Panchick were three others that were on the list that in the top 25 that dropped out.

And so those are the, basically the ones that moved up and there's no one on this list in the top 25. That's like a massive unknown to me. You know, there are some guys that are, we didn't necessarily get to see them throughout the entire season last year,

like Chandler Smith or Samuel Cornway, who didn't compete as an individual. But I have a pretty good understanding of who those guys are as athletes. And so relative to their peers, I haven't seen anything from the open or quarterfinals. Honestly, I don't think that these guys are doing anything in the open and quarterfinals that's really going to be indicative of the growth that they've made or the

regression that they've had i think we will start to see that in semifinals and based on what happens there there will be a lot more change at the towards the top of the leaderboard what's the criteria for being on the list for example what if you're not like if you're not competing this year you don't get to be on the list or what if you go masters are you on the list no so these all of these 100 men are men that are remaining in the individual elite competition and let me ask you this so you don't is rich froning completely at could rich froning still go individual well theoretically he's still i think he i don't mean masters i mean could he go no but is he uh this one of the season no he did not do the individual quarterfinals okay and did scott panchick no okay but if they would have if they would have they then i mean i

don't even think it's likely then they would have qualified for the semifinals and they would be on. And then if they registered for semifinals, then I would include them on this list. Even if they said they weren't going, they were doing it for fun, you basically go off of the fact of what competitions they've done. I don't think that Rich Froning knows how to work out for fun. I mean, especially when it's like he's not going to show up to, you know, he might not have the same capacity in his life or bandwidth in his life to prepare and

train the way that he used to when he would go to a, you know, a live competition. But I think it's just ingrained in who he is. Like if he shows up to a flag football game, you're not going to get, he's not going to be walking through the place, you know, he's going to be playing hard. Uh, you are looking at the web website b the letter b friendly fitness.com it's brian's new website uh but more importantly this is the uh power ranking show for the men in the crossfit world we are going to talk about the hundred fittest men in the world uh this is the only place where there is a uh legitimate ranking of all the athletes this gets updated every uh

well at b Brian's discretion, but usually it's three times a year, four times a year, Brian? Yeah, three or four. Okay. Like, you know, I will do it again before the games because we'll have a very, you know, there'll be no discrepancy about who's included on the list or not. It'll only be the men remaining in the season.

And so then at that point, I'll have had last August, this past January, this one, and then before the game. So it's kind of like a quarterly check-in. Eric Weiss did be friendly DEI counsel vet the list before posting. Brian, are there any things that you take into account, sexual orientation, skin color, anything that affects the ranking? No. No.

Strictly performance? God, so shallow. I cannot believe how shallow this list is. Okay. Incredible. I think – so let me just ask you this. Let's just for shits and giggles. This might take from it.

Does Rich make the top 25 if he if he is um do you have any thoughts on where rich froney would fit in here oh yeah i mean well we were you know some people obviously yesterday the age group semi-finals finished and we've had you know uh inaccurate leaderboards from from crossfit so but we were able to, they did distribute a list that was more accurate. None of those are official or finalized yet, but in the most accurate version that CrossFit sent out to the athletes, which we've been able to see,

some of us have reposted them on our Instagram. If you haven't seen those yet, those are more accurate than the ones on the game site, which still have inaccurate scoring. And there it is. Probably to no one's surprise, Rich Froning has barely beaten his closest competitor which in this case is scott pancher and the reason why i say it's to no one's

surprise is because that's what he always does throughout the history of his individual career in crossfit he was not the matt fraser that was trying to win by 500 points he was the guy who's like i'm gonna do what it takes to get on top of the podium. And that's all he did here. He just did enough to get on top of the, of the leaderboard. And so no one's surprised by that. And I feel like both him and Scott Panchik, I mean, Scott Panchik was in my top 25 before he withdrew from the individual part of the season this year. Yeah. They would definitely be in the top five. I think that I would Scott too. You would have Scott in the top five also top 25, excuse me. Oh, okay. Okay. too. You would have Scott in the top five also. Oh, top 25,

excuse me. Oh, okay. Okay. Okay. You did say both. You said top 25 at first. And then maybe I thought I heard you say top five. I got excited.

I might've, I might've misspoke there. How far into the top 25, I think would be different for the two of them. I think I'd probably still have Scott somewhere in the 18 to 22 range. And that, you know, that would be like just behind Saxon and kind of in the mix with his

brother spencer and then i would have i think i would have rich probably just inside the top 10 maybe like eight eight nine or ten i'm gonna we're gonna go back over that for one second i want to ask you this real quick i want to do some um gossiping and shit talking these leaderboards right here, these are ones you made or Halpin made or you guys made together? CrossFit, this is, I don't really understand this. CrossFit emailed this to the athletes who competed in the age group semifinals.

So they have a leaderboard that's actually done the math correctly that they emailed out to the athletes yesterday evening. I got a hold of it, you know, pared it down to this view and put it on my Instagram so that people who are, you know, maybe not aware of the fact that the CrossFit Games website leaderboard is not the same as this and is therefore less accurate that they would be able to find

that here. And if you see in the comments, some people even ask, well, what's different about this or why is this more accurate than that one? I don't know why they were able to email this list out to athletes but not able to update it appropriately on their website. What I think Adrian Bosman said on the podcast with Chase Ingram was that it was a technical situation that needed to be overcome in order for that to happen. So hopefully the game site will reflect this leaderboard soon, but as of now, it still does not.

And so if you go on there and look at the men's 35 to 39, Scott Panchuk's ahead of Rich Froning, but that is actually not the case based on the scoring system that CrossFit intended to use. on the scoring system that CrossFit intended to use. Ooh. I wonder, I would love to hear the discussion between Adrian Bosman and Justin Berg on this. Adrian must be fucking furious. I would be. Have you spoke to Adrian?

No, but I would be because this is a bit, I know it doesn't get as much press or attention. I know it's an online competition, but like I mentioned the other day on my Instagram, 540 athletes in 18 different divisions qualified for this competition. And yeah, for a handful of those, they basically know they're going to make it to the games, but it's never a certainty in sports. You never really know.

And so this is the critical weekend for these athletes. And at the 50% checkpoint, you're promised by the organizing body that you're going to have a leaderboard. And when the leaderboard comes out and it's completely wrong, and then they release one six hours later, that's still wrong. That's pretty frustrating. You're like, this is my week. This is like the Super Bowl for me this year. I making it here was a big deal. How well I do this weekend determines, you know, for some people in their mind, it might determine whether this year is a success or not. And then the, you know, the body who's putting on the competition is unable to do it

in the way that it was envisioned to be done by Adrian. Yeah, I would be super frustrated if I were him. Have they have they made any have they taken any responsibility for it or anything? Has, I feel like I haven't heard from Justin Bergen forever. And I assume that all of this falls on him as the director of the CrossFit games. We heard anything. I don't think so.

I mean, I haven't, um, I'm not, I'm not intimately aware of how the, you know, distribution of responsibilities go, but yeah,

when you're the guy who's kind of at the top and things like this are regularly happening, it seems, I mean, if I just think about other sports, you know, when, when something in the NFL is awry, you get a statement from Roger Goodell, same thing in the NBA or the NHL or the MLB from their commissioners. And I think that Justin Berg is in that kind of acting commissioner role, whether that's a label or not, of his actual job, that when something like this comes out, he is the person that I would expect to hear from. And he's the one that would say, yep, you know, this is on us. This is what happened.

And we're going to do whatever to correct it. At least take the heat off the rest of the staff. Berg is probably in Costa Rica. Wow, Heidi, you have a very, very good memory. Costa Rica. Wow, Heidi, you have a very, very good memory. Going to what Brian said about athletes who are competing, as an athlete, this is from Mike Olivas. Olivas? How would you say his last name? Not like that. Okay. Mike, Pool Boy Mike.

As an athlete who spends a lot of time by the pool servicing MILFs, I'm heading to compete at the semifinals in a few weeks. I'm so fucking worried that even more fuck-ups will occur, like even damn stage so far has had major mishaps. Every damn stage has had mishaps so far. Basically what he's saying, and we've seen this before, is that people who are at the cut line could get pushed out unfairly. And that has happened. Last year, that did happen. Yeah, that's I mean, that's the ultimate risk, the risk or the thing that you don't want to happen. You know, at whatever the competition is, the athletes are showing up to compete. And in the case of the CrossFit Games season, until you get to the games, every stage is a qualifier. And that's why I you know, you've you've heard me regularly say that it's not the ones at the top of the list that i'm most concerned about

it's the cut line and so in the open that's the 10 thresholds like that's the target those are the people that are the most interested in the leaderboard and and that part of the leaderboard is completely inaccurate going in from the quarterfinals to the semifinals it's the cut line it's the 60 or the 30 those are the you know the five athletes on either side of that line those are the ones that are sweating it and you have to make sure that whatever the variables are that's determining who's the last one in and who's the first one out that those variables are accounted for and i've been saying it throughout this season and last season that currently there's not a structure in place that where

CrossFit can guarantee that they're getting it right. The competitions, online competitions are unmanageable with the resources that they either have or are choosing to use. And now we're getting to the semifinal stage of competition where you're advancing to the games. And that just means that more is on the line. There's a smaller field of play. So you would expect that the, even the chances of having those kinds of mistakes would be smaller and smaller. Now we have the masters semifinals, age group semifinals, and we see yet again, another stage of competition where there's been a failure to execute at the level that the athletes are expecting and hoping for. And so if you're an individual or a team athlete, who's getting ready to go to a semifinal, you know, you're just like Mike, you know, you know you're like just praying that please can we get this one right there's a lot on the line for

some of us uh is this are we seeing an unprecedented amount of hiccups you for i mean you've heard adrian talk about this before there are there have been problems in the administration execution of the cross the game season forever but not at this frequency and i would say yes it's there's been way too many different things that have been published and then redacted and then reposted with with a correction or a completely different there have been errors on scorecards errors on weights, errors on language that's used, errors on scoring. I mean, it just goes on and on. And it seems to be like Mike Olivas, by the way. Olivas, Mike Olivas.

Suggested. It's at every stage of competition. It's with every announcement. The worldwide ranking announcement, they pulled it down. The strength of field allocation announcement, they amended that. It's like every single major thing that the community has been waiting on that's related to the competitive season this year has been less than perfect. And then you think about if you zoom all the way out to one of these major principles of CrossFit in general, which is virtuosity, that is clearly and obviously missing. which is virtuosity that is clearly and obviously missing.

You know, when I had Don on, one of the things he was put was like a really hands-off approach, like a really hands-off approach, really, really. And it almost seems like it's getting to the point where that's just an excuse for no oversight, no leadership. It really does look like that. Michelle Shanks, how can they be so careless with their data? I would be out of a job if I consistently put out bad data. Dude, if you spelt something wrong on an Instagram post greg would fucking call you at three in the morning

and fucking drill you drill you like shit like you'd be talking like you'd be you wouldn't go back to you wouldn't be able to go back to sleep at night to this thing about about don you know obviously that would be optimal to be able to come into a position and you say, okay, this is the team that we have for this year. Let's let them run. Let's make an evaluation at the end of the season. But at some point, if they've just made mistake after mistake, after mistake, after mistake, after mistake, you get, I mean, you got to imagine that he's getting frustrated. I think that Don is pretty plugged in. If he's not watching and digesting all of the content that's out there, I think he has people that are that he's interacting with. And he knows about this stuff.

And I don't know. I'm going to push back there. I'm going to push back there. Let me say this. I think that he's not – I don't think he is – I don't think he's a gamesista. I think he's trying to run the company. I think he's trying to run the company and is stupid as much shit as I talk about the games and is how irrelevant I think the games are. The problem is, is that they are the most forward facing part of the company, meaning I think when you get married to a girl, the least important thing is her face.

But or man's face, but. The face is what people everyone sees first and so the fucking thing has to be fucking maintained it can't have snot pouring out of the front of it even though i think it's fucking incredibly irrelevant to the to the longevity of the person or their your relationship and so i don't think i don't think he's paying attention um you know maybe you have more proof than me maybe i have more proof than you but i don't think he's paying attention and i don't think he knows about all these errors because i is a Marine recon guy, I think we would see heads be rolling. I think we would hear more.

I think we would have seen – in this major shakeup they recently had, I think we would have seen some shifts, and we're not. Just my two cents. I just wanted to push back on that. Just Lift Bro, girls, Lift Bro, they would have gotten an F in math and English with all the typos and miscalculations. Ladies and gentlemen, this website, Be Friendly, you can actually – it's cool. I tried to do it yesterday, and I made it to the, let's say, 80-yard line. You can support the website by clicking this little coffee cup, this little coffee cup down here. Patrick Clark, thanks, everyone, for the support of Be Friendly Fitness.

It means the world to the BFF team. Brian, you also have a Patreon on there. Is that active? Yes. And you're going to start publishing on that? Well, you know, it's, for me, one of the main reasons why I wanted to do this is because for years, I've worked with and for a variety of other outlets that there have been certain barriers to digesting content that haven't always made people happy. So I want everything that I put here to be accessible to everyone. Obviously, support goes a long way in terms of how long and how much we're able to do.

you know, support goes a long way in terms of how long and how much we're able to do. But I didn't want anyone who can't afford it or don't think that it's worth it to feel like they can't get content that's that we feel is valuable and critical to the sport that's out there. So anything that would be exclusive to the Patreon stuff is is stuff that I don't think is critical or something that every fan should have. It might be some private access to stuff with me or an early release on something, but it'll go out to everyone anyway. So that was important to me in creating this.

Is Brian Friend still with Bar Bend? Haven't been since the beginning of February.ary and you're so so you were at morning chalk up then barbend and now you uh it's you it's be friendly yeah congratulations awesome stoked for you okay uh so um where so uh rich froney you'd have him you think you'd have him in the top five, Scott Panchik in the top – Maybe top 10. Top 10. Top 10.

Mm-hmm. Top 10. Those are some pretty big names in there, I guess. Yeah. Top 10. And Scott Panchik in the top 25. Yeah. I mean, you know, it's tough with rich because like i said if he knew he was competing against these guys i feel that he would be preparing differently and i'm not quite sure but i would say like at his current state i still think he's good enough to make the top 10 um is everyone

on in this top 25 was everyone at the CrossFit Games last year? No, Chandler Smith was not. Samuel Cornway was, but he was competing on a team. And the rest of the guys, yes. Okay. I say we just go down the list. Is there any specific way you wanted to address this? I was just going to go down the list and start picking out names

and see if anyone in the comments is like, what the fuck? I do not see Colton Mertens here in the top 25. Yeah. I don't know how some guy named Guillaume Briant can be better than Colton Mertens. Was Guillaume Briant, how did he finish at the games last year? Better than Colton Mertens. Oh,illaume Briand, how did he finish at the games last year? Better than Colton Mertens. Oh, well, that's an accident. It won't happen again.

How is Colton? What's the update on Colton, Brian? I mean. Because he had that sickness, right? He had a mishap. Something happened. He went to the hospital. Yeah.

I mean, he, I think shortly after that, he did a local competition. Just as maybe, I think that was important for him probably mentally as a check-in to see where the body's at, how do I respond in a competitive environment? Can my body still recover the way that I want it to or need it to? I think he was encouraged by how that weekend went. I haven't spoken to him about it. That's just what I think.

And then he's done the season so far, and he seems to be performing mostly as we'd expect and i think that you know coming into semi-finals we're gonna see a better i think we'll probably see a better version of him than we've seen the past two years where he's continuing i mean this guy is amongst the best in the world at being committed to doing the hard work to doing the stuff that he doesn't love, doesn't want to do, his body is not built for necessarily, but he doesn't use those as an excuse.

He just puts his head down and gets to work. And whether he makes the games or not, I think we'll see a better version of him this year than we ever have. Who is better? Rebecca Fuselier in the women or Colton Mertens and the men uh what do you mean by better you know what i mean who is who relative to those fields you're ladies and gentlemen brian is what he is doing is he's buying himself time i have thrown something that didn't belong in the wood chipper in the wood chipper and it's uh dulling the blades, and Brian is having to sift through it.

Okay, this is what I say. I think Colton is better, but I think Rebecca has a better chance to make the games. Wow. Now you fucked with my processor. Now you threw something back into my wood chipper. How can that be? I'm saying relative to their field. So for me, I convert that to you think rebecca fusli is better relative to her field

than coldness that means that i think that there are athletes on the men's side of the field that will miss the games that are better than women in their side of field that will make the games because of why because of the nature of the competition how many how many men are are more elite are elite compared to how many women are okay uh ladies and gentlemen remind me to ask that question every few weeks i want to see i want to see how that um how that one uh evolves there was we will have look in uh you know they're they're coming up they'll be in week two both of them will compete in week two and we'll be able to really zoom in on that and you'll see where i have colton predicted to finish relative to rebecca Okay, fair enough. Good. Women's field is so soft compared to men's you can't compare.

Is it really that different? Well, I don't think of the men's. I don't think of the women's field as being weak. Do you? It's just not as deep. I've always said this, that there are 20 to 50 men that won't make the games this year, that if you put them in the games field they would be just as good as the last 15 men in the field or like you wouldn't notice much of a difference

but if you but i don't think that's the case for the women i think even in the women's field there's 10 to 15 women competing there that you're like they're not the same as the rest of hey um would you say that um guys like Rich Froning and Matt Fraser kind of appeared out of nowhere? Like within two years, they're just like fucking threatening the podium? And if so, do we have anyone like that in CrossFit right now? Well, the landscape has just changed. So, you know, when Rich Froning was coming up,

there wasn't an opportunity for him to watch himself really and then like you know by the time he was or maybe he did see the games he saw calipa he saw miko say he's like you know what screw it i'm gonna go to one of these sectionals and see what happens he did on a road trip he competed well there he made it to the games he almost won the games so he's kind of coming out of nowhere just because there weren't media covering and there weren't a ton of competitive opportunities available. Matt Fraser was a little bit less shocking than that if you were living in the East Coast

because he was already going to the East Coast throwdown. He was already going and winning a bunch of these small competitions. So the same way that Jason Hopper showed up at the crash crucible one year, and it was during COVID when there wasn't a lot of going on. There was no media coverage of that. But I saw on Instagram and I'm like, this guy beat games athletes that are also on this podium. That was a pretty good field.

I've never heard of this kid. Where did he come from? That was Matt Fraser at local competitions in 2011, 12, 13. But we didn't have anyone covering that. No one was posting that on Instagram, reposting it. And we're like, Oh, watch this kid. It wasn't really until he showed up to the 2013 regionals that we had our first chance to look at him. And then by the next year,

he was second place at the game. So it seems really sudden. I don't think we'll ever get that again. Cause even in the case of a Justin Madaris, he was already competing at regionals as a young man. Then, you know, he also had this kind of online breakthrough during the 2020 season. And now, you know, he's, he's the favorite to win every competition he shows up to, but there was a little bit more of a build because there was more events and

more coverage at that time. Nate Johnson, amazing how for the last two years Colton has beaten Nick Matthews by one spot in the semifinals, but when they both get to the games, Matthew did way better. It would have been interesting to see that to see what had happened in this. If Matt Nick had made the games the year before and how they would have did. I feel like Nick Matthew is an incredible athlete. I mean, this guy has some if someone wants to compete in the sport of CrossFit, Nick Matthew is a good study,

has some, if someone wants to compete in the sport of CrossFit, Nick Matthew is a good study, especially if you're not just one of these like naturally gifted guys that, you know, has these intangible traits. Like he's put in the work over a long period of time and he has a few really, really key elements that you need to be elite in this sport. His core strength and integrity is insanely good. As a result of that, he's able to maximize his strength and you need to be strong enough in this sport. And he has really high capacity for certain skills and gymnastics stuff. And the combination of those three things is great. I think those things were also really, really highlighted by Adrian's programming last year.

To the benefit of Nick Matthew, possibly more than anyone else in the field. I would have liked to have seen how he'd done in the games test the year previous to kind of fill out that comparison in particular, but we didn't get to see it. Robbie Myers making a belligerent post. Nick Matthews will podium, if not this year, next year. Ladies and gentlemen, please do not drink in post. Ryan, thoughts? Is he drunk?

Well said. Well said. Yeah, he's probably got some little extra stuff in his Paper Street coffee. Okay. All right. He's got – yes, thank you, Paper Street coffee. Brian, let's go straight to the list, go right to the top. Justin Medeiros, I'm going to put you on the spot here.

Are you – you've said before, and I quote verbatim, not really, until someone proves me wrong, Justin's the man. Until someone beats him in a live competition i'm gonna pick him to win every live competition he signs up for that does not mean that i don't think anyone can beat him i know that's what i'm concerned about i actually think if you give me a thousand dollars and say who's gonna win the crossfit games next year i say justin madaris and i just move on to the women's field i think if someone gives you a thousand dollars i don't think you pick Justin.

And that's what concerns me a little bit, that there's a personal ranking that Brian keeps in his head. I think you pick Roman over Justin. I think you think Roman's going to win. I think he can win, but I think that you have – I mean, I think the safe bet is Justin. He has just – not to say that Roman can't win. Oh, you do? So you would pick Justin?

If you had $1,000, you'd pick Justin? Yeah. He's a winner. He has proven that he can find a way to win. And you can say, well, this scenario at Rogue or this one thing that if Roman just improves that thing. He's like, but he has to improve that thing. Justin still has room to improve. We know that he hasn't won hardly anything at the CrossFit Games, other than the games themselves.

But his ability to never have a bad performance is so impressive. His consistency across every test that's been shown, Dave or Adrian programming, is so impressive. His consistency across every test that's been shown, Dave or Adrian programming, is so impressive. And all of those guys behind him, it's not by much, but they just don't have that same level of execution, consistency, and excellence across the totality of the test that is the CrossFit Games. Pat Vellner moving up one in the rankings.

Why Pat over Jeffrey Adler? Great question. Probably one of the hardest spot-by-spot picks of all of them, especially towards the top here. Yes, Adler beat Vellner at the semifinals last year narrowly. Yes, he beat him at the games there narrowly. I wouldn't argue with anyone who picked Adler ahead of Valner on this list, but I just,

something in my, in my gut is telling me that, especially with Ricky out of contention this year, that this is, that this is going to be Valner's last podium of his games career as an individual. Wow. So you're not,

you're saying that this won't be his last competition, but his last podium. Yeah. Halpin, the next time this is done, I believe Adler is over Pat. You could extrapolate that also from what Brian just said. Well, I mean, here's the interesting thing. They're not, last year they competed head to head

at the semifinals. This year they won't. We'll get to see Adler in week one. We'll get to see Vellner in week two. We can compare their performances against each other, but they didn't line up with each other on the same field. So it'll be a fun conversation. Adler will be better this year than last year, right?

Adler has improved every single year. I mean, he is probably even the better example than Nick Matthew of a person to study their progression in the sport if you're aspiring to be that. And I think I saw something this morning that I think M2 Nutrition put out. And it's just about like these are the things that you want to do if you're trying to be fitter. In this case, these are the fittest athletes in the sport that we have. And they're not in the gym stuff. They're lifestyle things

and Adler has been extremely disciplined in his lifestyle and his training for a long period of time obviously he has some physical prowess to go with it you can't be this good without it but um yeah he's I think the epitome of what the like progression of an a crossfit athlete can be over a career. Danny T, I think people have a recency bias with Matt Fraser. He's only won one event each time in his first three years at the Games, only two

in 2018. Justin still has a lot of time to get there. Yeah, that's what I'm saying. I don't think we've seen the best version of him yet. I think he's still improving. But there is this other element, which is how long can an athlete do that for? And there's not a given answer to this.

I mean, we have seen with someone like Haley Adams. I mean, she, you know, because from when she started competing until this year, when she's not competing, she's been competing in the sport for quite some time. But eventually it was just too draining on her. And there's nothing wrong with that. And not every athlete is a Scott Panchik and a Rich Froning. Not every athlete is a Rebecca Miller and Annie Thor's Rebecca Voigt Miller and Annie Thor's at her. They can just do it for 15 years in a row. Like at some point you're just like Matt Fraser. And you say, I invested everything for seven years, eight years into this sport and

enough is enough. I want to do other stuff in my life. So we'll see what happens with Justin. But at this point, I think he still has the fire. And at this point, I still think he can get better. Switching subjects here a little bit. The worldwide ranking is not really a worldwide ranking. It's a little bit of a misnomer, right? It is a, it is a functional number for allocating points to regions, but not, not functional in terms of betting, right. Or picking the best people. It's just not even close. I mean, we've, we've spoken about the fallacies and the flaws with the worldwide ranking and strength of field allocation, including the name of it. And the fallout of that is that many

people have asked me, well, let's see what you can do. If you don't think this one's good, then what would you do? And so we did that. Mike Halpin was extremely helpful. I asked him to run a few tests on the field of athletes from this year only. And this Friday, we're going to have a show where we explain based on only this year's opening quarterfinals, how we would have allocated strength the strength of field distribution based on performance relative to the actual competitive field this season. All right. That, and we'll advertise it for Friday show.

Oh, perfect. Okay. And what is Friday show? Well, it's the true strength of where I'm calling it is the true strength of field for the 2023 game season based on the competitive athletes that are actually competing this year and what they've already done.

Do you have Halpin booked for that already? He sent a text this morning acting like he didn't know what the fuck was going on. He's just verifying, yes. Okay, good. You're booked. Oh, good. I'm booked. Okay.

As I scroll through this list, the top five, Justin Medeiros, Roman Krennikoff, Patrick Vellner, Jeffrey Adler, Jason Hopper. That's the highest Hopper's been on this list ever? Up one spot from January just because of Ricky's removal. But I think that Jason Hopper is – I do think he has an outside chance to podium this year, but I think that he's definitely a very strong contender for a top five spot. North America just dominates the men's competition. We'll get to that more in detail on Friday, but yes, especially at the very top of the list, they are still the best.

And they have two competitive regions here, but even if you just categorize them as only North America, you see that they have seven of the top ten. Chandler Smith, number 15, how does he make it? A lot of people in the comments are always questioning whether he deserves to even be on this list, like in this top 25 here. Is it always a struggle for you? I mean, no. We've spoken about this before. I'm not

factoring in his performance at, um, Granite games last year. Clearly something was wrong with him. I've seen him compete a dozen times in person. I've never seen him look like that. The concern I think most people have is what's going on with his wrist, but I'm just like, and you know this, cause you've been around the sport forever. There's just some athletes that there's things that are wrong with them when they show up to a competition. And they still are incredible. I mean, how many times have we seen Sam Briggs just compete with a broken arm or a pulled groin or something like this? And she's still just like dominating the field and all the things you'd expect and doing well enough on the other things to have a high finish.

dominating the field and all the things you'd expect and doing well enough on the other things to have a high finish and Chandler Smith's I think I mean the fact that he did the quarterfinals with a broken wrist if that's really what was going on and he still did as well as he did I don't know I just feel like he's going to show up to semifinals and assuming that he's you know Chandler Smith that I've always seen he's going to be excellent and I do think you know that he has fallen short of what his potential is at the games and I'm hopeful for his sake that this year he can finally parlay his talent into you know what i think is is his potential which is a you know about 15th uh i want to do something a little uh a little risky here of all the people on youtube station for that wrong platform of of all the people on this list this top 25 here who do you think that there is a chance that oh shit they could show up and they

could be 10 places higher um than than you put them uh they could really surprise the group i'll give you two two of my thoughts uh dallin pepper and uh jay crouch that oh shit like you think down pepper could be second place overall yeah i think that like i don't i don't know what i don't yeah i think dallin could take second at the games like i think that like if he if those are the people i'd be like you know i want then next i'd maybe go with sam kwan like i not convinced. I don't know what Dallin's done in the offseason. I just see crazy potential in Dallin. So in Dallin and Jay Crouch, I see crazy potential.

And in Sam Quant, not only do I see potential, but the guy's a freak. So I guess we'll just start with Sam because he's seventh here. Yeah, I would say that the upper echelon of his potential would be fourth place. Okay. And that, you know, but he's has this like rollercoaster career. Some years, great. Some years, not so good. Sometimes it's stuff that's not necessarily related to his fitness. Like he had that, you know, he, he opened up about the fact that he had that illness that sometimes bothers him a couple years ago. But he's, yeah, he's an incredible athlete, extremely capable. I feel like this is a safe prediction, seventh place or so, where he can be three spots higher, three spots lower, but he's probably going to be in this mix.

Drop down to Dallin. You know, to me, Dallin Pepper is, this season is similar to Jason Hopper's second season. They both finished 19th at the games their first year, which was a disappointing finish. But I felt like they had a similar mindset coming out of their rookie season at the games, which is OK. I learned a lot that year and I don't think my placement is necessarily reflective of my fitness, but it was reflective of my performance. I'm moving Dall down up to 12th. I would say he can finish probably as high as seventh. I do not think he has a chance to make the podium this year. And just to put that in perspective, it is crazy that look at the people

you've put them above Yana Kosky, Saxon Panchik. I mean, if you ask me if he's better than Saxon, I'd say no way in hell. But so you've already you've already given him a lot of expectation. David, we laugh out loud. So I really don't know anything about CrossFit. Well, that's for sure. Corey Leonard, Dallin is still a baby too. His ceiling is ridiculous. Corey, you don't know shit about CrossFit. Okay, go on, Brian.

But coming into last year's CrossFit Games, I told you that I thought Dallin Pepper was, he's just, to me, he's got the intangible, the DNA of a top 10 athlete of a final heat athlete at the games. So whether it's this year or next year, I do think that down pepper has the lifestyle discipline, the mental love for the sport and the physical attributes of a guy who can very soon have consistent top 10 performances at the games, consistent top five performance at offsite offseason competitions like Rogue and Wadaplusa.

I do think that he's on that trajectory. It's very competitive at the top right now. Whether it's above or below him on this list, you still have veterans like Vellner and BKG and Fikowski and Chandler and Noah and Cole that are still competing and very good. But at some point, the tables are going to turn. It's not that far off when Vellner and BKG and Brent Fikowski Reneau and Cole that are still competing and very good. But at some point the tables are going to turn. Like it's not that far off when Vellner and BKG and Brent Fikasi will no longer be able to beat down,

down. Okay. And then finally entertain me, my boy, Jay Crouch, huge. I'm a huge fan. Young tons of potential just has built a new gym,

has a girlfriend. Who's also a fierce competitor. All the ingredients are there for Jay. And we've spoken to him and we've spoken to his coach Rob Forte on this show before, and I've spoken with them in person. And it's, it's this thing that Rich said a decade ago, you know, all of the guys that get to the game are physically incredible, but there's the, there's a mental component that's just as important, if not more important than the other one. And so I think for Jay this season, and it doesn't even matter at semifinals what he does, because he's been great at semifinals

the past two seasons, and he hasn't been able to bring that same confidence and excellence at the games that we've seen in semifinal competitions. Until he shows me that, I don't know if he'll ever do it. I'm hopeful. I do see the same potential as you there, but he hasn't shown me anything at the games yet that makes me think he's going to do any better than he's ever done. Fair. What about Spencer? Are you sure Spencer's going to the games this year? It's going to be close.

I mean, that North America – Spencer Panchik, by the way, people. Sorry, I don't mean to not say his last name. Spencer Panchik. Yeah, that North America East men Spencer Panchik, by the way, people. Sorry, I don't mean to not say his last name. Spencer Panchik. Yeah, that North America East men's field is going to be very, very volatile. There's going to be four guys that make the games and four guys that don't make the games, who I think the margins between them are paper thin.

And I think Spencer's in that group. It's a big group. We'll get to that week one. We'll do that show the week before that semi-final and you'll see my predictions he's um it might come down to the workouts he's i know that i know on my predictions he's either the last one in or the first one out right now i don't think um number 23 here tutor magda i don't think he's ever been on the show i think he's someone i've tried to get on the show like a dozen times i was trying to rattle my brain if i've ever

interviewed him i don't think i have do you remember him being on the show. I think he's someone I've tried to get on the show like a dozen times. I was trying to rattle my brain if I've ever interviewed him. I don't think I have. Do you remember him being on the show? I don't recollection of that. He's both him and Cole Greaseper. They're just, they're kind of soft-spoken guys. You know, I think that it would be nice to get them on a platform like this where they can open up a little bit. People can learn a little bit more about them, maybe have a little bit more buy-in in terms of supporting them. I think they're both a step behind Dallin Pepper, but I think that if they continue to grow a little bit over the next couple of years, that they can, two, three years from now, be contenders. Both of them can be contenders for top 10 at the games.

Mason Mitchell, Sebon still has not learned anything about proximity bias after the Tyson-Bajent debacle. Clock, Bajent debacle, I think he was just being supportive, insisting that Bajent would be drafted. I think, Clock, I appreciate it. I think Mason's more accurate in that assessment. The thing is this. He will still be a franchise quarterback. His numbers speak for himself.

it is what it is. We'll see what happens now that he's signed with the Chicago Bears. Go ahead. The athlete on this list that I think that I would have picked in response to your initial question is Sam Cornway. That could be potentially 10 spots higher than I have him here.

I'm going to say something I really don't want to say. I think Samuel Cornway could be 10 spots lower. He's just the biggest unknown. I'm really confused about him. Yeah. He's just the biggest unknown on this list. I think he has the mental capacity. I'm just not sure what's going on with him.

Yeah, and we'll find out. Like you said, in the past, we've seen some elite level stuff from this guy. He feels like he could be threatening for a top 10 position. But we've also seen some stuff that's... I don't know. And I think for him,

more so than some other people, the semifinals is an important competition for me to process what this guy is capable of because we didn't get to see him do it for some kind of ridiculous reasons, in my opinion. We didn't get to see him do any of the major offseason competitions this year. And I really would have liked to have seen that.

So just kind of putting him, like you said, kind of in a middle spot relative to his upper and lower barriers. Only three, four, only five guys on this list from Europe. In the top 25, yeah. Yeah. Just outside, I'm moving down 26 to 50. Are you cool with that? Yeah, and you'll see a lot more people from Europe

popping up on the list going down here. And basically what I'm saying is there's a lot of depth in the European men's field, but there's still not as many elite as there are from North America. Just to give you an idea of some of the people who are not on the list, obviously people know Ricky Garrard pulled out, Willie Georges, Travis Mayer, Scott Panchik, Aidan Brown, Matt DeLugos, Austin Spencer, Adrian Mundweiler, some guy named Brown.

I don't know who that is. Baden Brown. Baden Brown. Royce Dunn. What happened to Baden Brown? Is he done crossfitting? Is he done competing? He's not competing this season.

I don't know if he'll compete again going forward. He has like four or five kids or some crazy shit, right? I think so. I think he has some kids. Roy kids or some crazy shit right i think so i think he has some kids uh royce dunn luke de jong that's the tall guy with the giant fro we had on the show good dude what happened to him he had crazy still just still not still not healthy oh okay a giant man yeah it kind of feels like he's maybe never gonna be healthy enough to get back to that level but he's still pretty young so so you never know. Okay.

Luke, right at the top 26, Luka Djukic. Is Luka going to the games, Brian? I think he'll make the games this year, yeah. Okay. I really hope so. Is he getting better, or is he going to be one of those – does he have some holes that are just never going to be filled? It's just strength. And, you know, his brother was able to get strong enough

to have back-to-back top 10 performances. Luka's two years younger than his brother. And I think that he's on a similar trajectory. I don't know if he'll ever make the top 10 at the games, but I do think he's doing everything he can to shore up the weaknesses from the past and make sure that they're as, I don't want to say that they're like caught up necessarily with the rest of the field, but that he's good enough at those things to make sure that they don't cost

him. I think he also will have a few really, really strong performances, maybe even top three finishes in a couple events at the European semifinal. And that's why I think he'll get it. There'll be some guys that have similarly bad performances to him on one or two events, but they don't offset them with those elite performances, and those are the guys I think he beats. Number 29, Tyler Christofal. Didn't make it last year, right?

Just barely missed it? Yeah, basically by a couple steps. Rich Froning's training partner. Samuel Cornwye's training partner samuel cornwise training partner gee malheros his training partner can't make it to the games samson sam's in canada for the most part but they they train together occasionally he trains with rich almost every single day and i have what i saw from him when i was training in mayhem for those four days in january i think that he will will overcome this really, really honestly is like kind of sad and

frustrating last couple of years. And I think he will make the games and, you know, to the previous conversation about Spencer Pancik, Spencer ended up getting in ahead of Christoffel by a couple steps, basically on the last workout at the Mac last year. Um, I think Tyler will, I think Tyler punches for his games to get this season. Look at everyone, no one in 26 through 50 dropped either. Everyone moved up. We haven't seen a single person in the top 50 drop in rankings yet.

It's just because there's so many guys just removed from the list, but yeah, like I said, for most of these men, I already know who they are. And I'm not factoring in too highly what they do in the opening quarterfinals because I've seen too many people have amazing open quarterfinal performances and do nothing at semifinals.

And I've seen time and time again where some athletes just have mediocre relative to their potential online finishes and show up to semifinal, and they're the same guys that we always thought they were. Great point. Tyler Christofal, fit enough for Bailey. Fuck. That's better than winning the games, if you ask me. Just lift, bro.

Girls, lift, bro. Guy Malherro should just go into weightlifting. He would do better than in CrossFit, I believe. I mean, look, he's do better than in CrossFit, I believe. I mean, look, he's doing pretty well in CrossFit. I know that you look at that guy and you think, oh my God, if you gave any other athlete in the field

the gifts that he had, they'd win the games. Maybe. I don't know, but he's finished in the top 10 twice. That's pretty damn good. There is a new show at Mayhem. I do not like enjoying CrossFit media at all. I don't enjoy it. It doesn't interest me.

I don't know why. It just doesn't. But unless I'm having people on the show, then it does interest me. So, for example, like if I'm having – if I were to have Tudor Magda on the show, I'd go over to the Clydesdale Media and I'd watch a Tudor Magda podcast with Scott Schweitzer and Cat Shearer. Of course, then I'm totally into it. But the other day I saw suggested to me on YouTube this show. It's episode one of something to do with mayhem.

I forget what the title of it is. And Rory McKernan is the host. And it's like a 10- or 15-minute it's fucking good it's like good and actually when i was watching that show it made me realize how good the buttery bros are too because this show really moves have you seen that show with rory i watched about five minutes of it the other day yeah okay did you think it was good yeah i mean rory's good at that stuff and it moved the editing is great it's just like moving why did you only it was good? Yeah, I mean, Rory's good at that stuff. And it moved. The editing's great. It's just like moving. Why did you only make it five minutes? Makes me think you didn't like it.

I got a phone call. Oh, okay, fine. Here's the thing. In that show, I thought I heard Rory say that 10% of all the athletes going to semifinals are doing Mayhem Empire programming. Is that – have you heard that stat? I think that it is. It could be wrong set i think it was more i think he's talking about all semi-finals right games uh the elite the teams the masters and i think there is a really big contingency of competitive masters athletes in particular that follow the mayhem

program oh i want uh i saw this thing cornholio said about the nfl i want to say something about tyson bajan tyson bajan is a lifelong uh crossfitter i would say he's probably in the draft he's probably the only dude on there who has a three-minute fran so um sometimes i think it's weird that we don't get behind our own who do those – who utilize the lifestyle methodology that we're using. I mean he's in the family. He's not just some fucking ding-dong I had on the show. Anyway, Jesus sponsors mayhem. Is that true, Brian?

I'll check in during my prayer time this evening. You'll need two sources. You prayer time this evening and ask you, you'll need two sources. You need to ask rich and, uh, Jesus. Oh, so where are you going to say something about the mayhem? It's still impressive.

Regardless, it's more about agent to being like, you know, you think about other, like there's this professional golfer, Scott Stallings, right? Amazing.

Yep. He's doing, he's doing CrossFit as part of his training, like regularly. And you see, you see him and he's working out with the noble guys the nobles promoting him i haven't really seen any anything from crossfit about him you know and not only that he was a schlep he was kind of a tub and no they still it's it's i was his body transformation is crazy scott stallings yeah i was joking with o'eefe during the Masters because he was doing quite well. He made the cut, and I looked at the picture they have of him,

and it's like it's not up-to-date at all. It's way outdated, and you can kind of see that in just even the way his face is set there. I'm like, come on, O'Keefe. Get him to update this picture. Jessica Valenzuela, no need to explain stuff on He Seems Like a Good Kid, and for you to have him on makes him more like, oh, yeah, yeah, yeah.

I don't mean to. I'm not justifyingifying i'd have him on any fucking time he wants i fucking love him great kid uh thank you jessica uh scott uh jack uh number at number 48 jack emma lawson farlow i really want to see jack at the games. Any chance of that? Well, let's just see. So far, 1, 2, 3, 4, 5, 6, 7, 8, 9. I like him. Do you like him? He's cool. I had 9 men from North America in the top 25.

10, 11, 12, 13, 14, 15, 16. He's 17th, and then Boulanger is 18th out of North American men on my list. So that's 18 in the top 50 from that one competitive region. They don't get 18 spots to the games. So you're saying it's not good? I'm saying it's a very difficult path.

Yeah. Okay. I want to revisit that. But like other people, he has tremendous potential too, right? He's kind of in that Dallin Pepper camp. Like, oh shit, we have no idea what could happen to him. I don't know if he's in a Dallin Pepper camp. Dallin is...

Doesn't Jack Farlow have extraordinary strength? Extraordinary. Like Griffin Raleigh type shit. Yeah, I mean, Jack's strength numbers are insane. have extraordinary strength extraordinary yeah griffin raleigh type shit yeah i mean jack's strength numbers are insane but we have seen people with insane strength numbers kind of plateau griffin might be an example anthony davis you know there's these some of these guys that are incredibly strong they they may have potential to win some events but their conditioning capacity is just not not good enough make, take some hits there.

Their gymnastics density or volume might not be good enough. So they have many middling finishes there. And as a result of it, they're just always a couple of spots out. Uh, Mike, the pool boy. I asked Jack Farlow to do water Palooza with me one year.

And he said that I sucked and wasn't good enough. Made me love him so much more. God, that's real man shit right there. You're a good dude, pool boy. Shopping cart. Oh, hello. Welcome.

I'm glad that no one put you away. Farlo will never be at Dallin's level. I don't know, man. Someone eventually put her away. It was just whoever was being paid to do it. Yeah, right. Thank you. Thank you.

I know. I know your position on that. Thank you. Heidi had a comment in here. being paid to do it yeah right thank you thank you i know i know your position on that thank you uh heidi had a comment in here imagine if seven called a woman a tub did i call someone a tub like a tub did i call someone a tub of shit i think you might um extra sloppy we we have like five people i thought you had to put that like in there huh i like that it's nice we have uh like we have uh like five people that do mayhem one person on hwpo and i do comp train mostly uh because we use comp train affiliate

programming all right it's quite the um it's quite the uh mashup uh christine young when is part two of brian's life he well he's living it right now as soon as he's done living it we will do it uh brian uh who's this guy jelly uh hosta and is he related to um isn't there a girl uh kristin hosta who's the girl she got pregnant kristin who Kristen Holta? Oh, is that a typo in 47 jelly host? No. Yeah. From Belgium. Yeah. Uh,

he was, um, similar to Manu Nangonese last year, prevented from being able to compete in the semifinals because he failed to submit all of his videos prior to the submission deadline during quarter finals. Uh, I was probably higher on him last year than I am this year,

but I still am excited to see him compete in the European semifinal. The European semifinal will be very difficult to qualify through, but I think he has it's very likely that he'll be in the second heat, 11-20 in Europe. Is this real? Get 25 cents

for returning shopping carts at Aldis? Is Aldis the name of Aldis? I thinkis the name of a... Aldi's. Aldi's? I think there should be an apostrophe after the I, but I don't know. Have you heard of that brand? Is that like a Safeway or like a Whole Foods? Aldi's, yeah, yeah. It's a supermarket chain.

Wow. Oh, yeah, he did used to be a tub of shit. You're right. I probably did say that about Scott. Yeah, he used to be a tub of shit. You're right. I probably did say that about Scott. Yeah, he used to be a tub of shit. Now he looks like the Hulk. He turned into a beautiful man. Number 38, Fabian Benito. Flash in the pan or the real deal?

One just good season, happened to have a couple good events, a couple good showings. Did he really win Dubai? Does he go to the games? All great questions. You know, the thing for me, he was, you know, he's been great this year. He's had great online performances. You know, whatever the circumstances were, he stood atop the podium in Dubai.

Even if maybe there were some events that he got away with some stuff, he still had a great, really solid performance relative to that field. It wasn't the best or deepest field in Dubai that we've ever seen. But last year at semifinals, he was at the Lowlands Throwdown and he just completely bombed event one, last place, dead last in the field. And he fought his way all the way back up to eighth with good performances on the remaining workouts. I don't think he's going to bomb any workouts like that this year. Obviously, the European semifinals twice as big,

so eighth place correlates to 15th or 16th. I think that he's going to be in the 8th to 12 range and have a pretty good chance to make the games. I'm looking for – oh, there he is. Okay. Okay, so Fabian Benito, you're a fan. Trains with Enola Akai. Enola Akai, yeah. Anil, Anil.

Not anal, Anil. Here we go. This guy is Enrico Zanoni. Maybe, I'm trying to think. I think he had the nicest body of currently of all CrossFitters. Got a little pool boy body going. What an incredible physique. I know it's hard

to tell in these pictures, but next to the other guys, he looked too petite. I know that's bizarre saying that looking at this physique. He was really narrow in the waist. He looks like he's gotten thicker. Kind of the opposite of Nick Matthews. You were saying he has a ridiculous core.

This guy – is this guy going to the games, Zanoni? I mean, you don't think that's a good core? I know. He's fucking up my whole story. I just – I mean, look at him. Look at his size relative to – Fucking freak, dude. Look at his size relative to Noah Olsen there.

I know. You mean here? Right there. The one where he his size relative to Noah Olsen there. I know. You mean here? Right there. The one where he's standing next to Noah Olsen. Yeah, I need to see them with their shirt off. I mean, Noah's core is ridiculous. I just remember him looking really petite out there, more like a model than a CrossFitter.

But, I mean, none of these pictures look like that. In Amsterdam last year, he came out of nowhere. And I had to track down, which was the country director for CrossFit was at the Lowlands Road on last year from Italy. And so I was able to learn about Enrico as the weekend went on from him. But it came to the last event. It was bar muscle-ups, echo bike, overhead squat chipper with 10 overhead squats at 225 as the last movement.

And there were a bunch of guys that were in contention to make the games. Luka Djukic, Adrian Monviolet, Uldis Upenex, Enrico Zanoni, Moritz Fiebig. And I thought to myself, exactly what you just said. I'm like, I know this guy's been great all year, but come on. He's come basically out of nowhere. Those last 10 squats at 225 pounds are going to be an issue for him, and I think he's going to fall out of contention. That wasn't the case.

He crushed those squats, and he moved on, and he did pretty well for a rookie at the Games last season. Dude, I don't know what I was thinking. His Instagram, he looks like a fucking brick shithouse. No tub here, Heidi. My God, this guy is nuts nuts my overall assessment is i don't think it was a mistake what we saw from him last year and i also don't think that guarantees that he makes it back this year i've never been in a picture like that ever oh my life sucks

this is incredible okay yeah i don't know why i thought he was so i i just remember seeing did you ever think he was petite or i'm just out of my mind like um david we'd said any of the stories that i just told i i did i did but that was yours wasn't i was judging him based on his physique when i was saying that going into that last event i thought i don't know about like but i thought it was just because you didn't know who he was. I thought it was just because you didn't know who I was. Well, I thought that the smaller physique might not handle those 10 overhead squats at 225 very well. But his shoulder stability was phenomenal.

His core integrity was good enough. His leg strength was good enough. He did them, and he punched. I mean, while everyone else around him was falling apart moritz had already blitzed the event won the event and climbed four spots and made it to the games luka jukic struggled munn weiler struggled up and nick struggled zanoni did not and he waltzed right past him all straight into the crossfit games and and munn weiler's strongest shit right i mean he's strong he's experienced but monviler i think you know his

body is a little bit broken down from years and years of competing and at the end of that weekend he just didn't have he just didn't have it well i i this is uh that's me on the left um with my hot hand closest to the guy doing the pull-ups crotch, by the way. And that in the middle there, that is Andrew Hiller. Scott Stallings before a crossfit? No, that's Andrew Hiller before California Hormones. I can tell by the shorts how tight those shorts are. All right, so Zanoni, I think, so you think he's going?

I don't think it's a guarantee, but we'll – European semifinals the last week. Back to the BeFriendlyFitness.com website. It's B, the letter B, then the word friendly, and then fitness.com. Here you can find all of Brian's articles. How often will you be publishing, Brian? Should people check daily? Of course they should, Sevan. That's a stupid question.

No, I mean, it depends on the time of year. I don't want to make promises that we can't keep up with. Historically, you know, I've always communicated with my employers that I put out content when I feel that there's relevant content to be put out. In the case of semififinals like this month, you can expect a lot from us leading up to the games. You can expect a lot from us. I do want to be a little bit more active going forward in terms of off season

competitions, having, you know, not, not just the big ones, but getting some more touches on those. I want to be a little bit more active with some of the age group content as well.

So, you know, will you be doing any editorial stuff where as well. So, you know. Will you be doing any editorial stuff where you're just like, you know, critiquing things? Like talk about how great the capital event is or how fucked up the leaderboards are or how great the layout at the games is, stuff like that.

Your thoughts, like editorial stuff? Yeah, yeah, for sure. I want to, you know, I, I've been, Travis vindicate made this kind of thing. It was a five minutes with friend on the back end of you regularly saying, Oh, Brian's here for five minutes or five minutes with Brian. Right. So we have a logo that we might use for that. And just, it would be like, you know, probably not even five minutes,

but just like condensed versions of my thoughts on, you know, topics that are timely. Yeah. I intend to do some stuff like that. Awesome. Seema, Brian spouting off all those names makes me, I think she used the wrong emoji. But the nice thing about emojis is that they mean they can mean different things to different people right right uh vindicate get your ceo shirts now at vndk8.com five minutes with friend must see the light of day i've heard that two minutes with friend has seen um uh the light of day. Okay. Good attempt there. James Sprague out of the Noble camp?

No. Strong Fit camp? No, don't tell me. Brute Strength camp where Daniel Brandon is and Dallin Pepper and Emma Carey and Fisa Goffey. Fuck, I'm good. And with head coach Matt Flores. Thank you, Seema. There we go.

What did I say? Flores. Yeah, they don't care. Those people don't care. Those people. That's kind of like calling him Matt Flower instead of Matt Bull. Or Matt Flower versus Matt Poppy. It's just all in the same genre mexican mexican uh matt matt torres um why why 39 for for jamie boy another guy with insane potential i mean literally we're watching his we're watching him go through fucking puberty, late puberty.

Yeah, I mean, James is amazing. I think that this is a very fair ranking for him. Remember that— I don't. I don't think it's fair. What do you mean? I mean, you got him below fucking Will Morad. Okay. Well, Will Morad beat him last year at semifinals and has made the game several times, and this guy—

Fuck, I shouldn't have chosen Will. All you want to say about Will— You can say anything you want about Will Moran beat him last year at semifinals and has made the game several times. And this guy shouldn't have chosen all you want to say. You can say anything you want about Will Moran. He is this guy that he outperforms what you'd believe he can do throughout the history of his career. I agree. You have to give him credit for that. OK, James Sprague going to the games. He's in that North America East. It's going to be really, really tight. If I were betting, I would bet on James to make the games,

but it's going to be, I mean, over Jack Farlow, over Jack Farlow. Yes. But there's, I don't think those are the, I don't think Jack's in a specific narrow group of men that James is going

to have to beat out to get it. I think Jack's just slightly behind those ones still. So you think James is going to be at the cut line? Yeah. And he's going to be at the cut line? Yeah. And he's going to be warring with dudes up until the finals. Basically, you know, it's going to be great. I can't. I'm very excited.

I want to wait till the workouts come out before we actually do predictions for the semifinals. But week one, it's only North America, East and Africa. We'll do a preview prediction show for that. And you'll see that there's this group of basically seven guys in north america east that like four of them are going to get in and three of them are not and james is one of those seven guys uh jay hartle sprague should just move to africa that's not good enough there's other there's other uh criteria you have to meet

really he can't just move there and stay there for a year ellie turner oh okay fair enough yeah crazy uh do you care if i go down go down the list brian are you fine with me going to the next 25 yeah we get down here to anyone that you want there's like three guys i know nothing about if you happen to pick one of them, then good for you. I win the prize. Keelan Henry going to the games this year out of Africa. There are some other men in Africa that have a chance, but I think Keelan's the guy to beat.

He's the only person in the top 100. There are three men from Africa that I included in the next 25 that I'm looking at. Darren Zernemer, Ruan Portguer, and Jason Smith. Those are the guys I think could potentially unseat him, but I think he's a favorite in Africa, yes. This is a really fucking intense comment I'm going to pull up. Shopping cart. Poor James Sprague.

He will be the male Allison scud's demo team for life that is that is not um that is we gotta put this guy on time out for five minutes right that is completely inappropriate get a wrench on him i don't agree with that that's completely inappropriate right no i mean james james is too young to be saying that already. Unless this is a shopping cart, this isn't Nostradamus. Yeah, I mean, we'll see, but I don't think that's right. Yeah. James says, Allison Scudds was a little late to the game, right? And she's not working with a lot, and she did incredible.

She's fucking amazing. But James Spragues is early to the game and is working with a ton right i think it's very well said thank you okay uh and our boy uh reality show superstar luke parker congratulations luke it looked like you're getting married uh worldwide rankings 1503 but not on brian friend. He is number, uh, 71. It's just, it's literally just to the left of his name. I think,

Oh 58. Oh, there we go. Oh, what's this 71 here then? That's what he was. I moved up 13 spots, basically 13 men that were up ahead of him on the list,

dropped off the list. Just like most of these guys. This is what I'll say about Luke Parker. For me, this is his last chance. This is his last chance to prove to me that he's actually competitive to make it to the games in this competitive field as an individual. We saw that he could have success with the team last year. The guy's incredibly fit. He's an incredible hard worker. He's got great things going on in his life. I got to spend some time

with him in Cookville. Amazing guy. He's a good friend. He went up and trained with Sam Cornway for a couple of a week or two earlier this off or maybe a month ago. Um, I have nothing but positive things to say about him, but in terms of competition, he has not proven to me yet that he's as good as I think he can be. And if he doesn't, if he does that once again, at semifinals, he'll fall way down this list and maybe never be on it again. Do you think he's going to the game games? No, I don't think he can make the games.

I I'm basically looking for him to have a top 20 finish. Number 67. Man, he's been on the show a few times. Scott Tetlow, a star of fit wars versus Colton Mertens. Scott's going to win an event at semifinals? He has a chance to, but with the top,

with the lineup that's competing out there, it'd have to be a really specific event. And you're not seeing him go to the CrossFit Games? The thing, I mean, I don't want to say it's entirely out of the realm of possibility. I think he is in a group of guys who, if the perfect weekend lines up, he can make it. But when we get to North America West and we look at who I have slated

to get into those top nine spots, I feel like there's a big drop-off after that and that if anyone that's not in that list wants to do it, they're going to have to have the best weekend of their life. and that if anyone that's not in that list wants to do it, they're going to have to have the best week in their life. You are looking at Brian Friend and Seval Matosian as they go through the worldwide rankings for CrossFit men worldwide. The very best guy, Justin Medeiros, at number one, all the way down to number 100.

We are currently looking at the spots from 51 to 75. It is in this section that we see unranked guys from last year show up for the first time. These men were not on the list in, I think it was January, when Brian Friend from Be Friendly Fitness last updated the rankings. At number 72, recently on the show uh awesome uh guy great interview uh can you paint the whole james newberry picture from when he showed up on the scene in crossfit to why it's likely that he's going to make the games this year and he's he's he's a just a fucking guy who takes classes at the affiliate yeah bailey we will do the women tomorrow um we're saving the best for last and i'm not just joking the women are going to be it's going to be fire well we have the teams on

thursday teens we're doing teens too teams teams okay are those the best oh yeah second no no masters is best because it's wherever rich Froning is that's best. James Newberry is, to me, he is an anomaly. I mean, this guy, forget the fact that he's never going to win the CrossFit Games. His fitness and his ability to overcome challenges or prepare for these incredible feats of physical execution and performance is insane. He's a guy that I honestly cannot comprehend how well and good he can do so many different things. And as far as I know, he's spent most of his competitive career as a vegan, which to me makes that even more impressive because I think

that a majority of the athletes that are flourishing in this sport eat a lot of meat. And it's kind of feels like he should be done. He's been doing it for a long time. He hasn't been investing in the same level of commitment to volume of training that most of these guys are. But I think that he does have a big enough foundation that when he wants to, he can buckle down for a couple months and just kick it back into the next gear and be in that realm of competitive. And in the Oceanic semifinal this year, I do think he has a chance to make the CrossFit Games.

And I didn't I didn't ever think I'd be saying that. But Ricky Gerrard's out. Royce Dunn is out. Aiden Brown is out. And suddenly there's spots available. And there's these young guys that certainly could keep him out. But I think it's just as likely guys that certainly could keep them out but i think it's just as likely that james keeps one of them out hey um you know he when he i don't know if you saw the interview i did with him but he's concerned he's gonna make it to the games he he he hasn't allocated his life is not right he's designed his life you know his year to not go

to the game well it's not that that's kind of a exaggeration it's not that he's designed his life, you know, his year to not go to the game. That's kind of an exaggeration. It's not that he's designed it not to go to the games. He just has other plans. And there is a chance he's going to make it, and it's going to fucking derail his shit. And it's going to cost him fucking $20,000. Right? Yeah, and I mean, of course, there's always the possibility

of turning down your invitation. You don't have to compete in the semifinals, but I think this guy just likes competing. And regardless of what he said, I think he's going to show up because this is how he is, and he's going to give it his best, and he's going to be in the top five. And if he's in the top three, he'll get invited to the games, and we'll see what he chooses to do. So you think he's going? and we'll see what he chooses to do. So you think he's going?

I think unless he gets injured, he'll finish in the top five in the Oceania region. Three of the top five make it to the game. Okay. Shopping cart, I bet James destroys the porcelain. Fair enough. Comporter is hurt yeah that's another guy who's out in that

competitive region so there's a lot of opportunity there and actually will be really fun there in week two week two is going to be a fun week but Oceanic Men in particular we're going to get some new blood this year I like Sarah I like you I apologize for what I'm about to do to you that is completely

unfair uh james goes by default uh because so many are out that that's too harsh right it's not by default i mean what i don't think is fair to say is that some of the top contenders are not competing and actually a decent number of them are not competing so there are men that will make it at least one man from oceania will make it that i would not have made i mean ricky was definitely going to take one of those spots uh coffee pods and wads if james newberry doesn't qualify i bet him and con come out of the closet and get married oh that's fucking a bold prediction wow but but i see it okay uh this guy by the way i just want to say i don't mean to um uh stroke my own stroke myself but you should watch that podcast with him because anyone who's like life isn't going the way

they want it to uh especially if you don't have kids this is a guy who's extremely extremely focused he is like he's he has his life uh set up for success. He's a minimalist who stays incredibly focused and busy on, uh, what he wants to happen. He's one of those guys that says that line. Um, if it's not moved, I don't do things that basically aren't helping me move my goals, achieve my goals. And I, and I think he not only, I think he walks that walk and that's a, that's pretty impressive, right? From everything he sticks into his mouth to how he sleeps to who he talks to. If it's not forwarding his goals, he doesn't do it. And I enjoyed his presence.

Okay. Anyone else? No one else? Another kind of anomaly about James Newberry, I think that's the word you used to describe him, Brian, is that he's the only one in the unranked that has a chance of going to the games. Is that correct? Not necessarily.

Oh, come on. Oh, come on. What? We're going to get to the next part of the list. Okay, let's do it. Phillip Muscarella, I'm sorry, we don't have time for you, or Louis Oscar Moore. You guys all deserve time geez john wood yeah i mean look you know victor hoffer obviously is you know

a big story right now a young guy coming up that we'll get to see at semifinals and see if he can parlay great online performances into the high level live performance that's needed david shrunk is throwing his name his name into the again. He's been on the fringe of making it to the games. In 2020, he did make the games via a different format. Anthony Davis may be one of the strongest guys who's still got mad,

insane pull-up ability. Yeah, he's going to be in that same category with Scott Tetlow of the guys who need to have the weekend of their life to get in. I know Anthony has been working on the things that he category with Scott Tetlow of the guys who need to have the weekend of their life to get in. And, you know, I know Anthony has been working on the things that he struggles with relative to his competitors. I don't think I don't think he'll have closed the gap enough to make it to the games, but I do think that he's improved in those areas much the same way that Colton has. I think that

we'll see the best form of Anthony Davis this year. You do? I do. You do think that? God, it would be awesome if he went to the games. But here's the thing. The best form of some of these guys is still not going to be good enough to make the games. Right. It's a really hard thing to do. Okay. Headed down to the shit pile, 76 through 100.

There's another 25 after this, by way excuse me oh don't you know i do i do a podcast every morning podcast um yeah i do a podcast uh every every morning from 7 to 9. Okay. Dipshit. That person calls me every morning. And I type back podcasts every morning. It's like, damn, give it. A lot of familiar names. Nate Ackerman, Marquand Jones, Logan Ewing, Victor Lundahl. Victor

Lundahl Will Kearney not related to the other Kearney Marlo no wow we have a Jack Marlo we have a Jack Farlow and a Jacob Marlo Arthur

Semenov a lot of names on here. Still no one went. So on your entire list, no one went down. Not a single person. No, but if you scroll up here to the top of this section, you'll see that Arthur Seminoff went up 19 Kaikei Cervini only went up seven. But because there's so many men dropped off the list,

there's not everyone just moving up, even if they don't move up at the same margins. Anthony, TPA, $2, Brian Friendly, fitness is greater than morning chocolate. Do you know how big Brian's head will get if too many people say that? Please keep that. Let's let that out very slowly. Heidi Kroom, this is actually getting me excited, Brian, for this season. Love to hear it.

Shopping cart. Is Ackerman the 12-year-old that hangs with DBE? Yeah, Nate Ackerman, he actually grew up really close to where I live. His mom's still competing over here. His younger brother's actually competing now. But he moved down to Florida last year. Coach Dom is the coach that he primarily trains with, but it's the same training camp as Danielle, Emma,

Dallin, James, Fee. And so you'll see him, you know, sometimes doing workouts with them or in pictures with them or whatever. Is Nate going teen or is he now out of the teen category? No, he won the teen division, I think two years ago now. And I actually spoke with him last year. I was going to, I was going to pick him as a young gun to watch last season.

Well, I was thinking about it and he, I thought much to his credit said, nah, not this year. I'll need a one or two more years to be even be able to make the semifinals. He was right. One year later, he made the semifinals. I think he'll be like 20 to 30 probably in semifinals this year in the most competitive North America East division, which will be pretty good. Get some experience there and put him on a trajectory to potentially fight for a game spot in one of the next two years.

Logan Ewing is the great Roman Krennikoff's, uh, training partner. Yeah. And I mean, this is going to be Logan's performance at semifinals will be a good kind of, uh, testament to how good someone can get if they train with one of the best in the world every day. So we'll find out how much that training has paid off when it comes to competition, because I think that one thing that he's definitely proven is resiliency, his ability to, you know, show up to the gym and do the, do the stuff that's required of the top athletes in this sport day after day after day. But that doesn't necessarily guarantee that you're going to have the wherewithal, the mindset, the competitive edge that's needed at a semifinal to execute at the same level as that guy,

who we know is world-class at those things. Be honest with me here. Do you rank the first 75 and then the last 25, you just fill in the names anywhere you want? Does it really matter that Arthur Semenov and Daniel Cook? Wow. That's really that. Oh, Kus.

Oh, that's much better. Daniel Kus. Do you actually put these guys in order, or do you just be like, hey, you're just getting what you just. Might as well just put them in alphabetical order. Maybe 10 minutes before we got on the show, I was talking to JR, and he's like, I can't wait for Savan to try to pronounce the guy in 100th place last name uh uh what about what i

mean do you that's a good question do you really give these guys any love like i mean you have shit to do like dishes to wash and like uh well no i was kind of joking about the there's three guys on the list i don't know anything about when i go on these shows like i know that there's a possibility you'll ask me about any guy on the list and so i want to have some some amount of information to share about anyone that you pick out but there's less information less data points less experience and live competition for guys in this portion of the list. So I would say overall, I'm less confident in my rankings of these guys relative to each other than the guys at the top, but not because I haven't given thought to it just because there's less known about most of them.

Okay. Fair enough. Good answer. Like, like this guy, this guy's number 92. This is the 92nd fittest man in the world, people. And his name is Brian, huh? I mean, look at this dude. What's his last name? I think it's pronounced Win. Win. Yeah. Who the fuck is this?

What country is this? CrossFit Francos. CrossFit Francos is in Texas. They have a pretty good team that's competing this guy's american he got james cobart skin this guy looks for a ghetto it's true that's true oh that hurt i see what you did there look at this guy though this guy him and his chick like european as fuck like the, it doesn't look like they're in Greece or something. How many countries around the world do you think you could walk around in?

And if you never said anything, they'd be like, oh, he might be from this country. Like, you could fit in in other places. Oh, right. Oh, right. Okay. Right. Okay. Good point.

Yeah, this guy definitely looks like he could fit in anywhere. I have a friend like that. Like, you know, we were in Italy, in Italy, and they thought he was Italian. They were in Greece. They thought he was Greek. He was in Morocco, and they were like, he could be from Morocco. He just got that Mediterranean feel to him. You just never know.

Brian Wendell. And this guy has that Hobart skin, too. You're not even sure what you're looking at. Actually, I'm super impressed by this, by Brian. When you see him, there's a few guys on this list. John Wood is another one. When you see them, you're like, there's no way this guy should be competing against these guys.

But he goes out there and he does it. He's pretty good. I feel like he has – You mean because he looks so young and just like he's not just a monster? I mean he's got an incredible physique. Incredible physique, yeah. But maybe not the same muscle mass, maybe not same size or definition or whatever but i would say that similarly to a nick matthew and a jeff adler just not at the same level that he's a guy that i think has put in the work over time to be able to maximize his potential in the sport and everyone's potential

in the sport is different look is that tetlow in the middle there? Yeah. Who's that giant red-headed guy to the right of Tetlo? I thought it might be Drew Wayman, but I don't think so. Yeah, that's a good point about Adler, right? Although Adler does look like an action figure, he's no fucking Nick Urencar. It's interesting.

Yeah, Adler's... All right. Yes, Hobart skin you know just it's like he's got some he's made out of porcelain or something do you think Artemis used the correct emojis let me see Hobart skin good question I'll tell you offline

is this guy American Good question. I'll tell you offline. Is this guy American? Savon loves to be facetious. No, I honestly thought this guy was a foreigner. I mean, look at his name, Brian, huh? But you're right. This is a melting pot. This is the first democracy on the history of the planet. Pretty crazy, right? Planet Earth.

The rock that we're on. I want it to be done at 90 minutes. We have now eclipsed that. Brian gave me a gentle scolding the other day about our two-hour – his scolding is a little harsh – redirection about our two-hour or three-hour Frisbee shows. I was like, oh, I'll teach him. I'm going to make his ranking show 45 minutes.

Fuck this dude. Oh, he snatches 295 like butter. Really? That guy does that? Huh? Brian, huh? He moves – I mean, he moves great, I'm telling you. It's just that he's going to be...

More Hobart shit, like Hobart. Hobart moves great. Yeah, and it's like I said, I feel like he has made the most out of his career. He's been as good as he could be by moving well, by having good integrity, good training discipline, whatever. But he's probably going to be 20th to 30th

at the semifinal that he competes in this year, and so he won't get a ton of screen time or notoriety. The giant redhead in the picture with Brian, huh? Is Sam true? He's on Franco's other semifinal team. That's a tough last name to have. We are now looking at the guys who did not make the list, but are worth or noteworthy.

These guys are fighting to get on that top 100 best male CrossFitters alive today. The only name on here that I recognize is... I like what's at the top. Well, I've heard this name before, Harry Lightfoot. Harry Lightfoot has had a really good online season. I got to see him do it at the semifinals. I mean, to me, he's kind of like Reggie Fossa and Simon Montilla were a couple years ago, where online, amazing, but then the different things that are tested in a semifinal format,

they weren't able to replicate or match those performances. And the men who typically do great in live competition, who weren't necessarily as dialed in for the quarterfinals passed him by so harry is a big dude he's very strong he's got some competition experience he had a great start to the season i'm watching him for sure but just outside the list for now oh when you say big you mean like 200 he's a 200 pounder yeah i think so you say big you mean like 200 he's a 200 pounder yeah i think so uh the one good thing about harry is it says amy kringle follows him so that's that's always um and brian frank ross i did see that uh that's um who who do you decide or is yourly account going to follow people? BeFriendly Fitness?

Different. Adam McAdams, I don't know him. Is this an Asian dude? I mean, he lives in America, but yeah, he's got Asian features. Anthony Yim? What's his deal? How come there aren't any asians in the games how come there's no like japanese dudes or how come how come we don't have asians in the games sung young choi oh okay that's on the that's on the women's side the men haven't

been good enough to qualify yet and and she's injured she's out this year so i think that likely to we'll talk about it tomorrow likely to to get Dawon Jung into the games this year. Oh, and you follow this guy too, Anthony Yim. Yeah, Anthony Yim. Dajuan Wong is going to the games, an Asian female. You didn't think I heard that, huh? You thought you were just going to slip? I think so.

But we'll talk about the women more in depth tomorrow. Anthony Yim has come onto my radar this season. Someone on Instagram introduced me to him, mentioned that he had had some good online performances, doing fairly comparable to guys like Phillip Muscarella, who's obviously higher on the list. He's a little older. I think he's 28, but he's working

his ass off. He's got some pretty impressive skill sets. I think he can move a little bit better still on certain things. This will be a big competition for him at semifinals. I think he's going to probably learn a lot. I think we maybe see one really good performance from him and a few

things where he maybe has some execution errors and doesn't necessarily get to show off everything that he can do. I think he'll probably get better over the next year or two, but his window of making it from where he is to where he would need to get is small considering his age. Sorry, what country again? North America.

So he is going to semifinals, you said? Yeah. West or east? West. Cool count. Hey, I don't think this picture deserves to be pinned. I don't think this is a good pose for him. I like the lat, but other than that,

it's too demure with his hands in like that. Unless he was like, hey, I just just did three thousand uh i don't know what something that he's showing that his forearms are sore what do you think about this picture i like put this one on the cover i don't like this uh portrayal of a man do you have any feelings about it i did not now that you mentioned it yeah i think it's a little bit kind of defeated looking. Yeah, thank you. Okay. A fantastic list. Any stones? I know there's some stones that were uncovered, Brian.

Is there anything else that is mandatory before we sign off here and start prepping for tomorrow's show with the big show with the women? No, I'm hopeful that, like Heidi said, that maybe just getting introduced to some of these names, realizing how competitive some of these regions are can make people get excited for the semifinals that are coming up. If you have the chance to go to some of them,

I think that, I kind of think differently than you on this. I think the semifinals this year are going to be incredibly exciting and incredibly competitive. No, I do too. I think they're going to be amazing. Did I say something that makes it seem otherwise just that you don't necessarily like the 60 men in a field and you're gonna we're gonna see like you know certain people competing against each other and have already kind of know what's going to happen oh right okay those types of sentiments i don't

think that that's necessarily the case i think that it's i think that what's what's really likely to happen it's very look it's i'll be working for the broadcast at both North America semifinals and in Europe, but it's just really difficult to make sure that we get the coverage that every athlete is really deserving. I mean, making it to one of these things is so difficult. I want to acknowledge that I want to recognize every single athlete who's made it there. I would do my best to have that influence on the broadcast and the role that I'm in. But, you know, likely it's going to be really focused on the top 10 to 15 at those big ones

and the top five to eight at this, at the smaller ones with some, you know, a dozen other athletes who get some notoriety because of an incredible performance that they have in one particular or two particular events. That's just how it is. Um, but I do, I hope that at least this can acknowledge some of the athletes that might not get much screen time in semifinals, that there are people out here like me that are paying attention to know how hard you guys are working. And that are excited to see what you can do. Because as I mentioned in the article,

there are a few athletes at every part of this list that will do something, especially in the bottom half, that will surprise us, there's always someone that pops up. There's always someone that outperforms what, what we thought was possible. And it's exciting to, to, um, to me that some people get some exposure to their names here so that when that does happen to say, Oh yeah, I remember Brian talking about that guy. Uh, poor hunter three are Brian is worth his weight in gold. So much insight. Thank you i uh second that sentiments jessica valenzuela very astute observation the new power rankings for the women are going to be extraordinary and fun now that we are going to crown a new champ yeah that

what very well said we are going to crown a new champ this year it's going to be fun um uh even though we all know who it is already. Brian, Chelsea Miller with a question. Brian, do you find it harder to predict for penis or vagina? Well, it depends how tight the pants are. Right, fair enough. Great, great, straight observation. I would say, man, that's a tough question. I don't know.

I think in general, the men, just because I do think that there are deeper fields and there's more men that are trying, like really trying, to make a great splash in the field, in the competitive field, so you're more likely to see that outlier kind of come out of nowhere. But in terms of the athletes that are really competing for game spots, I feel like I have a pretty good pulse on both. Christine Young, I wish I could go to the West, but it's Fitness Freedom at the Ranch that weekend.

I will also be in attendance at the Fitness Freedom at the Ranch in Aromas, California. Oh, shit, that's going to be hard. By the way, I suspect it's looking very very very good that uh first of all we'll cover the semi-finals but the second thing is is um and usually when we cover them we wait till the um events are done but i suspect that bill grundler and myself and a variety of other people will be having a simulcast so you can listen to us commentate the event as opposed to the people who normally do it at the event, the people Brian will be helping. So there's that.

Difficult. Ten Light, thank you, Brian. The broadcast is usually biased, meaning that you bring an openness to it that isn't usually here, Brian. And thank you. That's what Difficult is saying. He's full of shit.

I think he's talking about the games broadcast. Oh, oh, oh. We know that this is biased. Oh, okay. I apologize, Difficult. I apologize. Okay. Dan Guerrero, Brian, you're a great dude.

Shame this sport is so small and led by clowns. But thank you. Okay, here we go. You were correct. The broadcast needs to give shine to the lesser known that are actually doing well in the event. I don't know about that. Do you agree with that? Fuck the lesser known.

It's like in the NBA, they don't talk about the people sitting on the bench, do they? Not. I mean, when they get in the game, they will. And those guys are all in the game. But it's tough. Like how many, you know, we don't actually know the schedule for semifinals yet. Are they going to have

six heats at 10 for men, six heats at 10 for women, four heats at 10 for the teams at the North America? And are they going to have six heats of 10 for men, six heats of 10 for women, four heats of 10 for the teams at the North America? And are they going to have three events in a day? So that's 18 heats of men. Are you going to have Sean Woodland, who's doing the color commentary for both the men, the women, and the teams, do 18 heats of men, 18 heats of women, and 12 heats of team in one day? That's not very reasonable to expect a person to be able to do that.

Do they have a backup crew that can do some of the early heats? That might be a good option. Are they not going to broadcast all the heats? So I don't know. Are they going to feed to 20 instead of 10? We're not sure. So there's a lot of unknowns in that regard. But like I said earlier,

I will do what I can to try to get the attention on as many of the athletes as possible because it's very, very because it's very hard to qualify. Robbie Myers, can't wait for the Johannesboro Open tomorrow. That's my town. I told you you should have come down and done a live show from there. Hey, so tomorrow we are going to do our best to make tomorrow's Frisbee golf show an hour, an hour of excitement. I'm narrowing it down to two people for you.

Yeah, so give us – let's let's we'll take uh i appreciate brian being patient with me on on that show uh wad zombie does brian have a hopper pick someone who will come out of nowhere and crush it yeah dylan pepper jay crouch i picked him for him i don't think that's what he means um in terms of the big three fields, not really. I think that, you know, I was. What's he mean? He doesn't mean that. Tell me what he means. I'm lost.

Before Jason Hopper did that at that semifinal, no one was picking him to win that semifinal. Ah, okay. If Dallin Pepper wins a semifinal, it would be impressive because he'll have to beat Roman Krennikoff and Jeff Adler, who both won semifinals of their own be impressive because they'll have to beat Roman Krennikoff and Jeff Adler who both won semifinals of their own last year, but it wouldn't be like,

holy shit, Dallin who? So it would be crazy though. It would be crazy if he beat Roman and who's the other guy who said Adler. Yeah, that would be crazy. But I think it would be less surprising than Jason Hopper beating Justin Medeiros and Scott Panchik two years ago.

Oh, fair, ago. Oh, fair, fair. Well, fair thinking. And even keeping in mind. Yes. Yes.

Very fair. Good point. Good point. So that was crazy. He did. That's who he beat there. A Panchik and a Madaris. Yeah.

Yeah. That's not everyone else. If a lesser known is winning an event, then at least mention their name. That's what I mean. Fair enough. Very good point. And that is very specifically something that I will be doing everything I can to make sure it happens. Hey, that's a very good point.

I apologize. Difficult. Well said. Bruce Wayne, $5 for a steak and be friendly fitness. I hate to say it, but I think you sent your money to the wrong guy, but I appreciate it anyway. Here we go. Dan Guerrero. Now we're getting swerving way out of the lane of what the show is about,

but I'll ask anyway. Brian friend. Hi. Have you ever been asked to commentate for the games broadcast? If not, can we ask to get you in there so we can get relevant comments during events? If they asked me, I would accept accept i have not been asked okay uh

shopping cart i'm already getting angry in preparation for brian's disrespect to my girl bethany's uh bethany who bethany who uh shatburn oh yeah and all of the the women's ranking article and the team ranking article are already live on the website we'll put up the instagram posts on the morning of the carpet of the um carpet of the broadcast of the podcast excuse me but i did want to have those out there um so you guys can go check them out and get all your criticisms lined up for tomorrow. Jeremy world with the final comment. I will be talking about Bethany Shadburn tomorrow and her beautiful giant head. But until then, if you want to get more information, the website is be friendly. Don't put the period in there.

It's just be and then the word friendly fitness dot com, be friendlyfitness.com it's pretty easy to find there's also an instagram account a beautiful website um the team's done a great job it's a thousand times nicer than my website i got mine for free did you get yours for free? I mean, we spent a little money. Okay. That's why mine's ass. Okay. Thank you, Brian. See you tomorrow morning, 7 a.m.?

Yep. All righty. Bye-bye.