The Sevan Podcast - #576 - Brian Friend & John Young | Hot Topics CrossFit Debate Pt. 1

Episode Date: September 5, 2022

What is better for the sport of CrossFit: parity or dominance? Are Fikowski, Vellner, and BKG out of their prime? Welcome to this episode of the Sevan Podcast!Sign up for our email: https://thesevanpodcast.com/-------------------------Partners:https://cahormones.com/ - CODE "SEVAN" FOR FREE CONSULTATIONhttps://www.paperstcoffee.com/ - THE COFFEE I DRINK!Master of Coaching  - COACHING PUBLICATIONhttps://www.hybridathletics.com/produ... - THE BARBELL BRUSH Support the showPartners:https://cahormones.com/ - CODE "SEVAN" FOR FREE CONSULTATIONhttps://www.paperstcoffee.com/ - THE COFFEE I DRINK!https://asrx.com/collections/the-real... - OUR TSHIRTS... Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

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More details at air Canada.com. Okay. Bam. We're live. Oh, you mean his address? Darian's. Yeah.

We sent him shit before. I think we have it. I guess. We needed an address from them. Yeah. You want to text him and ask him? Yeah. Hey guys,

I want to show you something here real quick before we start the show. This is by the way, this is gonna be insane show. I don't know who is who thought is this your idea brian nope oh shit brian uh john's got backup is that fair two on one sorry uh this is your idea brian no john young's yeah she just brought him Sorry. This is your idea, Brian? No. John Young's?

Yeah, and she just brought him some secret steroid sauce, I think. Savage. It was probably Adderall or something. That's why I'm so strong. That was that covering the camera move. That's what Ben Garrard should have done back in 2017. Oh, shit. I want to show you guys something real quick has nothing to do with the show i had posted that 14 million trees were cut down in scotland um to make way for a wind

farm and i was making fun of that like oh you good job uh and then and then someone in my family super lib uh fact checked it and it's like well actually those 14 million trees will be cut down over 20 years and actually they'll replant all the trees and actually they've since 2020 they've planted 270 million trees i'm like or no so since 2000 scotland's planted 272 million trees and i'm like oh wow wow so then i did a little fact checking myself i did a little fact checking myself and we come over here and at this united kingdom scotland select a region uh website which is about global forestation which has way more credibility than any of the fact checkers you can see that actually in totality scotland has lost

20 of its forest when i mean lost i mean dudes cutting it down with axes and chainsaws and bulldozers since 2000 and that's the thing people are tricked they're like well they've planted 272 million trees since 2000 that still doesn't mean shit if we don't know the net gain or net loss so take your fact check and shove it up your this is a family member you're talking to yeah it's just it's just got him yeah bingo fact check your fact check and that website is much more critical because credible because you say so yeah right right thank you yes no uh i i've found when a fact check says something like we've planted 270 you're trying to figure out whether there's more trees or less trees and they just tell you how many they've planted you have a you have a you have a problem

they're they're trying to deceive you we it it's relative to the totality of number of trees so if there were 100 million trees and we said we planted 50 million and never mentioned that we cut down 200 million, I may walk away thinking this is funny. I'm just saying, you know, this is a – everyone will go to whatever website and say, look, look. I know what you're doing. And it'll support whatever they want it to support. Well, I didn't do that.

I just picked on the top. This one's called Global Forest Watch, and, you know, I don't know. And then you proclaimed it to be the most credible source well at least it shows it's not that i'm not pitting i'm comparing apples to oranges and i'm showing that i'm just warming up for for john that's you okay fuck you're actually fuck john hey i got my notes i'm ready to go but pay attention john he's not gonna attack the argument, just your sources. You got to be wise there. You got to be wise there.

John, what is that shirt you're wearing there? Who invited Jeff? Rogan Vitellino. Why did you wear the one from this year's qualifier? Did you not sign up for it? I did not. I was scouring the leaderboard. I thought you might be on there trying to get your place amongst the best.

No, no. I'm doing the fittest experience. I've talked to my coach. I would have liked to do Rogue, but my wife had a cycling race that weekend anyway. If you could follow the rules for the Rogue Invitational, you might have a chance to make it. I might have got in, yeah. I haven't even told a joke yet, Jeff. You must watch a lot of shows, buddy, to know that.

You must watch a lot of shows. Well, he does have an icon of just a little baby crying, so he sounds like a little whiner. Have you seen what's going on with the Rogue Invitational leaderboard? No, but I would like to. They're actually doing – well, you say – There's two bad things about it. You say it's terrible, but at least they're making corrections.

I know, but this is the same thing that I would say to CrossFit. It's like make the corrections, hold the athletes accountable, but don't just update the leaderboard randomly and sporadically. Say the leaderboard is not finalized. It's pending review. Oh, yeah. We did all the changes. Just post the final leaderboard and say, boom, all the changes are in.

This is the final leaderboard because every day you wake up and it's like, Oh, where's Scott Tetlow go? Where'd Manu Nangonese go? Where did this person go? Where'd that person go? And you're like, Oh, they must not have followed the rules. But then the next day you wake up and they're right back at the top of the leaderboard. So what is happening? Yeah. We were talking about that, that there should, I, we were complimenting them that they were giving us a live update of the leaderboard,

but that there should be an asterisk leaderboard changing regularly. It does say that the leaderboard is not finalized. It does. But don't just make all these sporadic changes. I mean, it's good for guys like Barbell Spin guy who's back in existence in the CrossFit world, apparently, that's also in the chat here because he can post his little blurbs every once in a while, or updating the world on what's going on there. Let me see that site before I tell you.

No, go to his Instagram. I mean, this is a guy. I equate him to the Hiller of the written world. Oh, so you hate this guy too? No, everyone's got their place. Everyone's got their place, and I think he has a similar name to me, actually. But, you know, he'll see something. It's I think he has a similar name to me actually, but you know, he just,

he'll see something. It's a, it's good. He has a catchy title. He puts it out there, but it's a, it's an incomplete story. It's incomplete information.

He doesn't wait for it to finish before talking about it. In this case, I'm not either because the rogue invitationals leaderboard, I think is just, while I was very complimentary of them on the bottom line with Lauren the other day, in terms of the fact that they're holding the line, I wish that they would, it's just, it's really stressful for the athletes. They're like, what is, the athletes are messaging me. What's going on? Is this finalized?

How do I know? When will it be finalized? And people are trying to make plans. There's other competition organizers that want to invite people to their competitions, but they want to be respectful of the fact that those athletes will go to Rogue if they qualify. They're in a qualifying position, then they're not, then they get they qualify, they're in a qualifying position. Then they're not, then they get invited. Then they're back inside of there. And then they have to tell them that actually,

I think I might actually have made rogue. I didn't know that. I thought three days ago I did yesterday. I did it today. I do. It's not right. Make one adjustment, you know,

review all the leaderboards. I'd hear the penalties according to the rules and then say, boom, here's our finalized leaderboard and correct. Congratulations to these qualifiers. Uh, boom, here's our finalized leaderboard and congratulations to these qualifiers. Man, you drank a lot of coffee this morning. You're succinct, on point. Ten hours of sleep.

Ready to fuck show. Hey, go back to that website. That's a fucking dope website. That's what our website should look like. I think that's Instagram. No, no, no. The Barbell Spin website is dope. It is clean.

Oh, someone go to their website. I'm at their website. Their website is dope. I really like that picture of all the placards at the games. I don't know who took that or where he got it, but I liked that picture a lot. Can someone pull that up, Barb? Just go to barbellspin.com. First of all,

I don't know anything about this guy, but I love his logo. He, the name of the website says it all. It's a spin, right? Barbell spin. And the first thing I noticed,

I don't, why don't more people talk about how hot Tia Toomey is? That's the first thing you noticed? Yeah. Cause she, I guess maybe because she doesn't post uh thirst pics she's cool uh and then look at this site this is exactly this is our site right here dude a fucking big photo and then just latest news and then and then and then we just slowly um

as we grow the fucking sebon podcast empire those are just articles oh look it even gives me credit i fucking love this guy As we grow the fucking Sevant Podcast empire, those are just articles. Oh, look, he even gives me credit. I fucking love this guy. Trust me, Barbell Spin Brian will not be coming on the show again the way he talked about you. I apologize. This is his last. John, you're in trouble.

This is Brian's last hurrah. His name is also Brian. He just posts by Brian. No last name. And he's a one-man show. He just fucking just – I'm not sure. I think so. He wasn't reporting for a while, and then about a month ago or so, he just started doing that again.

I think it's good. Do you know who he is? Only by – no, I've never met him or spoke to him. God, that sucks what happened to Becky Konzelman. Oh, God, don't bring that up. Okay, well, sorry. I'm just seeing the news here. I really liked her.

Yeah, she's amazing. And she was cool to talk to, too. She was just a cool dude. Yeah, and what she's choosing to do with her life and the opportunities she created were great. All right. Why do you got to bring that up? You? Yeah.

The show, I don't think there's any way in hell we can get through these, but I want to read you some of the fucking battles we're going to read this morning. What's better for the sport, parody or dominance? I don't know what that means. Anyone want to set the premise for the show oh please go ahead john this is your idea so okay so basically we came up with some topics that uh we like to debate all the time just uh during the games or like these are the conversations that you have with everybody that enjoys crossfit or the sport of crossfit as far

as who's better here who's better there and we're just gonna kind of have a debate show where i have a take or brian has a take and the other one has to take the other side and we're gonna argue our takes and see uh who the public agrees with more and you guys already know that you guys don't agree with any of these? We had a brief, a very brief conversation. But we'll try to, even if we do agree, we'll try to present our argument for both sides. Right. Yeah. So if we do agree, it is the job of the other person to take the other side and make a case. And this, this is a premise that goes back to, you know, anyone who's ever done like a high school debate this, this is a premise that goes back to, uh, you know, anyone who's ever done like a high school debate team or club or anything like that, you know, you would be on the bus driving to someplace and someone would say, okay, here's the topic. And then they say,

boom, John, you have the pro Brian, you have the young and the idea or the con and the, and the idea is that if you are really knowledgeable about the topic, you could argue either way. And the idea is that if you are really knowledgeable about the topic, you could argue either way. Sousa, is Sousa gone? Oh, Caleb, can't we just steal this Barbell Spin website? Can't we just like hire – hey, Sousa, can't we just hire someone to – Sousa, can you hear me? Can we just steal this website? Can we just like – where it says Barbell Spin, put the Sevan podcast and like just – It's probably just

a template of a website someone just grab that and just yeah well not we'll we'll reference it over to our people we'll see how much they could just mock it up maybe they'll just feel the whole thing exactly and maybe we could just buy that dude's website can that dude come work for us so i can watch him and brian fight i just really like this this is cool and it's got mal and tia and laura horvat hey mal's gonna be uh an american what mal's gonna fuck okay so that's okay i'm distracted uh what is better for the sport parody or dominance meaning uh different champions or the matt fraser shit or in tia shit or it changed every year right yeah yeah yeah so basically what we had this year in the men's side where we did not know who was going to win until it happened uh versus tia when you know she's going to win uh will matt be the next Tia when Tia is gone? Mal.

Mal. Will Mal be the next Tia when Tia is gone? Maybe will Mal be the next Tia before Tia is gone? Do we know if Tia is staying or going? She has given a lot of statements that make me think she's retiring, but obviously until she does it, it's not official. Didn't Shane say seven sounds better than six i think tia said that i thought shane posted on his instagram seven sounds better than six you're trying to get me going again seven can can velner

fukowski and bjorgman bjorgman carl gudemason ever beat justin roman ricky again oh this just this one's savage i can't wait to see how fucking brian fucking wiggles is way out of this one this is between being a rock and a hard spot brian's not gonna have to take a stance on that i guarantee you that one he's gonna like slip and slide he's gonna there's gonna be some of these that brian's not gonna be able to take a stance on we're not gonna know after listening to him talk for 20 minutes what his position is he's caught between a rock and a hard spot but you saw what he velner's toast huh huh john that's it like he's gonna he's just gonna become a regular on this show now how old is he 32 he's probably gonna replace taylor self or something he'd probably

get more views then uh is tia really the best crossfitter of all time or the fittest in history that really does need to be talked about a little bit because it's it's between is it between her and rich you'd say matt okay okay her rich and matt all three what if we can't okay fine uh higher expectations i don't even know why we're getting here this is a great one too but i don't think we'll ever make it down this far on the list this will have to be a show too higher expectations for next year emma carrie coming out of brute annika grier coming out of who knows where maybe she'll go back to underdogs athletics now that uh danielle the bully brandon's gone

and uh versus olivia kerstetter wow hey those are three new names on the leaderboard Next year is going to be fucked for the girls too. What a mess. This is going to be a lot of jockeying. And then a conversation that I've never heard talked about in depth, which really needs to be talked about. Who is the fittest in Europe in 2023? Lazar Djokic or Björgen Karl Gudmundsson?

We should probably do the women too. We should probably figure out who the fittest woman is in Europe too. Because with... We know who it is. We do. Yeah. Annie. Oh, if she comes back to individual still, we, I think we know who it is. Oh, you think it's Gabriella Magawa? That's your answer to everything in Europe? No. Laura Horvath. Oh, better than Annie. Yeah. I'd say so.

When is Annie going to say she beat her last year and she's 10 years younger hey listen listen on the uh is she 10 years younger maybe eight nine holy cow how old is laura 24 or 5 i'm never sure because of how the crossfit games website does it and I don't have a list of all their birthdays she's a fucking kid give or take a year no wonder when she's on the show she's so intimidated by me and acts so weird she's scared of me shaking like a leaf

I need to take a note of that how young she is I need to be nicer I've drawn comparisons about Rich being the MJ of CrossFit years ago, but it was only from a branding perspective. In terms of basketball, he's way more like Bill Russell than anything else. That's exactly what I told Mike Halpin as well, Brian. Like the exact player.

I said more like the Bill Russell. Yeah, and Fraser's like Will Chamberlain. No. MJ all the way I'd also like to throw I'd also like to throw this there's a guy now in the 185 pound class in the UFC called Israel

Adesanya and he was saying that the reason why Michael Jordan is better than LeBron is because of his emotional appeal and he says he wants to be that fighter too that people become emotionally connected to and that there's a greater emotional appeal to jordan with the with the fans than lebron i'm not even sure what that means but i for some reason i'm kind of

buying it and i think that there's a far larger greater emotional appeal to rich than uh probably either tia or matt whatever Whatever the emotional period is. Yeah, people just like him more. Yeah. But Sevan, he has less Instagram followers. I can't explain that, but I'm just telling you, I just think that people, I think Rich has got a little something, something.

Should we get started? Let's do it. What is better for the sport, parody or dominance? Can we look up the word parody? When you say the sport, you're talking about CrossFit. Do we have to prove that it's a sport first? What is better for CrossFit, the sport? What's better for CrossFit, the sport, parody or dominance?

Do you want to go first or do you want me to, Brian? Do you want to look up that word, someone? Yeah, here it comes. Here it comes. An imitation of style of a particular writer, artist, or genre with deliberate exaggeration. I think whoever wrote this chose the wrong spelling of parody. Yeah. Oh, shit. I had no idea there were two different spells.

This should be spelled P-A-R-I-T-Y. That was copy-pasted from the list that was sent to me hey hey hey but there's no reason no one's not no reason susan no one's thinking out loud that it's your fault um the state or condition of being equal especially regarding status or pay oh please the woke woke all right so this is the state of parity parity just means that we don't know who's going to win before the event starts okay great i'll take that definition thank you john it can be anybody's game of you know three to five people it's not you go you go first do we like it knowing going into the crossfit games that tia is going to smash or would we prefer that the it was a closer race until the last minute. Yeah. So from my, and this is kind of a, you know, your own opinion question.

There's not a lot of facts that can like back, back this up. I enjoy parody way more than dominance. I think watching somebody like Tia or Matt crush an event is really cool. Like when Tia almost carried the yoke all the way down in one round in 2021. I think, I think that stuff's awesome, but for one event, not the whole competition.

And I don't, I don't think there's anything more fun than when you have Roman, Ricky and Justin in the last day and you don't know who's going to win, and people pick their favorite. People root for Roman, people root for Ricky, and people root for Justin, and then they can all kind of battle it out and talk about it the whole entire weekend, and it makes the experience much more fun. I thought the men's race was awesome this year, and when you just know who's going to win, it kind of takes the sales out of the weekend.

And I mean, you hope to see Tia or Matt or Rich do something that we've never seen before because they are the fittest people in history, but it's, I don't think that's as fun as not knowing who's going to win until, until it happens. He meant to say, take the wind out of the sails, just so you know, Brian, in case you got confused. I really couldn't follow anything after that. Okay. He likes to see, he liked the tension of the men's race.

I can't remember anything about the women's race. He kind of has a good point. I was on the side of I like a dominant champion, but now that I think about it, I can't really remember Jack about the women's competition. I of has a good point i was on the side of i like a dominant champion but now that i think about it i was like i can't really remember jack about the women's competition i know danielle brandon took fourth and tia won i don't know the other two people i don't know who took second and third like laura had a crazy comeback i know go ahead mal and laura but i don't know what i want to order now order oh't know who to order. You know who to order.

No, no, because, yeah, of course, you know, no matter how good the competition is or how not good it is, everyone's going to remember the winner. I think that there is, you know, it's really difficult to argue with what John says. It's more exciting and more dramatic if you're unsure who the winner is going to be. But I think that the best situation is often when there's like a dominant figure that's regularly being challenged and still finds a way to win and in some ways that's what you had with rich where it was like you kind of

felt like he was always going to win but you weren't sure after friday saturday was starting to like okay he's back in the mix and then sund Sunday he did his thing and then he'd win again. And for Justin this year was kind of like that too, where he, you know, he wasn't the front runner and the leader throughout the competition, or even for half the competition, you know, he took it late in the competition. He was still close on points, but he found a way to get it done in the end. Yes. He had to come from behind a little bit, but once she took the leader's Jersey after event five, no one thought she was ever going to relinquish it. And she didn't. And even coming into the competition, I mean, it was like, okay, we know Tia's going to win and let's talk about everyone else. And that's just, it's, it's incredibly impressive what she's doing, of course, but it also takes all, you know,

any of the drama or excitement sort of out of it, unless you're a big fan of just seeing records being smashed and broken and set. And, you know, this goes back to, you, you know, you could draw parallels in a bunch of other sports.

Were you a tiger woods fan? If you're a tiger woods fan during the two thousands or Roger Federer fans, you know, during that similar timeframe, you like dominance. You like guys that go out there and it's like, no one can beat this guy. It's incredible to watch him play. It's versus the field it's federer versus the field

it's tia versus the field and there's definitely a huge fan base that likes getting behind a champion and likes watching that champion continue to smash and break records and even crossfit now who's you know contending and putting out there that tia is the fittest of all time you'd have to say that you know the media behind that is supportive of, of a dominant champion and wants to see that person extend what's possible and extend those records and lay the, the, you know,

the set the new mark for the next person to chase. Also in the early days, we hadn't, I mean, we could, it could still be this way, but we had so much access to the fucking athletes. So we knew what was going on.

So if there was a dominant athlete like Rich, there were enough nuances that were revealed to us as fans and behind the scenes and shit like that that you could still find a ton of value. Who was doing that? Matt and T are far less accessible than other champions. They're just accessible in different ways. Yeah, you can buy their programming.

Yeah, well, okay. All I'm saying is I agree. The whole landscape of the sport changed when the media department of CrossFit was disbanded because it opened up the possibility for all this outside media. And then you have an opportunity for proven to have its own media team. Right. So you want to find the content about Tia. You have to go through their channel,

which means that they're controlling the narrative much more than if the CrossFit media director from back in the day was telling this story the way that he wanted to. Like if we knew Tia was this year would have been a great year for us to see a lot of behind the scenes shit on tia because after day one she might yeah you mean from her documentary crew yeah we might but like i said they're they're gonna be telling that story probably with some kind of an agenda can i can i counter brian's point real quick before we get off on something else please please uh so your his your argument was is dominance but like when you just barely win

but you somehow find a way to do it every every time yeah i'm saying that's one way to be dominant but i was later on what i was saying is there are also people that love the records they love the streaks they love the streaks. They love the winning by 300 points and saying, I don't think anyone will ever do that again. And they love the six in a row and they love that. And they, you know,

and they get behind that champion and it's and it is cool. And it's once, you know, it's, it's sometimes it's like, well, when will we ever see this again? And let's appreciate it while we have it.

Yeah. Yeah. I like that. Okay. I, ever see this again and let's appreciate it while we have it yeah yeah i like that okay i i tend to kind of agree with you about your rich point where he was not always in the lead until sunday and then he always ended up winning um but when i think of dominance like yes his career was dominant but like those games weren't dominant you know so when i'm thinking of dominance, like, yes, his career was dominant, but like those games weren't dominant. You know, so when I'm thinking of dominance, I'm like people. Nobody thinks that you can lose anything.

And like we have that with Tia, we have that with Matt and Rich would lose stuff all the time. An individual, I would argue his team stuff is dominant. But like your definition of dominance is not the definition that I would call dominance. I would almost say his willpower or his heart or, you know what I mean? Stuff like that. And then I don't think Rich is questioned.

You know what I mean? Say no, Brian. Yeah, that's what we'll get. We'll get to that when we talk about will to win is different than dominance. Dominance is you're so far ahead. you don't have to work hard to win. How many events have we gotten from Matt or Tia where they could just kind of coast once they got ahead of everybody in a workout, and they still win because they're that much fitter?

Isn't Tia significantly more dominant than Matt? Well, we'll get to that question later. We'll get to that question later. But when Matt did Friendly Fran in the qualifier and beat everybody by a minute, we don't see Matt go that hard almost ever because he doesn't have to. That's how dominant he is. Where Rich always had to try hard to win. He did win every time.

And I would argue that is the most fun to watch whenever you have a guy that always ends up coming out on top. But, you know, sometimes the deck is stacked against him. Are you checking out your own head now? What's he thinking about? He just thinks it's huge? I got a big forehead. I do have a receding hairline. I'm going to have to go bald eventually. out your own head no i'm just what's he thinking about he just thinks it's huge is that is that i got a big forehead i do have a receding hairline i'm gonna have to go bald eventually it's coming but he's all juiced up yeah i don't really get it hey jeff jeff you're not you're none of your

comments matter go to your room is jeff a guy that you paid to be in the comments i don't know but he loved i hope he start falls in love with John Young. John needs a dude like that who's just fucking shit up. This guy's just fucking shit up in the comments. But I wouldn't consider that dominant, though. You know what I mean? It's more of a will to win, and he always does it, than dominance. Like, is Rocky Balboa dominant?

No, he just always found a way to win. I know it's a bad analogy, but you get what I'm saying. No, no, I like that. No, no. I like that. I like that. I like that. I still think it's crazy to say that Rich wasn't dominant. In his individual. Yeah.

I mean, you do it four times in a row, you are dominant. Right. But like if every individual competition he wasn't. Right. right you know you might could argue one year he was when he won by 100 points he only won by 100 points one time so both of you so both of you agree both of you want to lean on the side of parody over dominance you think that's better for the sport that's what i say from an entertainment what's better for the sport

better being makes more money and gets more people in the i say from an entertainment what's better for the sport better being makes more money and gets more people in the seats right from an entertainment value yeah the parody is is is probably more fun to watch for more people it's not you know it's not necessarily that fun to tune in and say oh this person's just going to crush everyone again but i think there are people that like watching that and i think that also from a historical perspective and studying the sport and setting a standard um for people to chase in future generations that it's important to have those baselines of what's possible uh and like you know what john's saying about the margin of victory that rich had which is relatively small compared to some of the years that fraser was winning and some of the years that Tia had won or has won.

It's definitely true, but it was, I think, just a different mindset. You know, Rich had one objective, which was to win the games, and he found a way to do it. Fraser had a different objective, and that was to win everything. Like, he hated getting second in a single event. Rich didn't mind that if at the end of the weekend he was still on the top of the podium what did matt say he wanted three podium spots in that one year at the game but he only got two he wanted to be better than third and

second combined yeah and i think i also think that's why people like rich more and like rich so much and i'm saying there's a group of people that like Matt more that want to. Oh yeah. Killer mindset. Yeah. I, I, I prefer dominance.

You guys, you guys, I don't know about sports here. And I, I prefer dominance and I, and I think it's better for the sport. I do think it's weird that it just keeps happening, that there's a dominant man and dominant woman simultaneously.

Back in the day, after Rich was done, everyone's like, there'll never be another Rich. And now it's just like, it seems like there's always going to be one. Well, that leads us into our second question really well. But I want to hear what you guys think. So on this side, both of you agree that parody with a T. I think it's more fun to watch. But the question is, was what's better for the sport?

What's better for the sport? I mean, you're not going to like that, this answer, but probably a combination. Jeez Louise. Cause as far as like selling stuff and getting. I don't know.

Seven. Tell me, tell me this next year. If Tia decides to compete how excited are you for that relative to if she doesn't I'm excited I'm excited I'm more excited for her to compete the year after a dominant champion leaves kind of sucks because you kind of have to write that off like Medeiros's first win that's what's so hard you have to write that off is just like it's a fluke because matt's not there it's only the second because he was so

dominant when you come in this second year you're finally like okay and i talked about that with i think madaris like and we talked about it with nikki rod do you have to kill the champion to get their soul like i think if madaris would have beat fraser or if mal beats tia they they put on for lack of a better metric an extra 200 000 they'd steal their instagram followers they don't really but you know what i mean they get an influx like oh shit they beat the best let me make an that's another reason why jordan's better than lebron jordan didn't lose lebron's we've seen lebron's human j Jordan never lost in the finals. Jordan won with the flu.

He lost a lot of times before he got to the finals. You know what I mean. And there's other things. So there's a guy in disc golf right now. By the way, I'm not in this debate. Yeah, you are. You're here. The disc golf world championships are happening right now.

And there's this player, Paul McBeth. And every year since 2012, he's finished first or second. He's won five times. He's gotten second four times in one year. They had to cancel the event because of COVID. And right now he's in second place going into the final round of the competition. He's three strokes behind this guy who's never won anything significant. And if that guy wins the competition, I don't feel like he's sold his soul or his, or his Instagram followers because this guy's never done anything substantial.

And the other guy for 10 years has placed first or second in the event. Like you can always have someone in, in disc golf who comes up and has this incredible weekend and beats, you know, the entire field, but then they might not have another significant result the whole year. CrossFit is different. Like if you're going to be good once,

you're probably going to be good again. And you're probably going to be good again because it's really, really hard and demanding to contend with that top person. And, and I agree with, I do agree with you that if someone like Mal beats T or if someone likes Justin beats Matt, that it's substantial and significant,

but you know, one of two things, well, one of two things that can they do things like can they do it if they do it once can they do it again that's why last year to me rogue was so significant for madaris it's like yeah you beat velner at the games and it was kind of close velner made a bunch of mistakes but then we went to rogue and he did it again and then we went to the games this year and it wasn't velner this time it was roman and it was ricky and they were making not big mistakes just small ones here

and there and this guy didn't and that to me is like that's the thing that I really really enjoy watching is when Ronderos goes out there and even if you're rooting against him as long as you can appreciate the fact that he's capitalizing on every performance and maximizing his potential every time he takes the floor that's a you know it's not dominant on the scoreboard but it's dominance in terms of execution and performance over an entire year now with several competitors and several different competitions and that's something that i can can appreciate no he's he's literally the fifth best in the world at everything who like there is nothing in fitness that he's not just the fifth best in the world.

Right. The top four guys that are beating him on the swimming workout can't beat him on the running workout. And the guys that beat him on the running workout can't beat him on the lifting workout. And you just go around. And I've never seen it like as expanded as it is for him. Like if we're not counting Matt, it's literally everything. I thought he was in trouble in the sandbag and he somehow me too still got around like he's he's amazingly consistent suza suza a couple things um can you uh graph after the show's over can you graph um the viewership from when uh brian started talking about ultimate

frisbee and to where he ended and graphed the numbers and see what that did to the show. And then bring that around, please. I know you're going to be watching the final round later today. What time is it at? 2.30. At what station?

I'll probably be live on Disc Golf Network and YouTube. Okay, send me a link. I will actually watch that. Oh, and one more thing, Susan. You don't watch Frisbee, though? You go to college football? No, I'm going to watch UFC, actually. College football? The fuck this is, 1997?

What, do you live in the middle of the country? Susan, you're going to get Keelan Henry on and the world's greatest racquetball player, right? Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah. Okay, okay. We have a WhatsApp. Do you want the world's greatest pickleballball player, right? Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah. Okay, okay. We have a WhatsApp. Do you want the world's greatest pickleball player? They're actually in town, like two miles this way from me.

And it's the guy that went to college with my brother. John Bones or something. John Bronze. Different sport. Pickleball, I'm talking about. I know. We talked about yesterday about getting the greatest pickleball player on, didn't we, Sousa?

What was his name? I don't know. What's his name? We looked looked it up yesterday it's zane something or other okay we'll get him too okay hey none of the fucking uh frisbee guys will come on the show i don't know what's wrong with them i know let's go let's go to our next question because we're gonna be on there for three hours if we don't no no no we have to i have to go to uh tennis and jiu-jitsu soon will mal o'brien formerly with james formerly with elijah muhammad then with james townsend now with matt fraser well that mal o'brien the kid who doesn't know who can't talk she She's also deaf mute. Will she be the next Tia Toomey?

Almost arguably the greatest CrossFitter who ever lived. Without a doubt. You go first. Without a doubt. You go first, Brian. But the caveat here is when Tia is gone. We don't even know if Tia is gone. Who wrote that question? I mean, look.

If Tia said, I'm coming back next year, then we might have rephrased this question and say, can Mal beat Tia in 2023? The whole thing with Tia and for next season is frustrating to me and it's whatever. So instead, we're going to ask this. When Tia retires or steps aside, can Mal have a dominant career for a period of time that rivals tia's and i think

meaning three to five championships when he in a row you know yeah she went three to five in a row i think that's that's a fair way nobody can beat her yeah and i think that i think the answer to that is yes i think she has the potential to do that and in order to when i was like just kind of going back and looking at um um, what are the criteria that you would need to have to be able to do something like that? I looked at, this is Mal's second year competing at the games. I think that the women's field, both of these years has been a little bit depleted relative to what it could be on a global scale, where we're just missing some of the top 20 women in the world for a variety of different reasons. But either way

to finish seventh in your rookie year is impressive. The women that she had to, had to surpass to finish second this year. And it was like you said, seven, it was almost a lackadaisical second. Like she just finished second and it was kind of casual. She was,

yeah, she was behind Haley early on and Emma Lawson, but she passed by both of them. And then Tia passed her by. But from the rest of the weekend on, no one ever overtook her for second place. So as much of a lock as Tia was from event five on in first place, once Mal got into second place, also no one caught her. And all the people that were close rescinded and Laura made a charge at the end, which

was expected if you knew the programming, but it wasn't enough to catch her. And so I looked at Mal's results this year relative to Tia's results in her second year at the Games, which was 2016. And in that year, Tia finished second to catch her, and it was pretty close. And her average event finish was 8.2, and I would say that she had three below-average finishes. Those finishes were in MRF, DDT, and the handstand walk.

Who was that? Tia in 2016. These finishes were all in the range of 17th to 22nd, and they were her three worst finishes that year. She did have a two 13ths and everything else was inside the top 10. I looked at Mal's

performances this year, and there's some differences because there are always differences when you're talking about these things due to the changing cut system. So you might have like a 12th place finish on the last day. That's actually, you know, 12th out of 20 instead of 12th out of 40, which is substantially different. So you have to wait a little differently, but either way, um, Mal's kind of worst event finishes this year. We're on, uh on events that I'm not too worried about earlier in her career. Oh, and by the way, she averaged 8.9 to Tia's 8.2 was her event finishes in her second year. And she obviously lost to Tia. And I would also say that you have to account for the

fact that as we go on in the sport, there's more and more relative or relevant athletes in the field. So I think that this is a fairly similar performance in her second season there. And obviously we know what Tia went on to do. The reason why, you know, and so the stats are one thing, but the main reason why I think Mal has the potential to do this is because of the areas that she's shown she can improve rather quickly. And it's something that Fraser was able to do. He would be exposed on something, he would come back and he would expose the field to the fact that he's now not, that's not a problem for him. Tia was able to do this as well. If you look at like an event like Double DT, where she, that was, you know, until, until this skill speed medley, that was the like last really

bad event that she'd had in her career, where she finished 22nd. I'm pretty confident if you rolled out double DT from 2018 onward, maybe even in 2017, but I don't know. Still, she only won by a couple of points a year. There were a lot of really good women in the field. But from 2018 onward, she's going to win double DT, in my opinion. So she's able to eradicate these mistakes. Really, the two outstanding bad performances for Mal this year at the Games were in the sandbag ladder and the alpaca event, both of which were basically just testing strength in a slightly different way.

And you can look at the results of the alpaca and see how weight was such a critical factor in that workout. Tia, Emma Lawson, Haley Adams, all of the girls that are a little bit smaller didn't do great on it with the way that it ended up being. All of the girls that are a little bit smaller didn't do great on it with the way that it ended up being. And the sandbag ladder is something that I'm not that concerned about an 18-year-old girl finishing 24th on at this stage in her career. I feel like she has an opportunity to improve in that regard. What I did like from her in a strength event was the back nine. And even though she finished 12th in it, which was one of her bottom five performances, it didn't stop her in the tracks that it did some of these other girls that also sometimes struggle with the strength events. And I think that Mal has the capacity and ability, based on what I've seen from her, to improve in the strength events in a way that Tia improved

in some of those things after her second season. And she's already, I mean, look at this. I know she didn't win any events this year, but sixth, third, fourth, third, ninth, second, ninth, second, third. Those are all really't win any events this year, but sixth, third, fourth, third, ninth, second, ninth, second, third. Those are all really, really impressive events reminiscent of Madaris, like John's talking about with him, where he might not be winning anything, but he's just there. And on all these varieties of events, even when they're long, even when they're short, even when they're high power output, even when there's a nuance of a skill, she seems to be good enough to put up a solid enough performance.

And that's what you need. The next step for her is cross off one or two of those boxes of the things that are a little bit problematic and find a way to win one or two events. I'm pretty confident she's going to be able to do that in the next year or two, and I think she has a chance to go on a run of at least three in a row.

Mal. Yeah. Why only three in a row? I said at least three in a row okay and it's like because there's always a chance that someone else could could come up right and that's right you know and we already see that there are people like emma lawson who's finished sixth in a rookie year we don't know what olivia's curse setter is going to do is emma carry emma carry beat mal at the games the last time there was a teenage division does she have the potential to come back and do that can laura get better can hayley get better can gabby get better there's plenty of women that

are in an in a realistic stage in their career that are still going to be there threatening her but based on what i saw this year compared to all those women she has less holes and she's proven to me that she has a greater capacity to shore up those holes than a lot of the other women that you'll have to likely fend off. I hard. Hold on. Hold on, Mr. Young.

Hold on. Mr. Olson. Thank you. As always. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you.

I hope you have a fabulous weekend. Hope you're going to spend a lot of time with your kids. Martin Graham, the best CF analysis shows in history. You know, when I, I imagine Martin, when Brian was going off just to be like,

and then, and then just jump up just to be like, and then, and then just jump up and start pumping his fist and then fucking run over to his keyboard and drop a 20. I appreciate it. That's kind of how I visualize. You're a good dude, Jeff. I love John Young's head.

I'm his favorite. I'm his number one fan. Uh, really quick, John, before you go, I know you're ready to get shot out of a cannon here brian so you're saying yes everything seems to be lined up outside of uh for tia to be the uh

for mal to be the next great i do think that the women's competition that the greatest women uh and fittest women in the world are still ahead of us. I do think that, but, but do you, is that what you're saying? You're saying yes. Mal is the next to you. I'm saying yes. She has the chance to, I think that, uh, I think that, um, you know, yeah, I think, I think she's, I think she could be, she's kind of pregnant. Not really. She could get pregnant. Well, I was just going to say something,

but I already said everything I was going to say. Yeah. That's what I think. think see like it's a little wishy-washy i think um uh yon clark a mal has the same number of holes as other women yeah i i i don't know i'm gonna go ahead and go okay so fine okay please go ahead Unless someone gives more money, you can speak. Your argument is that she showed that she can sure up her holes better than other women. If we're talking about lower core bath and handstand pushups, I completely agree. Other than that, I don't think she's shorn up her hole. She made a huge jump in fitness. She did. And it surprised me. And I think she is the woman to beat as far as next year go if Tia doesn't compete.

But if that handstand pushup workout was not there, Laura would have beaten Mal. She took a zero on that workout. Okay. If that workout is anything else and she gets 10th place, which is 70 she would be ahead of mal it was also mal's worst workout or third worst workout of the weekend okay cool but you tell me just so you know john young's making up a really good point here i have to show you this on the leaderboard holy shit this is fucking you take you take laura horvat took 30 fucking ninth no a zero and listen there might be still handstand push-up workouts,

but if it's not that deficit that she just can't do, she's not going to be 39th and take zero points. And Mal's holes have always been that she's not the best sprinter and she's not the strongest. Now, if you're telling me that she can put 50 pounds on her back squat the way Tia made that huge jump, then me that she can put 50 pounds on her back squat the way Tia made that huge jump, then sure, she can be the next Tia. But I'm saying Tia was a baby in her second competition. She was not her full potential at all.

Susan, if we had a good show, you'd push a button and we'd hear like a crying sound effect right there. When he called Tia baby, you hear it. Go on, John. Not not that type of baby i'm talking about young to crossfit as far as i know i know but it's still it was still been doing crossfit since she was 12 years old she's a veteran as far as body mileage as far as training in crossfit yeah but how much had her body changed during those six years she's just getting used to it i don't think it's going to change much more, though. She's still the tiniest girl out there. If anybody went to the games, she's the tiniest girl out there. The sandbag, she got, what, 24th?

I don't see her magically getting first place, which is what Tia did. Like when Tia is first place in the strength events and first place in the running events, Mal is never going to be first place in those events. She's not going to shore up the holes that much where she is just dominating the field, which is this is what we're talking about. Her being the next Tia Toomey. Not that she can't win. I think she's the woman to beat as far as winning goes.

But Laura, look at Laura. Laura had the worst start she ever had, okay? And then she comes back in the back nine and gets third, ninth, third, first, first, fourth. And the events that Laura is destroying people at, she will continue to destroy people at. If Mal starts winning strength events and winning running events, then my tune will completely change. But as far as shoring up your holes, Mal still has a lot of work to do if we're talking about Tia Toomey.

I'm not saying she can't be the fittest woman in the world. She definitely can. Very huge in the conversation. So, John, are you saying – Is she going to win three in a row or is she going to win three in a row by 200 plus points is a different question yeah i don't think you i don't think she's madero's though i think like i don't think she's as consistent as madero's madero's has always been even keel across the

way he would get ninth and everything before he was getting first place if you go back and look at his filthy 150 in 2019, he was just the same. He's the same across the board his whole entire CrossFit career. Mal has holes that she has to fill. It's difficult to talk about Medeiros in that way. I was there for filthy 150. I saw him.

I know how impressive that was. But I saw him two years before at regionals, and he wasn't that good yet. He was still coming along. He still had things to figure out. 2020 games is unfortunate because he only did that live event against five people, so it's hard to say how good or bad those performances would have been. And yes, the last two years he's been very consistent.

What I'm saying is that Mal's performances this year at the games demonstrate an incredible level of consistency and a diversity across a lot of events. And you say that she's terrible on these running events. I mean, she was ninth in the capital. That's extremely respectable. Yeah, she did bad on the shuttle, the overhead sprint workout. The fact that she was able to back that up with a third on the lifting event

was still extremely impressive to me. And I'd rather have someone who can lift heavy, tired, than someone who can just run fast. And, you know, I'm not dissuaded by any of the things that you've said from what my position is. Okay, my point is she will never beat Laura at the events that Laura is beating her at. And Laura can beat her in events that she beat her at during the games,

like similar events, other than handstand push-ups. Obviously, if that comes up mal's probably going to win and i what i think is going to happen is mal could win one year and then laura could win one year and you know freaking emma lawson's still coming we don't know what olivia kerstetter is i think it's going to look like what the men's field looks like now okay as far as chasing mal but she just keeps winning jamal smith please Before we say he keeps winning, it was back to back. It's not like he's doing it year after year after year after year.

Mr. Smith, please weigh in. Yeah, so the biggest thing that I could have, that I would add to this conversation is... The biggest thing you'd add, you know what the biggest thing I'd add to this conversation? I'll tell you after you go. Go ahead. But Matt Frazier has consistently said

that they're playing the long game where you have multiple athletes peaking for the CrossFit Games for this year. He's making sure that Mal O'Brien

is peaking for two years from now. Throughout the whole season, he's said that, you know, at the quarterfinals, he's been pulling back the reins,

not letting her go all in. I feel like as soon as Matt feels that she's 110% and ready, you will get that dominant performance like Tia has shown. Great

argument. Thank you, Mr. Smith. Always a great the best contributor to the show. I'm going to give you best contributor to the show. I'm going to give you best contributor to the show. 2000. I'm going to give you the old one. Two thousand twenty one. Even those two thousand. My argument to that is if Matt magically puts 50 pounds on Mal's lifts and 30 seconds to her mile time and magically makes her sprint faster, way faster because he's way behind as far as the top girls go. Like that's not peaking. That's who you are, okay? And she's peaking for the games, whether you think she is or not.

They're not overtraining. She's going to take a deload after the games, just how he did. He just thinks her best self is not – Matt used to take a deload after the games? Matt wouldn't work out to the Open. His deloads are crazy. Oh. Matt wouldn't work out to the open. His deals are crazy. To fund John's future haircut.

Are y'all saying I should shave my head? He's never getting it. Hey, I want to say this, what Brian did, it makes it so apropos what I mentioned about the trees earlier in Scotland. You were using apples as the metric that she took as zero. And then Brian started using oranges as the metrics to shore up his argument, saying it was her third worst event because she took a 15th. But she still did. Brian's like those tricky fact checkers at Facebook. She still took 15th and Laura took a 39th. Yeah, but you can't just – You can't what?

You can't recognize that she – Uh-oh. Brian, you turned into a robot, Brian. We can't hear you. Turned into a robot. His mic is like Mal's abilities. There's still a lot of holes to fill there yeah something's wrong something your internet connections is about as good as mal's

crossfit game hello testing maybe you have to log off and log back in and for the record i think she's gonna win next year if tia does not compete. I love how chill Susan and Caleb are. They don't even give a fuck. The show's falling apart. We lost someone. They're just like, hmm. Alright. Didn't you mean to jump in and start the argument here? You can't make the argument

any other show. Do you want to move to the next question until you jump in? No, no, no. i think that there's still um i think there is some still some there is oh man look at that connection that's not a good sign did you see the spin wheel brian had it's not a good sign someone on the building just in brian's building turned on their blender and his fucking internet's gone to shit any better yeah you're back you're back uh so let me review to say the question one more time will mal be the next tia

when tia is gone and and and brian thinks that yes it's looking that way and john young says no there's there's uh she's just never going to be that dominant there's two big holes and jamal smith weighed in and kind of leaned on brian's side and said no those holes are filling up nicely you're not looking at the long game like the alpaca was one of her worst events right brian yep second worst yeah it will never be one of her best it will always be it will always be about like that it might be better but 18th will be 11th at best because she will never be able to overtake people like warbath or barnhart you don't have if 11th is your worst workout in the games then you're tia claire to me no yes she tia has never had a year where she's finished inside the top 10 on every workout.

She's had these 11th, these 14th, these whatever's. You can have workouts like that. She's so good at this. I'm saying those are not Mal's workouts. Mal will all, you can pin her in for not having a great workout in these type of events. And then there's going to be weird events that she just doesn't do as good. Like Tia has weird event, like the skill medley. We didn't expect that from Tia.

There will always be a problem with Tia. That was a problem with the event. I know. I'm just saying weird events where they just don't do very well. And this is seven. This is the last thing I'll say about it. If Fraser and Mal ever hear this conversation, the confidence in my position is amplified. Tenfold.

100%. 100 100 if anything i'm creating a monster by not believing in her um by the way to john's point about he's basically arguing that laura horvath is the reason that mal will not be the next tia they were seven and seven this this year at the games seven and seven onto-head, and some of them were very close. But Laura's been competing at the Games since 2018. This is Mal's second year, and she's only 18 years old. I do not think we're looking at the next Hayley Adams here that's never going to be able to make improvements in her strength. I think Mal will continue to get stronger.

It's not going to be 50 pounds in a year. This goes to Mr. Smith's point about Fraser. He's not in a rush to put 50 pounds on her back squat, but over the next three years, she will get that much stronger and she will be that much more, um, difficult to beat at the games. And I think that she is exactly the type of athlete that can reel off multiple consecutive CrossFit games titles. This is good. This, I can tell the show is going to exacerbate uh brian's um allergies do you have an inhaler there just yeah there you go uh i i i want to say this this was interesting to hear brian say this this it's it's not the problem with tia it's the problem with the

workout the skill speed medley medley the skill speed medley is that the uh is that i know that's not one of the questions here but is that the worst workout of the crossfit games this year is that one just oh that was one of my favorite workouts i would say definitely it was the worst for those of you don't know that was the one that had all the new shit like you had to climb the pegboard without your feet. It had the possibility to be great. It had the crossover with the jump ropes. It had the starting position.

Why was it not great? It had the starting position on the parallettes in what they called the low position. It was a fucking disaster. But here, in that regard, a great parallel here. The fact that that workout was such a disaster, the fact that Nick Matthew did it and we got to see Adrian, I'm kind of get a little bit of redemption and Nick Matthew show explode onto the scene. That's why it's kind of fun having like someone like Tia in there,

because if Mal does beat her next year, holy shit. And if Mal were to beat Tia ever, which I never see happening, if she does beat Tia, I'll completely switch my tune and be like, yeah, she's yeah.

You know what would have been cool in that speed skill medley is if they let every athlete do all three iterations of it. And your score was your total time or reps. So we could actually see. I don't know. I like the execution factor. Yes, you shouldn't.

You should never miss a single under. That is not true, John. You could do that a bit, Brian, and you would have beaten people who missing the single. Maybe. And maybe I miss a single under because it just happens.

I want to say, I want to say this. And then I do want to talk about the capacity to do a strict pegboard. And happens i want to say i want to say this and then i do want to talk about the capacity to do a strict pegboard and i never get to do it or i have the capacity to cross over double unders and i never get to do it because i made one trip on a single under it's not a reflection of my fitness i don't know i think but brian what about the fact that there's 15 what about the fact that there's 15 workouts then it's okay to test that kind of, I don't know what that is. There are ways to test precision and accuracy, yes.

The thing is, if you program a workout and you say, you have to have an unbroken set of wall balls, then you can allow for the fact and say, if you miss one, it doesn't mean that your set is over. You can keep going. It's just a no rep. And then you can still get an unbroken set where you were able to demonstrate your fitness to do the set unbroken. It wasn't a fitness.

Holy shit. That's a great comparison. What do you think about that, John? What if someone said, hey, you have to do 50 wall balls, and if you miss the target, you have to start over again? Would you be okay with that? Yeah, I'd be fine, but i'd be fine with the the single unders as well if you asked tia if she thought that event was bad i bet she would say no like honestly but not being on camera i think she would say no i should have just done 75 single unders unbroken

that's me well she has to say that if she's no no if you asked her in person in jest honestly if shane asked her that question i think i think she would be like no i can do 75 single unders that's my bad like tutor magda tutor magda tutor magda who tripped over and over and over it was one of the most tragic things in the world because he's one of the best handstand walkers there is wasn't able to do it because he couldn't do 75 single unders. I think there's value in exploring that. Like execution should be part of the games. It should not be like the last event, but exactly where it was, I have no problem with it.

If it was a seven event competition like Rowe, I think execution shouldn't be a part of it, or not to that extent. Because seven events, you can be skewed so hard by one event. But the game's just not like that. There's 15 events. Execute to your fullest. I have no problem with it. Hey, does Dandy Spiegel have an only fans page, right?

She has the Instagram equivalent to it, like a subscription to an Instagram something? I bet people are paying her on Instagram. I know. I think she does. Hey, this guy, Jeff, just gave me a great idea. He said by far the best moment of the CrossFit Games was when Danny Spiegel hoisted the bag. I bet you for like five grand, dudes would pay her just to like hoist them up on her shoulder and like carry her 10 feet and throw them on like a mattress on the ground. Five grand. them up on her shoulder and like carry her 10 feet and throw them on like a mattress on the ground five grand uh jamal smith this is fucking it's crazy when people say shit like this because it puts everything in perspective mal is only 18 and could easily have 12 plus years in the sport given that time frame 50 pounds is easily attainable i can't believe she's 18 i think brian's right john

well i mean we'll see hey i don't think tia should quit i think she should keep going till she gets beat i don't think it's cool when champions leave unbeaten i don't think any more of mayweather because he's 50 you know fuck him i mean it's a grind it's hard to put your body through that year that part i agree with but i don't think you should leave like oh i could got to keep my zero fuck you give back to the sport let someone hammer your ass and like matt said and like rich said before like it's it's a selfish existence because everything goes to being the fittest person in the world when you're that good everything goes to that so i completely get it when they want to retire hey you know there's 10 people out there wearing be friendly shirts

right now that are texting brian being like fuck john tell him this fuck john like halpin and and uh and uh schroeder and all the whole dork squad's getting on help sending brian intel tell us brian they are right all my all my notifications aren't do not disturb hey did you know do you ever call brian john do i ever call him yeah no i text him every now and again you have to call him in couplets every time you call brian or text whenever i text brian it says um do you want it to ring he has this thing off i'm like fuck yeah i want it to ring like i fucking text him bug his ass he always responds immediately to me no not to me and then and then when i call him it always goes to voicemail and i

know he has his phone like set to that setting so i always just call right back and then it pushes through you know like it put it's like it breaks the hymen and then i'm in there so he does and then he goes what and then he'll text me back what's so important i'm like i just want to talk to you just want to hear your voice that's probably it's important i called you like i don't know he does send cryptic texts though i'll ask him some detailed question that i need like a lot of details right that requires a paragraph of a, of a statement back. And he just sends yes or no. And like with nothing back,

nothing to explain it at all. And it's, that's frustrating. But other than that, and your response to me pretty quickly, I do like it. Um, he does this though.

It makes me feel like I'm on the 18. If he's busy, he will answer. And then just tell me he's busy as opposed to just keep sending me to voice me. I'll be like, I'm teaching. I'm teaching i'm like oh click so at least i get that okay uh so will mal be the next tia tia to me when tia is gone or when tia is there brian uh you say yes john you say no that was great i liked that topic. Both sides were very well articulated.

Both sides could happen. It'll be fun to see what happens later on. I know we're just doing this as a show, but I'm excited to see who's right and wrong. Hey, is this true? Barnhart is going to Proven? Is that true? I have no idea. Can someone pull up her ig and and see uh

okay number three that i suspect this is we will not make it and just so you know number uh five is fucking incredible no no number uh they're all incredible is that we we still have is tia the best crossfitter in uh history or is it Rich or Matt or someone else, or is it Greg Glassman? Higher expectations for next year, Emma Carey, Annika Greer, Annika Greer, or Olivia Kerstetter is also amazing. And then who's the fittest in Europe? I don't think we'll get to any of those. But what we do have – If we don't get to them this time, we'll bring it. We'll, we'll come,

come back next time. Yeah. Uh, this one, well, I only have 21 minutes, but this question is great. You guys are lucky. Those of you who made it this far in the show,

this is great just because it's, um, Brian, man, this is going to be good. Hey, this is in order. If Brian were to dabble,

if Brian wanted to explore his bisexuality, this is who he would do it with is in order. If Brian were to dabble, if Brian wanted to explore his bisexuality, this is who he would do it with in this order. Patrick Vellner, Fikowski, and Bjorgvin, Carl Goodman. These are like, maybe you switch Fikowski and Bjorgvin. But man, Brian loves these guys. This is like a mean question. Who came up with this? This is Brian's question.

Man, he hates himself. He's a masochist wait was this my question or was this your question it was yours oh oh you hate brian that makes more sense can patrick velner guys listen to this it's a changing of the guards when you organize it like this and what's crazy is the guys they're switching out with are just or two of them are done too they're old men's division's about to get crazy no they're not dude come on ricky's toast ricky's got one more year in him he's like he's gonna get injured at the next game sorry ricky i love him but he'll be a regular on the show soon too can patrick

velner brent fukowski or bjorkman carl goodmanson ever beat Justin Roman or Ricky ever again? I don't know who went first last time. I think it was John. No, no, Brian went first. He gave us a huge monologue. You go ahead, John. Okay, I'll go first. I'm going to say yes.

As far as who wins the CrossFit Games, I don't think Belner, Fikowski, or BKG ever win the CrossFit games. I think, but I do think they can mix between Justin Roman and Ricky. I think there will be, of those six guys, I wouldn't be surprised if next year and the year after that, it's just a combination of all of them. I don't think those three always beat the first three. I do think Justin and Roman are a tier ahead of everybody else, though. I think it's between Justin and Roman as far as who wins the next CrossFit games.

And I seriously think Roman could beat Justin. I don't think Justin is dominant, but obviously Justin is amazing at being consistent. So he's always going to be there. After that, I think it's, uh, you know, just depending on the events, Ricky got a lot of events he could crush this year and he did. Um, so between Ricky, Vellner, Fikowski, BKG, I mean, I think they could all just be a mix for those two. I think Justin and Roman aren't a tier of their own though. Two things I want to, two things that I will come back and bring up is um uh john mentioned

the the events this year at the game so that is an interesting point could the programming really mix these guys up and i hate that discussion but i guess it has to be had and the second thing that i'd like both of you to address is this was roman's first year and now he has experience at the games. And how important is that going to be? Ricky, everyone else on that list has already been to the games and had that experience. Brian,

go ahead. As far as winning, winning the CrossFit games or beating these guys at the games, I thought two years ago was Vellner's best chance to win and Fikowski's best chance to win in 2021. and it didn't do it. That was Matt's first year gone is what you're saying? Yeah, and Justin's first win. Oh, Brian sounds like he's doing a eulogy.

This kind of hurts. Coming into this year, I thought the same. I thought it was Vellner's last chance to win. I thought it was Fikowski's last chance to win. I was more confident in Vellner having a chance to compete for the title this year than Brent. Obviously, I ranked him second. I think I ranked Brent fourth or fifth coming into the games. And I had Justin first and Roman third, and I was way off the mark on Ricky.

I didn't know that he would be as good as he was this season. Um, I think it's over for these guys relative to beating Justin and Roman for sure. And possibly Ricky as well. Ricky's not that much. He's 28 Romans, 27. If you guys were wondering, at least that's what the game site has them listed as. And BKG is not really that much older than them uh he's 29 uh so i think i think that there's like i don't know i would say justin roman and ricky are are those are the guys now and i think that it's it's over for brent and bkg relative to beating them at the games and see i think there's a i think there's a huge battle for third. And Roman and Justin are just ahead of everybody else.

But I think that third place is up for grabs between those three. Ricky, I mean, maybe Sam Kwat. He's the most inconsistent person ever. He's either amazing or terrible. 26 years old. 26 years old. And freaking Adler has improved every single year. Old as dirt. Had his best year ever. Done. To year. Old, old as dirt.

Had his best year ever. Done. Toast. And Lazar and Hopper are all coming as well. Like, they're all getting better. Lazar and Hopper both. So, I mean, I don't know if they can jump into that next year, but they are getting better.

I think third is a huge battle between, like, six guys. And then I think Roman and Justin are just ahead of everybody else. I think there's a gap after that. Colin Noah, 31. So we'll be curious. The door is going to open for Jason Hopper, man.

The door is about to open for this dude. That dude's going on the podium next year. I think I'll be curious to see. I'll be curious to see what happens at rogue this year. I will tell you. Yeah. In some, in some regards

Roman needs to prove to me The way that Justin did last year That he can repeat this effort against this caliber of field I didn't see anything In the games that makes me think he can't do that But finishing 5th at Rogue Is not good enough For Roman if this is what he

If he wants to be the best in the sport Again we have no reason not to think That Justin won't win there is not good enough for Roman if this is what he, if he wants to be the best in the sport. Again, we have no reason not to think that Justin won't win there. But if someone beats him, that would be significant. But more so for Vellner. I think he's already said that he's going to go there. And if he can podium at Rogue, if all the guys actually show up and he podiums at Rogue, then I might give him a chance to podium next year at

the games but right now i don't know i think these guys are just you know it's hard like at some point age will catch up to everyone i'm not saying that he's old i'm not saying that he's bad he's still very good he had some he's just not getting better he's not getting better and he continues to do the same thing that he's always done which is have these blunders in the competition that you that that these other guys are not having are not having as many or as significant of so i would lean towards the the second the younger group here hey dude did i surprise you stefan you said i would not i would not have a definitive answer on this yeah yeah yeah that was your most definitive answer i'm i'm i'm i'm shocked i'm almost sad it almost broke my heart i want to this i want to show you something uh here it's pretty fucking harsh but fuck it let's do it uh

here's the deal justin's gonna stay at at the top, and Roman and Ricky and Samuel Quant and Jeffrey Adler and Patrick Vellner are all gone. That puts Jason Hopper back. It puts him in second. Lazar Jukic, maybe third. Guy, fourth. And then they're going to have to deal with Samuel Cornwall, fifth. I just told you the top five guys for 2023 CrossFit Games.

I mean, the rest of these guys are toast. I don't know what the fuck Saxon's doing. I was so bummed that Cornwall messed up the Rogue Online qualifier. You know, based on his performances, he would have won the qualifier and been able to compete at Rogue this year, which would have been incredible to see. Then we could have actually had a data point. What happened?

He didn't weigh his weights sam well same thing oh how many people did it affect do you know no i was saying earlier we still don't know i mean uh barbell spin reported 25 plus whatever but that was like it's still going and that was only on workout one that some of those guys had an issue now you're starting to see like colton mertens was in like he'd bumped all the way up to fifth, but then now he's listed as zero reps for event three. I don't know what, what happened, why he's got zero reps for event three, but now he's outside. Can someone pull that up? Leaderboard for Rogue? So anyway, the point of there is I would have loved to see Sam Cornway at Rogue this year,

because he obviously took the year off to compete with Rich on the team. We knew that was going to be a one time and done type of thing. I think it was really good for him in terms of a mental perspective to have that experience competing with Rich, training with Rich, learning from him all year long, feeling what it's like to win. And I would have liked to see him at Rogue this year. So I would know if Savan's got a case and a point here that he could be a top five contender. I do think he could be a top 10 contender. I'm not sure about top five. Wait, this is live right now yeah i literally i have a screenshot from this morning of this i've been taking screenshots every morning of this leaderboard and colton had zero reps for workout three can you scroll so i can see what the workouts are a little bit scroll down a little bit stop updating the leaderboard

after every little adjustment tell us the other way in the workouts and when you're done reviewing them post to finalize leaderboard there we go so there's only four workouts yeah i want to send you something right now seven can you if i send you something can you pull it up on your uh yeah if yeah send it in the chat if you can come on come on if not just text it to me this is uh so so you're saying today, Colton's a workout three wasn't, um, had a zero and now it says 15. I just sent it. Caleb should be able to pull that up and you can see this as a leaderboard this morning when I woke up. And look, maybe he was dinged because look how low is.

Well, he is the same as Jack Farlow. Do you, do you know if Justin's doing the qualifier? Or not qualifier. Justin Medeiros is doing the rope. He said he was, I think, when he was on my podcast. He said he's not training for it, though. He said he's taking a month. He said he should be training for it, but it's more important to rest

if he's resting. Well, he said the same thing last year, and he still won. So I put everybody in an equal field huh someone wrote his cfhq running through i don't think it's that bad i i don't know if i agree with brian about the the leaderboard they have what but don't they have somewhere on there brian didn't you say that says this isn't um as long as they have an asterisk on there that says hey this is being changed modified right yeah it's at the there that says, hey, this is being modified, right? Yeah, it's at the top.

It says, this is from this morning when I woke up. Okay. Oh, shit. Colton's gone. Do you want to do the- And Tetler's there in third. Here's Colton in 11th. So why are you upset that they keep changing it

if what they're doing is trying to get precision. And if they haven't want to compete in the off season, right? If they qualify for rogue, they're not going to do other competitions. For example, the Zellos games is hosting 12 male and 12 female athletes the week after rogue in Vegas for an online competition. That's kind of like an open style. They don't know the workouts that come in.

They do two workouts on Saturday, two on Sunday, and it kicks off this two week online online portion of the competition there's money to be won there uh if you don't make it for rogue the guy is going to invite someone like a colton mertens but if he does make rogue he's not but what are these changes what are these changes these changes are just happening i mean it's only a few more days of this before it's finalized right it's been like five days of rolling changes manu nango niece was in second then she was in 20 20th now she's in first it's weird it's not conducive to uh you know an easy environment for athletes to plan around she can't come anyway

why not she's not allowed in the united states why not she's not didn't take the forced injection okay but anyway that but that doesn't disprove your point i just wanted to get them there hey did you see that three that those athletes over there did you see her case basically i guess there were some athletes over there that they didn't get the notification what the workout is until 10 p.m and then it was like do the next morning or some shit is that true that kind of sucks for them. I don't know. I just think that in all of these cases, when there's an online competition, there'd be much cleaner because people are paying attention. The athletes are paying attention. The media is paying attention and everyone gets

excited about this stuff. Just say we're having an online competition. There's going to be a review process. It's going to be when the leaderboard is finalized we'll populate it just say that i i like it that it changes as long as they tell you it's changing gives us something to talk about it's exciting i would i would classify it as a different word but okay shit show you think it's a shit show i think it's annoying i think it's annoying i agree with brian i don't think they should put anything up until everything is finalized and just give you a date. Like in a week,

we will have a finalized leaderboard. Please bear with us. It's the same. You know, it's a similar, it's a similar conversation to the quarterfinals. It took 39 days for them to finalize the quarterfinal leaderboard. Why,

why is it taking so long? It's ridiculous. The athletes and the fans and the coaches and the events need to be able to plan for this stuff. If you can't run an online competition. 39 days is too long. If you can't run an online competition and have the results turned around in one week, finalized one time, then don't run the competition. You're not qualified to. Where did John go?

I don't know. But that gives me a chance to ask you this. So are you saying, do you think that Vellner and Fikowski and Bjorgman Carl Goodman should retire? Do you know? I mean, look,

if their only goal is to win the CrossFit games, I don't, I don't think that they can do it anymore, but I don't think that that's their only goal. And I think there's a huge value in terms of legacy and still earning potential to be able to, to place in the top 10. There's a lot of sponsorship endorsements.

There's a lot of impact that they can have on the, on the sport, the community. Can they still have fun? John, I was asking him, does he think that, um,

Velner or Fikowski or Bjorn should retire? And he's saying no, but, and he's giving all these reasons, but these dudes only want to go if they think they can win. Right. I think there's a chance of the podium, they'd want to go. I think they're making money to work out.

I don't even think you guys think that they can podium. I think you guys think that – I'm hearing that you guys think that they're – I think they can podium. I think any one of those three guys can podium. I don't think – I think the years of being second or first is over. I'll also say this, and I hope that this is the case. You know, Adrian Bosman made a point this year to say, I know where the athletes are weak. I know where they have not been preparing for. And in my opinion, his programming was too extreme in that regard of trying to expose all of those things at once. And it did,

and for certain athletes, it did create a different experience in terms of their performance and positioning on the leaderboard. I think it would have been, could have been, uh, rolled out a little bit differently, but the fact that he chose to do that, my hope is that next year that he reminds the athletes that what you think you're preparing for is not what you're preparing for and that the test looks dramatically different and that there are different areas of fitness that are exposed and the things that athletes think that they need to prepare for based on this past year are almost irrelevant next year because there's other elements of the complete test of fitness that you also need to be good at and that's where someone who's very well-rounded and balanced like a Justin Medeiros or Mallory O'Brien will still be good.

But you might see some of the guys like John was saying, like Ricky who had this string of like six or seven straight top seven finishes to start the week. He might not get dealt such a great hand next year. And instead he might have eight workouts like he had this year, which were, you know, 12th to 20th or whatever they were, that start the weekend.

And when you start the weekend with six straight workouts outside the top 10 instead of six inside the top 10, I know it's an extreme example, but mentally that's a lot different for you to prepare with. And you look at someone like Dallin Pepper, the first eight workouts of this weekend were terrible for him. He was just getting exposed left and right. And what does that do to your psyche? And is that something that you can rebound and bounce back from and have a good finish to the weekend? If he gets dealt a good hand up front next week, it might be totally different. And that's, I think the ordering of events matters. The things that the programmer is, is trying to expose or highlight that not just one athlete, but the whole field of athletes is

neglecting and their training and preparation is important. It's okay to have that. But, yeah, like you guys are talking about, there's a lot of guys that are in the mix, and the way the structure of the overall programming can have an impact on the way that some of this plays out. I think somebody like Hopper could benefit hugely, too, if he had a great first day. Because he came back and got seventh, I believe. And he was like 31st place after day one. It was really bad.

He had three straight, really bad events. And just by having a little bit different events, if those 35th places are 15th, then he's easily in the running to podium as well. By the way, if you're looking at the leaderboard and you think John's wrong about that, don't forget that the shuttle to overhead did not happen second and third. So the first three workouts he did were actually 18th, 28th, 29th.

And he was way down there on the leaderboard. It just looks, it doesn't look that way when you look at the leaderboard because they list shuttle to overhead. Okay, good stuff. Great point. Often you'll hear, we're off script now because I don't want to do question number four until the next show. Often you'll hear that the men are deeper, that there's a deeper field of men. Okay. But when I look at the women's competition next year, I think the top 20 women are better than the top 20 men.

I feel like that there's a reshuffling. There's almost like next year is going to sort of be this cleansing of the men it's going to maybe the worst year in in men's uh competition and and maybe the women and maybe the women's best there's a lot of new blood in the women next year yeah man it the women's the women seems is that true the men's the men is, but the top 20 or top 50 women are actually the better athletes, better competition to watch and best time and energy into. I don't know. It's, it's like, you have to go a little bit further down the men's leaderboard at the games and ask yourself, are guys like, um, Jay Crouch, Enrico Zanoni, Baden Brown, Colton

Mertens, Cole Grayshaver, Tudor Magda, that are still young and ascending in their career, going to push into that top 25, top 20, top 15 conversation. And you're still going to add some guys back in, possibly Chandler Smith, Samuel Cornway, who you've brought up. You might lose a couple, but you're going to have an influx of new blood on the men's side too, or a resurgence of some of these guys. I don't think it's outside the realm of possibility that Tudor, Magda,

and Cole Griesheber improve dramatically from this year to next year. They both looked really solid at semifinals. It's always going to be hard to qualify out of North American semifinals, but I think they can do it again, and I think they can do a lot better at the games than they did this year. And somebody like Dallin. Dallin can improve a lot he could be in top 10 next year as well well i think that that's what savon's looking at is if you look at this

like you see uh 11 through 20 you have saxon it's kind of an unknown how good is saxon can he get any better has he already peaked no olsen's getting older cole sager's getting older nick matthew was at the games this year's 28 can he do that again bionicowski's not that old but he's you know this is the worst performance he's had in a while it was a tough season for him with the surgery with an illness he had to go through lcq we'll see if he's getting older or what willie george are we going to see travis mayer's getting older and then you have dylan and spencer that i think yeah are younger and can be good so So, um, it, but on the women's field for two years in a row, now we've had like six to 10 women that were not in the field that,

uh, that could be really relevant in the games field. So I'm just curious to see if maybe this next year, someone could be right. Where if the new, all this new blood that we're going to talk about, uh, probably in the next show,

plus some of the older guard, like can Jamie Simmons get back on track and be relevant in a semifinal and at the games? Can Katrin come back if she wants to? Can Sarah come back? Will Annie return to the individual games field? I kind of think Cara will. Is Cara done?

It'll be interesting to see where she is next year. Toast. Anyway. Three of those four are toast. Is Sarah, Cara, and Katrin are four toast but if some of these sarah car and uh catch on her toast but if some of these women come back and you also have the like i don't know if bethany shadburn's gonna try to compete again next year no i'm i'm out on bethany shadburn i i believed in her so badly for like three straight years and she's just

never well you know it's pretty she's america's jam. She's America's Jamie Simmons. Why are they toast? Because their age? Everyone's gotten too good. It's just too good. The freaks are out now. The women's division has turned into a freak show. Tia set the bar

so fucking high and now we have people like Emma Lawson, Olivia Kerstetter, and Emma Carey. What Emma Lawson did this year is fucking mind-boggling but another show i want to ask you one more question about roman but how in the way just so you just so you know yes emma lawson's young and and compared to this other person but alexis raptors is only 34 points behind her she's a rookie also finishing the top 10 this year so i think she hasn't been getting enough credit and looks like she has a crazy head on her shoulders she looks like she got her shit together She's a rookie also, finishing the top 10 this year. So I think she hasn't been getting enough credit. And looks like she has a crazy head on her shoulders. She looks like she got her shit together.

Go ahead. I want to talk about Roman real quick with our three minutes left. How important is this year's experience for Roman? There's a good chance that maybe he'll be 5% better now just because he believes in himself. He hung with the monsters and he's like, oh shit, I am one of the monsters. I don't buy that. I think Roman came into this year and was like, I'm better than all of y'all. I'm letting y'all know y'all can't hang with me. I, I think Roman is the most confident person in the whole field. Like when he does an event, he looks like I'm just better like his facial expressions there's no worry to him at all like i feel like maderos when he doesn't know if he's

going to be good in an event like he looks angrier he's very focused he's trying to get in the mode of i'm about to hurt myself to win right here and i do not see and ricky looks scared at times i don't see that with roman at all i don't think there's the the sandbag event maybe specifically uh definitely roman seemed more casual not that any of them seemed casual but ricky and and uh and uh justin were intense yeah they were and they both did amazing they were gonna fight they ended up beating him on that workout yeah they both they both in the early rounds you would have bet on roman i would have yeah no no they both did amazing i'm just saying from a confidence perspective i don't think there's anybody who's on a better mindset than roman guy he's a he's a machine

i mean i mean i'm not going to disagree with that, but I will say that there, you know, Roman has done a ton of competitions in the parts of the world that he was able to compete over the last several years. And he has a lot of competition pedigree, but this was a, you know, the CrossFit games is different. There aren't any other competitions that are, that's a good point too. Their mindset in Russia, especially when you come from the part of Russia, well it's just a siberia yes it's an it's it's a tough mindset that's just

um it's definitely an asset experience does matter you do learn a lot going through that the first year and whether you're confident or not there's certain nuances and elements of competing at the crossfit games over those five days against that caliber of field that he will draw upon that will make him even more formidable next year. I think just living in the U.S. this year and training without the doubt that he'll be here, he doesn't have to go through that process again. It's done. It will help him. I think he will improve just from that fact alone.aleb hi thank you thank you just thank you yeah thank you uh next week i think we'll this will be uh sooner than later uh although brian has a bunch of shows coming up uh but the three topics we need to cover is is tia uh really the best crossfitter

of all time or the fittest in history out of men and women not just uh that needs to be talked about higher expectations for next year's crew uh emma carrie wow annika greer wow and olivia kerstetter um and then finally fittest in europe we'll be talking about that on the next show john young your beast brian you're the greatest that ever lived caleb just thank you