The Sevan Podcast - #580 - Top 30 Male CrossFit Games Athletes of All Time

Episode Date: September 9, 2022

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Let's go seize the night. That's the powerful backing of American Express. Visit amex.ca slash yamex. Benefits vary by card. Other conditions apply. One year a lot every day for a year. Bam, we're live. I thought the guy's name was Jim.

Yeah, Jim Bobroski. Jim who? Bobroski? I don't think that's his real name. I'm almost certain it's not his real name. What's the F stand for? It's Black real name. I'm almost certain it's not his real name. What's the F stand for? It's Black Flag Performance. That's his workout stuff.

That guy has self-programming? I think so. Jim? I can't remember. Oh, it's a cool hat. Brian, are you going to sue? What? No.

What are you talking about? Bruce Wayne, Kyle Landis, Austin Hartman, Vindicate. Get your favorite Sevan podcast badass gear at Vindicate. V-N-D-K-A dot com. Eric Wise. Geez Louise. Oh, no. There he is.

Jeff. Elise Bone. Oh no. There he is. Jeff, at least bone, at least bone, bone and who? Good morning. Crazy show. How dare you not include teams? How dare you? Why not include teams in your factor for the 30 greatest CrossFters male of all time and before anyone says anything stupid of course he's going to do the female settle down settle down over there we're saving the best for last um why no why no team factor because i don't have all the team data historically, and no one does really, except for Chad. Also because it just opens up. Chad Schroeder or Schrader? Schroeder.

Chad Schroeder. And it also opens up. It complicates and convolutes the conversation too much. I think that a majority of the people who are interested in including the team element of CrossFit are only interested in it because of Rich Froning, which is to me, you know, I know one person I think in the comments did mention some others like Tommy Hackenbrook. Someone mentioned, maybe the same person mentioned Kyle Casper Bauer and his, you know, prowess in the master's division as well. And of course I, you know,

I know about these things and I'm aware of those things but uh it just this is kind of the same reason why i don't i'm not including the off-season competitions there's been so much i think you feel bad for it i sense you feel bad for it that you wish you could you know what i feel bad for is that people think that i'm undervaluing what rich has done for the sport or has done in you, as an individual in his collective career as the sport, which couldn't be further from the truth. It's just when doing something like this, there's the sport at CrossFit is so broad. There's like, you know, there are thousands of competitions every year at this point. And it doesn't really make sense for me to

investigate that fully up to this point in the sports history all of the athletes that have tried to compete in crossfit have tried to compete with one goal in mind which is to win the crossfit games making it the pinnacle event making it you know and even though it it in itself changes year to year and over you know different eras it's big one. It's the uniform one. It's the one that we can most easily look at and take a data set or a sample size and I think derive something meaningful from it. Who's the greatest team athlete to ever do CrossFit?

Do we know? I mean, with that question in itself is a great example of what the problem is. Okay. Is Richard team athlete or is an individual athlete or is he just CrossFit athlete? Cause he's basically had a, you know,

well, bare minimum, he's both, he's both. Right. Right. So am I going to look at his six individual or six team competitions? Let's say you weren't.

When I'm answering that, when I'm saying, when I'm answering that question, should I neglect his individual success and only focus on him as a team athlete? It would still be him. And then who would be second, you think? Do we even know? Adam Neifert. Oh. Just because, you know. and i'm asking you leading questions my question would is this james holbert maybe tommy hackenbrook maybe i mean it depends on

what you value like what adrian conway did in a year was incredibly impressive but it was a year and you look at adam knyford over 10 years and not and i've only mentioned men so far how do you factor in someone like annie thorsdottir who's had one year as a team or lauren fisher who's had multiple years as teams kind of sprinkled throughout her career it would definitely be taylor and taylor right one of them and only done the team competition how heavily does that weigh against someone like um you know china cho who joined on the Mayhem team and won. Like, you know, it's so much more complicated when you factor all those things in.

And when I'm, I mean, it's already difficult enough to assess, you know, there are thousands of men who competed at the CrossFit Games, close to a thousand, I think, when you go back to the early years, which I have a couple hundred each. You're really transparent. This is the most transparent ranking I've seen. Maybe I wasn't paying close attention but by transparent i mean you let people see some of the big uh the big levers you looked at appearances titles podiums uh top tens average finish event wins

what's change mean i i released a uh rankings. We did it. We talked about it on this show actually. And it's a, it's actually one of the most important things that I wanted to talk to you about at the start of this conversation is since from last year, when we did that to this year. So if it says change and there's a dash, that means the ranking didn't change. So Fraser was first last year. He's still first this year, no change. Someone like Justin Medeiros, he's new on the list. So it just says new. And then, you know change. Someone like Justin Medeiros, he's new on the list, so it just says new. And then everyone who is behind Medeiros who enters into somewhere on this list is obviously going to drop down at least one spot.

So there would be a minus one, minus two, minus three, whatever. And then for some others like Sam Quant or Travis Mayer or Cole Sager, their performance this year elevated them by uh you know whatever number of placements so that'd be a plus two plus four whatever you see on there to make it on this list you have to oh god there's this sometimes i just ask brilliant questions i don't even i just savor them i don't even want them coming out of my mouth they're so good i feel like i should it's like you know when there's a great movie and you don't want to watch it like after i saw boys in the hood, I was like, fuck, I wish I wouldn't have watched this because now it's like – You'll never get that experience again.

No, so fucking good. That first time. That's how I feel about this next question. So to get on this list, you have to have competed at the CrossFit Games three times. That's the baseline. Even if you won your first year and your second year, you still don't get to be into this competition. There's a baseline of three years competing. second year you still don't get to be into this competition there's a baseline of three years competing um who are the guys who've been in two years that you're like oh shit next year

they're on this slide i'll see oh they are the last slide has those names oh my goodness i can't wait so you're even ahead of me it's a question, but it's a great stat you've already even thought of. Yeah. The really looking at dessert before you eat dinner. The one that I'm not sure about is, is Ricky. Like was this, would you consider this to be his first or second year this past year?

I'm counting it as one. Oh, what a great slide. Notable names eligible next season. You're counting it as one. Oh, what a great slide. Notable names eligible next season. You're counting it as what? His second year? First. Oh, poor Rick Lito.

It's not my fault that he got disqualified. Roman Krennikoff, Lazar, Lazar, Jukic, and Jason Hopper all can't be put on the list yet because of only the two years. Right, and the other three guys below that, Willie George, Guy Mayeros, and Will Morhead, could have been on this list. They all have competed at least three years

and were close to making it but haven't made it yet. Was Guy the closest? Yeah, I mean, 7th and 10 seventh and tenth is remarkable obviously for two years the only other year he competed was 2019 he finished somewhere in the 40s it changed after they were you know uh eliminated a few people who failed drug tests that year so i think he may have ended up 49th or something like that um but uh really i want to see just one more full year from him and then definitely he'll be on the list. From Guy? Yeah.

Even if he shits the bed? Even if he took a 24th, do you think he'd push out Austin Maliolo? Yeah, if he had a major regression next season, then he'd be a lot lower on the list. I still think there's a potential for him to slide in there, but we'll see. And I know that we've only been doing this a couple years now. This is year number two,

but currently the best newcomer who's ever come onto the list is Justin Medeiros. The highest anyone's ever come onto the list is Justin Medeiros. The highest anyone's ever come onto the list is seven. Yeah, and I think more so than any other name on that list, that seems to be the one that most people have taken exception to. I'm struggling with it, I'll tell you. I struggled with it also. It was very difficult to decide where to rank him.

I know it seemed like a lot of people wanted to have him third. I did consider putting him third. And obviously every spot in between there. And then I ended up settling on seventh. Or not. We'll circle back to that. You have on here appearances, titles, podiums, top tens, average finishes, event wins as your criteria? Not just as criteria.

As criteria. Yeah. There are certainly other things that I think about and consider when making this. And you are exactly right. By putting all those data points out there, it's very easy for someone to look at it and see an outlier in some of those categories and say, there, it's very easy for someone to look at it and see an outlier in some of those categories and say, well, that's ridiculous. Just look at the numbers. This guy should obviously be higher or lower, but I think there are other factors that aren't

as easy to quantify with a simple stat or a chart like this that are also important to factor in. You have Ben Smith at 11 appearances. Yeah. Does that include the appearance where he was invited? It does. So if Ricky showed up, if he popped, and he doesn't get to count that because he used nefarious means to get to the CrossFit Games.

Should Ben only be 10 appearances, or should there be an asterisk next to him? I don't know. I mean, that was something that was out of his control, whereas Ricky's choice was in his control. Ben's career, uh, it was what was what earned him that invite. And I, you know, I, I don't think the competition was any worse for having him there that year. I think it was probably better having him there. Um, and it also, I think in terms of just that concept of having an invite, um,

I don't, you know, I don't, there was obviously a lot of controversy about whether that should have existed or not, but should not have, you know, it's one of those things where like, once you do it and you've done it, then you can,

then you can look at it and say, okay, well we did it. Did we like it or not? Did it work or not? Whereas if you never do it, then you don't really know. And since we were doing so many other new and different things that year,

I didn't think it was like, it was, if we're going to do it one year, that was the year to do it. Hey, was that the year that, oh, was that the year that, no, that wasn't the year Ricky popped. It was two years later. It's 2019. It would have been cool if they, they just waived Ricky popping too. That's fine.

It's okay. Ben, you come on in. I know you didn't qualify Ricky. You popped it. It's all good. Just everyone chill. Chill. The balance is out. There, you come on in. I know you didn't qualify. Ricky, you popped. It's all good. Just everyone chill. Chill.

The balance is out. There's balance in the universe. A minimum of three years competing at the CrossFit Games as an individual to make it on the top 30 greatest CrossFitters of all time. Brian Friend is not factoring in team performances. This is an individual, a list based on individual performances and achievements specifically around the crossfit games uh the undisputed crowning event that crowns the fittest human being who walks planet earth uh primary statistics used were podium finishes top 10 finishes number of years qualified average finishes across a career sorry average finish big difference average

finish across a career and finally event wins oh that's a that's a nice one uh additionally and that's what saves someone like gee right what the event wins event wins it certainly is uh it's a feather in his cap compared to most of the athletes yeah additionally there is an element of my own perception as the data can be misleading in some cases yeah what's your of these which is your favorite um stat which which one like is is there a bread and butter or is there any two that are a bread and butter when you bring let's say appearances and average finish together you're like all right i'm really like because if your average finish is second but you've only been in three games

versus your average finishes is 2.4 and you've been in seven games i mean is there any two that you're just like yeah that's you're the guy. Um, I don't know. I mean, obviously winning is, is, is, is huge, but I like, I like to also recognize longevity in the sport. Uh, I think that it's a pretty impressive sport to have, you know, consistent and long runs where you're able to, even if you're not necessarily winning, but we're able to string together six, seven, eight, nine consecutive trips to the CrossFit games. And then if you couple that with average finishes that are around 10th place, that's, that's pretty impressive.

So I would say like the combination of, you know, cause there's only a couple of guys that have won. Obviously there's a few more that have podiums, but there's a lot of people that are on this list whose average finish is somewhere between, I don't know, 10 and 14 over a career that spans six to nine years. And those to me are, you know, fairly significant. If you go down this list, I'm pretty confident there are two, one, two, there are only two people on the list that have three years of competition experience and make this list. And they're Justin Medeiros, who's obviously in the beginning of his career, and Miko Salo. And every other person on this list has at least four appearances. And none of the people who have four appearances, even Tommy Hackenbrook's highest ranked at 20. And then you have Adler, Alex Anderson, and Kyle Kasperbauer, who are all

outside the top 20. So clearly, I'm factoring in longevity and durability and excellence coupled with that over a career as something that I weigh fairly heavily. That appearances, you're right, is fascinating because I think it's – we always talk about Matt winning five and Rich winning four. And it's just one more. And then I'm always like, you know, just rolls off my tongue. Well, Rich is better because of all the team shit he won, but look how many appearances Matt has had. Seven. Casper Bauer, Alex Vigneault, Alex Anderson, Jacob Heppner, Jeffrey Adler, Spencer Hendel, Saxon Panchik, Tommy Hackenbrook, Samuel Quant, Miko Salo, Matt Chan, Graham Holmberg, Dan Bailey, Josh Bridges, and Justin Medeiros. And Rich Froning, he beats all those guys on appearances.

It's fucking nuts. That's a lot of times to go to the games right yeah and in in over that amount of times doing it he he's good as an average finish better than him is rich and it's by a tenth of a point wow he's good right matt fraser i think he's the best that's ever done it yeah and he's not just the best that's ever done it. He's like exceptional. Like when you say there was never going to be another rich and then for Matt just to just come in, it's, it's out of this world kind of, right? Yeah. And I want to say, you know, like, again, I think it's really important to, to factor in when I say that Matt's the best that ever, that has ever done it. I, I don't think you can say that without recognizing that he wouldn't have, I don't

think he would have performed and excelled to the level that he did without Rich. So I think Rich set the standard. And that's why when we were talking with John the other day, I would say, you know, that Rich is kind of like a Babe Ruth or a Bill Russell. Like he's, you know, you have to keep in mind, like imagine 50 years from now, looking back and you'll say, well, the first great athlete in the sport was Rich Froning. And he created a landscape that was possible for someone like Matt Fraser to come along. And so you could say, well, was Mickey Mantle better than Babe Ruth? Was Will Chamberlain better than Bill Russell? It's like, yeah, maybe, but they couldn't have existed in the way that they did. If those guys hadn't come before.

That's what Rich Froning is for the sport of CrossFit, especially on the men's side of things. And I actually, you know, I know a lot of people want to see the all-time greatest list and is Tia the fittest ever or, you know, whatever conversation. I think that in the sport of CrossFit, it actually is practical to have those, more practical to have those conversations independently. I think that especially with only where we've been so far in the sport that the landscape for the men and the women is so dramatically and drastically different that it's fun to talk about them collectively, but not that practical necessarily. People aren't going to like this one. Here it comes. The women don't have a rich running. Well, you could argue that it's Annie Thor's daughter. And I don't think that people.

You'd have to argue it, though. You'd have to argue it. I mean, that time, like the years that they won back to back together was like that was a critical pairing of years for the development and pushing forward of the sport. And I would say that Annie's impact on the sport for women was maybe not at the same level as Rich, but was definitely notable. And I don't know that... It's notable, but there's been others now. Now we got Medeiros with two... Yeah, but she was the first.

If you look before her, I don't think Chris Clever had the same impact that Annie did or Tanya Wagner or Katie Mathur or Jolie, you know. So I would say Annie was kind of that first. I think Sam Briggs had a big impact and obviously Katrin and then Tia. But I would say Annie was the first great woman in terms of not just performance at the games, obviously being the first back-to-back champion, but also showing women out there kind of what's possible in terms of the sport of fitness and even what a woman's body can look like. All of that stuff I agree with. And her stature in the sport, I would agree, is this bigger-than-life motherly figure, the same way Rich is sort of that bigger-than-life fatherly figure. But that being said, of that bigger than life fatherly figure but that

being said she's no rich froney i agree the women are saying the same thing the women yeah i know but you soften the blow like i threw out the window and like you threw some pillows for her to land on that was nice of me i wasn't that was nice of you. It wasn't. That was nice of you. It's a good thing I practice sleeping with no pillows. Do you? I have. Yeah, me too.

You just like to lay flat, practice lying flat. Yeah, I think that's how people slept for a long time. Yeah. I think I like it because I stay awake longer. I don't fall asleep as quick gives me time to like kind of check check in on myself i have a pillow i'm just out graphics guy upped his up to up to his game this time i think i sent him all this information i didn't know what he would do with it he was i think i was pretty pleased with what he was able to do are there any factors that are as definitive as these

ones appearance title podium top 10 finishes average finishes event wins that well yeah when you use that's not on this list that you haven't told us about yeah like when you competed you know and and i think that probably at this point it's the easiest way to define that is by location so if a majority of your appearances or your significant most significant appearances were in aromas a way that a little bit have you know less than if they were in carson and a little bit less than if they were in madison why does it matter how if the is best of all no you can't you can't do anything about the field of competitors that you're competing against uh you know i've always said that like um it doesn't it doesn't matter who was in the field uh that last year justin showed up in one and he deserves the credit for that

but you can recognize that as the sport has evolved over the last 15 years that there have been more people that are investing more and in trying to be elite that are great at this sport like this fraser beat stronger fields and phony like does that matter yeah that's bad it's most that's basically what i'm saying it's like if you because you're there's no time component you're saying if you took all of – you're basically trying to put everyone in the same time, a timeless era. It's – well, it's – I don't know. But that's what you're trying to do, right? Yeah.

Yeah. But recognizing that that's not the case as well. Brandon Waddle with a good comeback. Dang, Nick. Froney beat everyone on the list of the top 30. Fraser did not. I think Graham Holmberoning beat everyone on the list of the top 30. Frazier did not. I think Graham Holmberg beat him. Beat who?

Froning. But did Froning ever beat Graham the next year? Did Froning ever beat Justin Medeiros? Oh, yeah, Brandon. Yeah. Has he beat Sam Kwant or Jeff Adler? He did. He definitely beat Sam Kwant.

He did? Yeah. Whatever Sam Kwant's rookie year was. 2016. Yeah. for jeff he did he definitely beat sam kwan he did yeah remember sam kwan whatever sam kwan's rookie year was 2016 yeah rich was competing on the teams no no he was individual that year no he wasn't so yeah shit i thought i had something on you i've always said this too if someone wants to make the argument that Rich is the greatest or the greatest male crossfitter of all time, I'm not going to argue against them.

I think that they are, you know, what if it was on the John Young, uh, uh, Brian friend show, a debate show. I can make the argument for Rich to be the greatest of all time.

I just don't think it's as strong as the case for Matt. Neither do I. How could anyone argue just based on this? If you don't look at teams, well, what would you say to argue Rich's bet? I don't see anything you could argue. You could say exactly what I said.

Matt would never have been able to do what he did without Rich. Yeah, but that's so – I know. That's what I'm saying. It's not as strong of an argument. It doesn't really – I mean, I did something for you that I thought you'd really like. Okay? We're going to take a little trip down memory lane.

Please. You like that idea idea i love that idea because one of the things that i saw people were commenting a lot about was how skewed some of the numbers for fraser are based on the 2020 2020 crossfit games and the fact that he was able to rack up just in him and tia both an insane number of event wins that year. So I did a little parallel. The four athletes that Fraser competed against in 2020 were Samuel Quantz, Justin Medeiros, Noah Olsen, and Jeff Adler. Crazy field of dudes. Crazy field of dudes. So if you take their relative finishes in previous years, and I did a little, because 2019 was so strange. So in so in the case of samuel quantity finished 13th and 20th in his two previous uh visits to the crossfit games before

going to aromas and taking second i weighed the 13th a little heavier because it's more recent so i looked at the 15th place finisher from 2012 for maderos i looked at the best placing rookie from 2012 for noah olsen i combined his second best placing rookie from 2012 for Noah Olson. I combined his second and sixth place finish from the previous two years. And I went for the fourth place finisher from 2012 and Adler was 33rd in a field of 145 or something in 2019, which I just went for the 25th place finisher from 2012. So if in 2013, which we'll say is a parallel to matt

fraser in 2020 oh i like what you're doing rich had competed against those four placings we would have had lucas parker marcus hendron scott panchik and albert dominic laurouche that's a that's a similar grouping of athletes that rich would have competed against in 2013 so he let then i looked at how did he do against those athletes in 2012 and of all the workouts that he competed against them in scott actually beat him five times marcus beat him three times part lucas parker beat him twice and albert domino clarouche beat him once but rich beat them all in seven out of the events that year and that 2012 year and i didn't and i picked that year even despite the fact that there were so many anomalies in the programming they had

the broad jump the ball toss toss the track triplet the med ball handstand push-up and the sprint workout all of which were like very specialty specific workouts and he lost he did not win any of those workouts rich but he did beat them all in you know several of the other ones that were more kind of the classic crossfit, what you'd expect. And that would have bolstered his event wins by five. He had two in 2012. He would have had seven in a comparable format. So I thought it was just kind of a cool study to do to see that, yeah,

if you pare down the field to a similar grouping of athletes that Matt had to compete against in stage two of 2020, Rich's event wins would also be inflated a little bit. I hope you enjoyed that. I did. I really did like that, actually. For those of us who have been around then, and I can remember seeing all those guys you said compete very clearly, especially Marcus Hendren and Lucas Parker. As you say their names, I feel like I'm standing next to them as they're running by me in the events. I want to talk about Medeiros. Yes. The only male ever to win two CrossFit Games.

the only male ever to win two CrossFit games. And before we talk about his ranking. So wait a second. So you're saying that Rich Froning showed up to five CrossFit games and won four? Yeah. Yeah. Not you're saying. That's the stat. Yeah. So you have Medeiros at seventh. The people you have ahead of Jason Medeiros are Ben Smith. That one's kind of hard to argue with because he won the CrossFit games.

Would you say Ben Smith won in modern times? Yes. And he had to beat Matt Fraser. Yes. And would you – oh, shit, I lost the page. And would you also say that Jason Kalilipa ever compete in the games in the modern times uh 2014 was the last year he competed individually and how did he do great third the thing about kalipa behind you behind who and fraser froning okay pretty good company

yeah yeah the thing so and to me we've talked about this so the podium in 2014 was rich Behind who and Fraser? Froning. Okay. Pretty good company. Yeah. Yeah. The thing. So, and to me, we've talked about this. So the podium in 2014 was rich, Matt and Jason.

I think it's the best podium ever. Yeah. That's savage. But we have, uh, I'm more impressed by Jason's third place finish in 2014 than I am by him winning the games in 2008. So that's a, is a great example of how I weigh the eras a little different.

I thought it was a much more impressive and difficult accomplishment to get third that year than it was to win in 2008. Speaking about impressive, for those of you who don't know, and you can go back and watch it on the internet somewhere, go back and watch event number one and event number two of the 2009 crossfit games it has to be up there it has to be the most impressive uh performances by any crossfit athlete that i can think of male or female jason fainted on the fucking field of play got up finished the fucking run didn't take last and then in the second event deadlifted 500 pounds it was it was pretty fucking bizarre event finishes of 72nd and then first wow

yeah that's nuts and i mean he was down like you could see him that we have the footage he's running and he goes down he just just just just turns off and if not for that if not for that he probably wins the games that year i mean it was a it was a total points accumulation and he got 72 is of his 106 points on that workout alone first 13th 13th first and second but they were more uh hold on. So he would have beat Miko. And then second, second again. Maybe. I mean, he ends up finishing. Miko had, he didn't have any really bad events,

but he had a 32nd, a 17th, an 11th, a 9th. But even if you add all of these up, they're not coming to 72. So that event alone weighed so negatively against Jason. And he's, you know, he finished fifth that year but it's a are those intangibles you think about are those the intangibles you think about sometimes yeah um it's difficult you know i think the smaller the sample size for the athletes the more difficult it is to assess the ranking someone put a pretty funny comment like that if miko saw he was ranked 17th

on this list he would ride his bike through the atlantic ocean on the ocean floor and come beat my ass yeah i saw that that was good but it's like you know you you could make the argument that miko doesn't even really deserve to be on the list at all he has i hear you placed a third place and then something pretty bad uh I'll have to check here. Another incredible finish by him, though, too, had his eardrum blown out and finished the event, which was crazy. Like, we all saw something happen to him.

We didn't know what. Miko? Yeah, Miko. That year he had his eardrum blown out. A wave hit his eardrum, blew out his eardrumrum and we saw him basically war to finish a really long event he can that's probably why the guy believes he can ride his bike on the ocean floor yeah i want to say this about jason passing out the 2009 crossfit games he wasn't the only one a fucking shitload of people did not finish that event and they did not come back and compete valerie volberl did a somersault across the finish line.

There was a point in that event where they came running down the hill at Aromas, and they were supposed to run between two bleachers and enter the stadium. It was like a mock stadium made with cheap bleachers, right? One of the fucking athletes missed the opening and ran under the fucking bleachers just imagine you're running and i'm like hey run between those bleachers right there and instead you just ran underneath it and fucking clothesline yourself it was some asian chick i can't remember her name do you have all the footage from that year somewhere yeah that's at the finish line that's at the finish line yeah that's at the finish line that's at the finish line yeah that's at the finish line

hey he had to be carried yeah look at him look if you made a documentary about that year and just talk to those dudes yeah that might be a good idea look at it out now it would be a hugely popular good fine caleb damn this guy just wants to just kill just like students in medical shirts yeah he's wrecked right there a few minutes later he wins an event yeah he looks like shit yeah he's he's not he's not good bam event two 500 oh is that 505 man man oh man Man. Man, oh, man. CrossFit, don't do something stupid like try to bust us for copyright.

I own that footage. I will fuck you guys up. Alan Kestenbaum, thank you. I owe you a big hug, buddy. After his eardrum being blown, he came back next year and had knee surgery. He came back the next year and then he got pneumonia resilient as fuck alan um i was looking for you on instagram yesterday i wanted to share something with you i spoke with michael uh i think it's ruling we had a great conversation he was telling me what a stud you are so so it is it is hard for me it is hard for me to process what happens if jason kalipa

so it goes just for those of you know the best male crossfitters of all time first is matt fraser then rich froning jr then ben smith then patrick bellner then jason kalipa uh-oh madaris doesn't even make page one then scott panchik and then Justin Medeiros. Um, what happens if Justin wins next year or what? Let me ask you this first. What happens if he just goes to the games next year and competes in, let's say just takes podium.

He doesn't win, which isn't going to happen. He's going to win again. Maybe I think, no, he is. If he wins, if he wins again, he will move.

Obviously he'll move up on the list, uh, either to third or fourth, probably the third. If he podiums maybe to fourth. So if he wins again, he pushes Ben Smith out three wins, Trump's 11 appearances and one win. He also has, you know, he also has, uh, a third place finish. And even though it was in a strange year, I weigh that third place significantly less than Jason Kalipa's third place in 2014, for example, because he had to beat a full field of one of the best fields we've ever seen,

whereas he qualified for that via an online competition, which is really, really strange against probably the weakest field of 30 we've ever seen to get to the weakest field of five we've ever seen. Man. And then it's not, it's not his fault. It's just how, how it is. It's like, so yes, there's that third place finish there. Obviously it was a precursor for what was to come, but it just like, to me, it's elite.

Like people want to look at how dominant Fraser was in 2020. It's like, we just talked about it. It's like, to me, it's his least impressive win. And, and then he'll be the only person in CrossFit games history to have three

wins. Well, there are, yeah. Because someone has four and someone has five. And no woman's ever done three that besides tia not just three right and and no one's ever won the crossfit games not won it and then come back and won it every all the people who have multiple wins have done it consecutively no one's ever taken a

an l is that true all the people who have multiple CrossFit Games wins have never lost. And then come back and got a win. So, like, all five, they're all consecutive wins. Right. So, if we see Justin lose. Never won again. Catcher lost. Never won again.

Sam Briggs lost. Never won again. Yeah. Although. Yeah, that's interesting. But if for some reason Justin didn't win next year, he'd be one of those people that we thought could come back and win unless we saw him sustain some terrible injury.

Yeah, or Roman comes back next year and beats him by 300 points somehow. But we don't think Annie's ever going to come back and win the CrossFit Games. She's the only, or Katrin. I think there are people who believe that if Tia retires this year and Annie throws her hat in the ring individually, which it looks like she's going to do at Rogue, that she will be in the conversation with Laura and Mal

to possibly win the games. But she, but we don't actually think she'll win. I don't think so, but I think there are people who believe that she'll have a chance. Yeah. I mean, I believe she has a chance to, but,

but it's not going to happen. I want to go all the way down to the end and work our way up. Austin, Maliolo, uh, Neil Maddox, Kyle Casper, Bauer,

Alex Vigneault, Alex anderson i think most of the people who watch the games don't even know currently don't even know who these people are is that fair to say maybe um obviously vigno is the most modern of any of these here he had pretty bad games relative to his other games performances this year alex anderson being the probably the next most recent unless you follow the Masters Division, where then you'll have some exposure to Kyle Kastner-Bauer. But Neil and Austin haven't competed in a while.

And I think Alex's dad was a CrossFit Games champion, for sure a competitor in the Masters Division. And his brothers both competed. And Neil Maddox is currently in Northern California teaching rich people how to do crossfit kyle casper bauer is in i think he's in nebraska yeah and he works for crossfit right he's one of the country managers or affiliate liaisons or field reps or one of those things that they can't figure out what they are and austin maliolo runs that team he's like this

the number two he's like head of affiliates for CrossFit in North America. And, and, I don't know if I should do this. Let's save that for another episode. I like Austin. I don't want to. I like Austin. I do like Austin. He's a good dude.

Number 25, Jacob Heppner. I had no idea he was so fucking accomplished. I thought he just had a good body and a good personality. Yeah, really impressive, especially when you look at his average finish across five years, 10.6, which is obviously better than anyone else on this particular page. page. And I think that, you know, he, he is one of those guys where when you think, when you think about him, you might not realize how good his his career was, but then when you put all the numbers on paper and you see five years,

18th, 10th, seven, six, 12, that's a pretty good resume. A couple of that wins three top tens, pretty good run, even though it was only over five years uh jeff adler still going strong uh is a threat is a threat to the podium it's better every year heather it's so crazy as four event wins at the games and they are all in strength events and like really demanding strength events like the back nine this year the crossfit total um it's he to me is you know there are some other athletes that you can throw into the mix in this conversation like cody anderson or carl saunders maybe but what he's able to do with the body that he has in terms of

strength output is so incredible uh and he's continuing to get better in a lot of other domains, which are obviously allowing him to move up the leaderboard year after year. Chris Spieler, is he the only guy who is in the 2007 CrossFit Games who's on this list? I think so. I think so. And I know there was one person in there in the comments, at least that was seemed to be offended by how low Chris was ranked on this list.

They're out of their fucking mind. He's lucky to be on the list. They're out of their fucking mind. He's barely a CrossFit Games athlete. I barely give him that. So this is a good example of where the numbers don't tell the whole story. Because if you look down the page here compared to the two guys on either side of him, he has more appearances. He has more podiums than the entire page combined.

He has more top tens. His average finish is in the middle or towards the bottom of these guys, and he has more event wins than all of them. So it looks on paper like he should have a really high rating, maybe higher than some of these guys. And even if you go to the next page, it might be higher in some of those statistical categories. But the era he competed in and he i mean i'm actually kind of curious why you say he's barely across the games athlete i

mean i think he's incredibly impressive and there's this obviously there's no disrespect to chris just to be on this list i think everyone should be honored to be on this list it's incredible company but i think that the numbers don't tell the whole story in the case of Chris. First of all, I'm totally biased. I'm a hater. I'm a complete Chris Buehler hater. So not that he's done anything wrong to me. He's a nice guy. I fucking always enjoyed every second that I've been around him. He's always been warm and welcoming to me. It's nothing. I just, uh, he played the little guy thing too hard. Um, he always, I felt like he always had excuses

he did um he he i feel like the year he won the games no fault of chris's own that um i and i actually accused dave of fucking doing some home cooking to try to get spieler on the podium or sorry the year he made the podium i accused uh dave of doing home cooking to get him on the podium that was actually probably one of the biggest fights that dave and i ever had he was so angry that i even um accused him of that i'm like hey dude there's no fucking way you didn't make these for fucking chris to get on the podium i would love for you to look at the events of that year's games what year did he go on the podium it was a fucking might have been just been a triathlon that year he's disgusted by the events that year 2011 run run muscle up run

no 2010 run run muscle up run repeat oh yeah 10 with uh with graham and rich and in third place that's so that's the year he took third with graham and rich yeah he was four points better than matt chan and uh eight points better than Matt Chan and eight points better than Mikko Salo. Austin Maliolo was sixth. Ben Smith was eighth that year. Tommy Hackenberg ninth. So we actually have one, two, three, four, five, six, seven, eight guys who are on this list that finished

in the top ten that year. And it's hard to hate on them because those are all good dudes. It's hard. I just... The first year, I mean, it was just three events. I just... What year did Spieler take in 2008? 2008, he was 10th, but he was in first going into the final event. Then he took 47th on that event.

Oh, and that was the deadlift. No, that was the squatlift no that was like squat squat clean grace every second counts here wait no no 2008 oh yeah yeah okay and then the same thing happened to him in 2009 i think maybe he beat miko or took second to miko and the first event in the second event he must have shit himself with the deadlifts. I don't even think he deadlifted 300 pounds. Oh, my God. No, I'm serious. Let's see here.

You have access to that? 375 pounds. 375? So he had almost the inverse. He had first place 71st. Kalipa had 72nd first. I mean, yeah, yeah. So they had almost the same performance. But thenris got cut

three events later and they're finishing 25th that year you know that's where um uh that's where that the the interim ceo worked out at his gym that allison girl who now is the interim media director uh slash cfo who now is the interim media director slash CFO. So anyway, Chris is a great example where the numbers don't tell the whole story. Obviously, incredible career. But there's also this thing like if you go and look on YouTube and you spend a week scouring YouTube, you will find so much content on Chris Spieler

and you will find almost nothing on Spencer Hendel. Right. Right. So he just, you know, and so in some of these cases, um,

there's just certain, he was a media darling and he was over there and, uh, he was over there in Heberville, um, in, in Mormon country in Utah. And so they had,

when you got, when you have a love affair with a great filmmaker like Heber and a prolific filmmaker like Heber, there's going to be a ton of shit on you. And he was always open to being filmed, and he did a lot of cool shit. I think he was the first guy to do 100 unbroken pull-ups in the community. He did so – he was on the L1 team. He did a lot of fucking really cool shit, a ton of cool shit. He did a lot of fucking really cool shit, a ton of cool shit. And for small guys, he was definitely the – yeah, there was that whole David and Goliath thing. He may even have – his rogue shirt may even be David or something.

David was the little guy? I don't think Goliath was. Okay. Makes sense. Yeah. Okay. Makes sense. Yeah. So anyway, you know, that's also something that's, that I try to like separate out when I'm doing this list is how much I know about them based on the media attention they received in their career,

because that does not always correlate to their performance on the field of play. You know, there, this whole page basically is full of guys, Panchuk, Hender, Adler, Hendel, Adler, that don't get a lot of media attention relative to a guy like Chris Spieler or haven't so far in their career. And,

and for those of you, this is going to be a weird one, but there was this silhouette of Chris wearing headphones that everyone in the community knew he wore these, he had this really distinct look when he worked out. He, cause he, he was, he had the really distinct look when he worked out he because he he was he had the shaved head and this you totally recognized his frame and then he had these

big headphones on with a wire hanging down them not even wireless he had a walkman was it yeah probably it probably wasn't or like a cd player probably yeah and actually i think that in some ways like yonah koski reminds me of chris spieler a little bit as well because oftentimes they were doing great early in the competition and so there's a lot of attention on them during that period of time and so sometimes it skews their overall performance where you used to be like you could recognize yonakoski's greatness because he has all these times with the leader jersey but but that's just based on the ordering of events. And I think we're going to get to in a minute,

whereas a guy like Cole Sager has never been in the leader's jersey because the events that he's great at aren't at the front of the competition ever really. That was an incredible finish right there, by the way, where it shows Graham and Spieler. I can't remember who someone dove on the track pyramid double helen at the at the end here this was fucking batshit crazy someone dove uh i will also say this spieler how could i be a spieler hater in 2009 um well he did do a pretty funny thing on COVID and it makes him hateable. But in 2009, he went into the final event in first place.

And that was an incredible year. 2009 or 2008? What year did Jason win? 2008. Sorry, 2008. In 2008, Spieler went into the event in first place. And the way they did that year was so fucking brilliant. They've never done that again, right?

Every second counts? Yeah. Not really. God, it was fucking good. Basically what they did is they let people start based on how many seconds ahead they were of the guy behind them, they let someone start. I'm not explaining that very well at all. I need to give you a good example.

Do you want to explain it, Brian? Yeah, we just take the three of us. If I was 30 seconds ahead of you and you were a minute ahead of Caleb, I would start, you would start 30 seconds later, and he would start a minute after you. But whichever one of us finished first would finish higher for the overall ranking on the weekend. And that was the case across the board where no matter when you started the final event, it was your order of finish of that event that didn't only correlate, actually it didn't even necessarily correlate to your finish in that event,

but it was exactly the reflection of where your overall finish on the leaderboard would be. So Kalipa, I think it was 10 out of 10 in the final heat or nine out of 10 going into that final event. And, you know, that's the famous story of Dave asking, like, what are you doing in this line? Yes, yes. And then he started after almost everyone and he finished before everyone by a minute and eight seconds. And he was the CrossFit Games champion. And the only footage of him finishing was from his dad's cell phone, I think.

Yeah, or I think maybe Austin Busceming had a shitty, shaky video camera there. I don't know where the CrossFit media director was. Probably filming Josh Everett. The CrossFit media director there did not want me making that movie he was fully against it uh that so basically as you hear jason started over a minute after everyone else and still beat everyone so all the fans could see he won the crossfit games and it was absolutely fucking nuts just put it in perspective his squat clean grace that you're at 155 i think it was at 155 was 246 the next fastest finisher you're

gonna love this seven i bet you don't know this who is second place in this workout max mormont wow 324 wow and for who don't know, Max is a giant man. And been around forever. Max Mormont one time. You could probably find this pretty easy, Caleb. Max Mormont one time, Turkish get up me. Oh, yeah. I found that. I just pulled that up earlier.

Also, in 2018 at the West Regional, when you abandoned me on the podcast and made me host it, Max Mormont was our guest with Mike Workington. Oh, that's awesome. He's a good dude, right? uh yeah i was pretty nervous for that it was only like the fifth podcast i've ever done you're like oh you got it just host the show you and mike talk to max it'll be great thankfully mike and max knew each other really well so the conversation flowed nicely and max has tons of stories of course so where did i go was i out drinking i was like an affiliate gathering outside yeah oh. Oh yeah. Good times.

You're a good dude. Save me again. So that's the story with Chris Spieler, Spencer Hendel, a 22nd considered by many to be, uh, and I, and Max warrants an affiliate owner,

right? Like does he own CSA or Costa Mesa CrossFit? Costa Mesa for a long time. I think he still does. I haven't heard otherwise. Pretty famous, Jim. Coached Christian Lucero for several years. Who I hear is trying to become a SEAL. I think so, yeah.

You don't often see that, like, you know, once you're over 30, that someone makes that attempt. Spencer Hendel. Say that again. Said they usually don't make it. Spencer Handel, who I've heard by many people might be the most athletic, which is pretty amazing to say, being that you got someone like Rich Vornian, the most athletic CrossFit Games athlete to ever partake.

I think people did expect more from him. Super fucking cool dude he was kind of but yeah he was definitely a freak athlete to watch that could you know he's incredibly strong for majority of his career but he could also run pretty well for his size and move his body through space i think spencer hendel was actually and i know i've talked about this before is one of the is what is a really important figure for modern day athletes to study his career because he wasn't living up to the potential that people thought he had. He finished 12th, 17th, 9th, 13th, and he just seemed to be stagnant. And then all of a sudden in 2015, he finishes fifth, which is not a podium finish. It's not winning the games, but

after four years of not being able to really make make any progress all of a sudden he he bumps up the leaderboard and he moved up the leaderboard significantly on the last day it's one of the biggest examples that i'm a that i am not in favor of cuts this year's this past year's cuts model was probably the best one i've ever seen i think cutting the last 10 is okay i don't like cutting even 20 by the last day, but his totality of training that year changed. And he talked about it because they're like, dude, you won this. You ended up doing fifth. How'd you make an improvement this year? And you did that even though you hadn't improved or you didn't do well on the strength events. He goes, well, yeah, I was consistently winning or close to winning the strength events, but being that strong was hurting me in so many other

domains. I didn't lift this year. I focused on everything else and my strength was still good enough to get that like a 10th place finish. But look at how I did on all these other workouts. And I lasted over the weekend better than most. And he had great finishes on Sunday. It was like that dumbbell snatch work. I think it was pedal to the metal one and two. He did really well on and ended up moving all the way up to fifth place. And that was a pretty good year. Ben Smith, Matt Fraser, BKG, Dan Bailey are the only guys who beat him, all of whom are ahead of him on this list. And he beat Scott Panchik, Cole Sager, Noah Olson, Yonah Koski, Jacob Heppner, Alex Vigneault. The top 11 guys from that year are all on this top 30

and he beat more than half of them. How big was spencer i always remember him as being usually the biggest guy out in the field listed at 6 2 to 15 that year and i think that he was actually competing i mean you never i can never you can never trust those stats but that's pretty close to probably what he was he moved his career i would bet he weighed a little less that year he moved really really well okay fine uh spieler was the one of the first people to get covid in the crossfit community and he made a video whining about it like a bitch what just going to just answer and and austin maliolo spearheaded the charge of getting rid of greg glassman amongst the l1 staff fine there you go now you know there you know

do you just have an inner monologue with yourself? I just, I read some comments. Oh, I thought this was like a Smeagol Gollum moment for you. Okay. Maybe, maybe it was. Like the whole time I was talking about Spencer Hendel, you weren't listening at all. You were just having an intimate debate. No, I was listening. I was listening.

I was listening. I'm trying my best. Saxon Panchik, number 21. I, for some reason, I'm okay with him at 21. Stanchik, number 21, for some reason, I'm okay with him at 21. I do think this man is a serious, if not the most serious threat to Justin Medeiros. This man is a serious, he has a great training team, and he. Well, that's, I mean, my understanding is Tia is moving back to Australia. No shit, what?

That environment's going to change. What? That's my understanding, so we'll see how that environment... What's your source on that? I actually don't know. Maybe I shouldn't have said that. I don't know. That's okay. This is a podcast where people come to get cancelled, right?

That's what it should be. I should say that on the bottom wait a second would she take Brooke Wells with her I would assume no I mean I'm sure Brooke has a but who knows Brooke's not that old she's in her mid to late 20s I don't know if she has any serious relationship or anything like that

I think it would be super fun for Brooke to maybe take a year or two and go live in Australia you know they seem to be incredibly close as friends maybe she stays there after the down under CrossFit Championships and experiences Tia's home country for this season if the landscape of the competitive season changes where you can compete

where you live maybe she competes in the Oceania region which would be kind of cool where would all of her athletes go would do they go to coddle camp hw where you get coddled or do you go to the mayhem empire and i think there'll still be a proven training center in nashville um and i wouldn't be surprised if tia and shane also opened one in in australia i heard harry pally is is leaving HWPO and go and going to run the proven training camp. And, um,

no, he didn't. Harry's good. I want to have a good rumor. Harry, what Harry, what Harry's Harry? What?

Tell me about Harry's great guy. I don't think, I honestly don't think that Harry needs any training camp. If he doesn't want one, I think he is a standalone, great coach, independent of anything like that. He might enjoy being a part of a bigger group or network of coaches,

but I think that guy is vastly underrated in terms of his prowess as a coach. Is she fucking nuts moving back to Australia? I don't know. I mean, it's a, it's a similar conversation to Catherine. It's like, you know, you leave your home where you grew up and have all these,

you know, friends and family or whatever for so many years to go pursue your career or your dreams or whatever. And, uh, after a certain amount of time, you go back home. We've talked about it over and over again. I left, I left for 13 years, Chicago before I came back here. Yeah. That's a shithole too. Wow. Yep. But I have a great community here around me. Yeah. I understand. I just can't believe these people go back to these places. Like if you have the option to fucking live in, uh, Coeur d'Alene, Idaho and Scottsdale, Arizona and San Diego, California, and you choose Iceland or Australia, you're out of your fucking mind or Chicago. I mean, well well some people can set aside those really the really unfortunate things about those places and appreciate the small community they're in or the i mean i haven't been to australia i'd love to go

at some point if they'll ever let me in again but uh nice i'm sure that it's beautiful place bring your extra money for to get quarantine you need to get your hotel money 30k have been stashing it aside just for that uh tommy hackenbrook uh what a stud what a fucking stud maybe the most manly dude on the uh on the list right i mean like he probably he probably did all the events with like a utility belt on or carrying an axe what a stud and he he crosses this he crosses both eras right he's kind of like old school and modern no he's just old school more old school the the thing that's so it's not you know his you see his average rank there is 10th it's better than anyone else on this list and that's with a 23rd his other finishes were

second ninth and sixth very very good the thing that's holding tommy back here is just his his total number of appearances is only four obviously he also has some team accolades to his credit which we're not factoring in here but if he'd competed a couple more years as individual he could be even higher on this list and there was that one and you know there was that one year where he seemed to be the biggest threat to rich yep yep and you've talked about that quite a bit and and he played it up so well for the crowd even if he didn't believe it he played it up for the crowd so well and maybe he did believe it there's a year with the overhead squat where they both went for 400 pounds i think i was fucking great i feel like that is like the fact that none of the men hit the 350 sandbag this year will be like on par with the fact that they never that no one hit the 400 pound overhead squat that year like i just wish someone

had done it i don't care who it would have been is he is he is he done does he do he's coaching he's coaching for underdogs athletics he's coaching the kolesnikov team from russia this year as far as a competitive athlete i don't know i think that a lot of these guys they're still so fit and a lot of people who compete in that era men and women have realized i actually don't have to train three and four and five and six hours a day to have to maintain a fairly high level of fitness. I think if he turned 40 or turned 45 in like a year or two before that decided he wanted to pursue a run at the master's competition, that he is more than capable of doing that,

but he's got a lot of other interests and investments and it is a big commitment. So that'll just have to be something that he either decides to do or not. Stones and affiliate. i'm not sure husband father renaissance man or just add i don't see an affiliate tag in there uh if if you guys uh he um was uh on that show broken skull ranch kicking ass too was that what it's called which is a pretty fucking cool show tommy steve austin broken skull challenge oh yeah that should move him up for you i agree johnny that shit was dope we don't factor in anything other than the crossfit games individual accolades and the steve austin broken skull challenge johnny me and you will make wrestling in it

and then i think hunter mcintyre came in and just cleaned house Broken Skull Challenge. Johnny, me and you will make that. Is that wrestling in it? And then I think Hunter McIntyre came in and just cleaned house. Wouldn't it be great to take this list of 30 and just do like a bracket style wrestling competition? Theoretically, just pick them to advance to the finals all the way through. Pay-per-view. Wouldn't you like that, Stefan? I would love it. Do you want to do wrestling you like this? I would love it. Uh,

do wrestling or, or like MMA wrestling. I don't want to see, I don't want to see some of these guys get hurt. Uh, Sam, Sam, Samuel, Samuel quant,

uh, five games appearances. Uh, are we, definitely the, obviously the biggest mover on this list jumped up eight spots here from last year. Um, and understandably so. I mean, he went from being basically, obviously the biggest mover on this list jumped up eight spots here from last year and understandably so I mean he went from being basically irrelevant due to illness that was a

very and continues to be very mysterious after taking second at a stranger at the games but this you know if you look back like you were talking earlier to his first couple years 16th 20th 13th or maybe 19th 20th 13th from 2016 for a couple years and then what he did this year against what i am more and more that i study it the more and more i'm starting to think this is this past year even absent not having a guy like fraser phoning in the field is the strongest men's field that we've ever seen at least one through 20 maybe maybe one through 30. And he finished fourth. I have an article coming out later this week that details how impressive the performances

by the all three podium finishers were this year. And he was just knocking on the door right behind that. Samuel Kwan took fourth place at the games this year. Yeah, so he has a second and a fourth and then a sixth. I was right, 16th,th 21st and 13th in his three other years which were i would say like that was you know he was really young at that time um that was the 13th i think was in the 2019 games we got he got cut along with fellner and sager and chandler smith and all these guys and it just sucked that that whole group had to get

cut right there because a lot of them would have pushed into the top 10 if they could continue to compete throughout the weekend. But what's impressive is that he beat Adler and Velner crazy. Yeah. And, and Sam quants, one of these guys, like I really hope that whatever that was,

that illness or complication that he had is behind him because he's still young and he can, I think he can have a really impressive run of years. Like I said, I think what his co-current coach, Harry Pally, who seems to have an incredible relationship is amongst the best coaches now, if not all time in the sport. And, uh, I think that they are, they are poised to have several top 10 or top five, maybe even podium finishes over the next couple of seasons, a few seasons, if they want to. Does Harry Pally do interviews? Let's find out.

I would, I mean, I would, I would probably, I don't know if I'd even need to be on it. I would love to watch him, you know, you and him have a conversation.

I'm going to type in a Harry P-A-L-L-E-Y podcast Yes. Podcast and see if he's been on podcast. Harry Pally podcast. My guess is if he has, it's either very, very recently and something a little bit more obscure or from at least three years ago. Oh, it looks like they had him on Get With The Programming in 2021. Oh, wow. Okay. I'm looking to see if he. Oh, yeah. Okay. I'm looking to see if he, oh yeah, there he is. Oh shit.

He. That maybe I had him on the show. He looks familiar. I don't know. I don't recognize that bed in the background. I wish I could show you the things that YouTube thinks that I should be watching. Behind the programming, episode number one, Harry Pally programs listening notes. Oh, so he was on a Comp Train podcast also.

This looks – you know, I don't see here. I'll click it. Oh, no, that was Get With the – sorry, that's Get With the Programming too. Okay. He's got his own Redditdit thread who the fuck wants that not me yeah i only see get with the programming you think that people don't invite him or he just hasn't he doesn't do him we'll find out i'll i'll dm him right after the show

harry pally what a great name too. Okay. Tommy Hackenberg, Samuel Klein, Travis Mayer moves up for, uh, that surprised me, but,

but I'm happy to see that. Why does he get to move up for? Because why does he get to move up for? Did he do something good or did someone else do something bad? Um, I think that Travis is his, his overall career is just... I'm sorry about that noise, if you can hear it.

It is weird to have Miko Salo ahead of Travis and Samuel Kwan. Right? Uh-oh, Brian froze. No, there's... Did you hear that? Remote control airplane? It's like an emergency testing they do in the town that noise every tuesday morning at 10 a.m or the first tuesday of the month at 10 a.m chicago yeah uh they're going

on it's so bad it's right by the gym too it's terrible uh so tell me so it is weird i mean look at these i mean travis and samuel sam Samuel Quant, I mean, they're – especially Travis, he's kind of like a staple. And you got him ahead of Mikko Salo. Behind Mikko Salo. It's like – the smaller the sample size for the athlete, the harder it is for me to place him on this list. So, like I said, Justin and Mikko are the only two on the list with three appearances. Who? Justin and Mikiko are the only two on the list with three appearances. Who, Justin and Miko? Yeah.

You could argue, and I think because of that, you could certainly argue that they both should be maybe lower because they haven't proven that they can do it over a long period of time. But they also are two of a very few select group of men who have managed to win ever, and then Justin's obviously done it twice. So you can't ignore how great some of their performances are. Miko has a first and a third and a 30-something finish. And Miko's the lowest-placing champ on this list,

which says something, which kind of makes it a little more understandable. But it is hard to see him ahead of Travis Mayer, who has fucking eight trips to the CrossFit Games. Well, he's the lowest-placing champ on this list, but James Fitzgerald's not even on the list. Oh, shit. Wow.

Wow. So is James the only champ who's not on this list? Yeah. And when we do the women, there'll be some that won't be on the list also oh and you'll and when we do the women there'll be uh some that won't be on the list also some yeah teaser poor tanya wagner no shit you you asked katie henniger i will not be a part of that show i need to see that ahead of time i didn't even get yesterday i admitted on the show that i used to have a crush on katie i didn't even get yesterday. I admitted on the show that I used to have a crush on Katie. I didn't even get in trouble with my wife.

She texts me. I, um, me too. That was weird. I was never, she never said shit like that. I was like,

wow. Doesn't everybody. And then I text her back. I was just joking. She's like, uh, to silence. Yeah.

I wasn't joking. Uh, Miko Salo, Travis mayor, Miko Salo, Travis Mayer, Miko Salo, Matt Chan. Does someone like Travis Mayer only start to slide down the list? Probably. I mean, if you look behind him, you see guys like Sam Kwat,

Saxon Panczyk, and Jeff Adler. And how many more years can Travis Mayer continue to string together games, qualifications, top 20 finishes? Can he ever push into the top 10 again? But that's just going to happen over time to a lot of these guys. string together games, qualifications, top 20 finishes. Can he ever push into the top 10 again? And, um, you know, he, but that's just going to happen over time to a lot of these guys, you know, eventually there's, there's always going to be new people coming up. And it's, it's one of the biggest struggles that I have, uh, is, you know, when I, you know, these guys, certain guys are like done competing. Like Alex Vigneault dropped down a bit this year because of how poorly he did

at the games. If he hadn't competed, he probably Vigneault dropped down a bit this year because of how poorly he did at the games. If he hadn't competed, he probably wouldn't have dropped this much. So it's like he still would have dropped a few spots because there's a couple other guys that were new on the list that push him down regardless. But, you know, suddenly his career, even though he doesn't look as impressive as a guy like Alex Anderson or Jacob Heppner's anymore, adding in this past year, because it's not really – anyway.

So, yeah, over time, Travis, we'll slide down. I want to go back really quick, and just to – bear with me here. Can you go back to number 30? I'm going to read their names, Brian, and you just tell me which way they're going next year quickly based on just a guess. Austin Maliolo. Down. Neil Maddox. Down.

Kyle Kasperbauer. Down. Alex Vigneault. Unknown. Down. Alex Anderson. I'll do the ones you get stuck on. Alex Anderson.

Down. A lot of them are probably going to be down like one or two. Jacob Heppner. Down. Jeffrey Adler. Up. Up. me down like one or two uh uh jacob heppner tom jeffrey adler up up up right up for sure up right yeah he just basically has to show up i mean he doesn't literally all adler has to do i shouldn't say all it's hard he but if he makes it to the games, he's going up. Even if he takes fucking 35th, he's going up. I don't know about that. Dude,

that would give him a fifth appearance. Yeah. And it would drastically hurt his, his, uh, overall performance. Uh, Chris Spieler.

Down. Spencer Hendel. Down. Saxon Panchik. Question. Oh shit. That's disgusting. I think Saxon's at a, at a critical point in his career right now where he could he could take another step forward and continue to

to threaten for top fives maybe eventually a podium finish or we it's possible that what we saw last year from saxon's the best we'll ever see peak wow that's like oh who's big a more unknown saxon panchick or samuel quant i i'm tempted to say right now saxon i think that what we saw from Who's more unknown, Saxon Panchik or Samuel Kwan? I'm tempted to say right now Saxon. I think that what we saw from this year from Sam is something that I'm expecting to see more of. And I'm not sure if next year or two years we'll see something more like what we saw from Saxon this year or last year. Oh, come on, Saxon. That was supposed to be a slam dunk.

I compared you to the fucking guy who vanishes because he's sick and brian says you're the bigger unknown and your fucking camps unraveling he is going to wrestle alligators i bet you she got like a tv show deal or something she has something going on over there or she doesn't want to travel back and forth she knows she's gonna have to be there for semi-finals Do you think she's going to compete again next year? No. No shit. God, you know stuff. I don't know. I'm just.

Tommy Hackenbrook, which way? Down. Samuel Kwan. Up. Wow. Wow. Travis Mayer. I think you're going up to Samuel, but I just I'm saying wow because of how he couldn't say that about Saxon. Travis Mayer. I think you're going up too, Samuel, but I'm saying wow because he couldn't say that about Saxon.

Travis Mayer. No change. Yeah, that's good. I like that. Miko Salo. Down. Matt Chan. I don't know.

It's just getting tough. It's like – Down. Come on, down. He's fucking older than a fucking T-rex fossil yeah don you're right not that he's not because he's older it's just i'm trying to think about who's gonna be coming into the list and where they could potentially be uh this next one is really weird graham holmberg because he has a title but he's behind yanikovsky he has six appearances i think what happened i'm gonna take a guess and then we'll ask Brian.

Brian isn't respecting the fact, he's a bit old school for Brian, so he gets dinged for having some of his victories so far in the past. He did beat the champ. He did beat the champ. Yes. Graham Holmberg, you're happy with him at 15? Yeah, I am I mean it's a very this is a great great little snapshot here of some like old school legends Bridges Bailey and Holmberg

compared to some more modern CrossFitters and Cole Sager and Yonakowski who have displayed more capacity for longevity but less excellence than the other three and so that you know this is like this the range where it really gets difficult to assess. I mean, look at Dan's average finish in his career compared to these guys. It's almost twice as good, 6.8 compared to 12 or 14. I don't know this for a fact, but I think Graham Holmberg is the most old school now on the list, like 15 and up.

I think he's been around longer than Dan or Josh competing at the games. Do you know Graham's first year showing up at the games? Ever? First year. I'll have to check that. But probably earlier than Dan or Josh, right? 2009, I think. No shit.

Yeah. I mean, it's pretty crazy. Oh, and then, sorry, except for Jason Kalipa. Man, it's crazy. Kalipa's number five. But I guess he deserves it. Yeah, home run was 2009, 10, 11, 12, 13, and 15. Okay.

So, I mean, he's fucking old school. He could wear one of those OG shirts and not have to like, well, Jason, Bill gave it to me. I mean, he can just be like, yeah, I'm OG. He can wear it. He showed this unusual, like, he won, obviously, in 2010, and then

he just had a consistent regression after that. He went down to 4th, 10th, 14th, missed a year, 24th, never saw him again. His total resume is good, obviously. But, you know, if you were to parallel that with someone like Jeff Adler, who over a five-year span has just continued to get better, it's a pretty noticeably different trend. Tonya Wagner got kicked off the list for her awful commentary.

Dude, tell me who's better. I think she's as good as Chase or Sean. I think she's fucking great. I like listening to her. You don't like her, Brian, her commentary? I think she's fucking amazing. I don't know what this guy is really talking about, but I haven't listened to much of the stuff that she's commentated on from this year.

I never waxed Henninger, but fucking Tonya Wagner. I think she, honestly, I think she's the best commentator. And I think the best floor girl is, or guy, wow, there's some good ones. But I really like Jamie Higaya because she's comfortable on her skin down there yeah that's great but you had to say um i like mark mike arsenal but i think he does a different role yeah he he knows a lot of shit and he just speaks well he's clever he's concise he gets to the point but it's also okay don't get carried away don't get carried away you're just saying you like people.

I'm trying to be a little more detailed. All right. But, you know, I throw the pillows there. You're backing up your thoughts with data. You're not woke like me. I just go by feelings. Janikowski, good to see him on the list. I honestly can't believe how consistent he is and that he's still in the game.

He's not that consistent. He's not? These are his finishes at the games. 32nd, 9th, 9th, 7th, 37th, 6th, 15th. He has actually a big range. Basically, it's due to his health. By consistent, I mean consistent at the games. The fact that he's been around for so many.

Sorry, consistent is not the word. That he sustains such longevity. That's what I mean. Sorry. Yeah, because when you start, like what you were doing earlier you start looking at the only people on the list with more appearances than him are ben smith scott panchik bkg noah olsen and cole sager and he's only 27 or eight years old and he missed a year right and came back and he take he like he got – and that's nuts.

Another thing that probably maybe some of you don't know is Janikowski was Miko Salo's protege. His first couple years. 27 years old, and he's already got eight appearances. And I'm pretty sure at one point Miko told him, hey, you have to move on from me and grow. I'm holding – basically Miko told him, I'm holding you back. That's a hell of a coach. That is a hell of a coach. It's always a tough thing for athletes and coaches to know when is it time to move on.

And I think in some cases, we've seen people stay for too long. And in other cases, we've seen people not give it enough time uh cole sager uh staple in the community hard worker badass kind of a modern day kind of a modern day spencer hendel always respected for his athleticism it's interesting as a personality that he never that he hasn't grown more in the sport. I think a lot of people really like him. He's easy on the eyes. He's been there. But he's kind of fading into his popularity.

He's sort of like a Becca Voigt figure, right? This guy, over nine consecutive years, his range of finishes is 5th to 20th, and 20th was in 2020 in the online competition otherwise in live competition in eight year of eight appearances over nine live years range of finishes fifth to 17th that is a remarkable level of consistency that spans eras and is a incredible testament to this guy's durability and intelligence when it comes to an overall approach to this sport and his health and fitness.

How the fuck is Dan Bailey ahead of Cole Sager, Janikowski, Gramo? You fucked up. This is a mistake, right? Dan's, you know, like I said, the smaller the sample. Dan's ahead of Travis Mayer. Are you out of your fucking gourd? We've talked about this before. We know you and Dan are best friends.

Six, six, eighth, tenth, fourth. Six, six, eighth, tenth, fourth in five years. Six, six, eighth, tenth, fourth. Yeah. So it's like. He retired in fourth. He took fourth. That was his last year.

Yeah. 2015. He was one spot ahead of Spencer Hendel that year behind BKG, Fraser, and Ben Smith, all of whom were ahead of Nick. That's him missing the podium by one spot that year. And definitely is in the conversation along with Scott Panchik as the best guy who's ever competed to never podium. But for a five-year stretch, it's as good as anyone.

You can take any five-year sample of Cole Sager's career, any five-year sample of Travis Mayer's career, or Yonikowski's career, and it doesn't stack up to that. But even if you take the best five years that Cole Sager had, it's 5, 7, 7, 11, and 12, and Dan still is better over that time. But it was only five years, so, you know, like I said, that does make it tough, but

I think we have to give credit to Dan for what he did during those times. I don't think we have to give him credit for shit. Dan has only five appearances, and Rich Froning has only had five appearances. Graham Holmberg won the CrossFit Games and smashed Rich Froning. Smashed Rich Froning has only had five appearances. Graham Holmberg won the CrossFit Games and smashed Rich Froning.

Smashed Rich Froning. And he has six appearances and he's fucking behind Dan Bailey. Janikowski, we just talked about his longevity. Cole Sager, nine. Nine. Three points. Smashed him. Travis Mayer,

eight appearances. You love the list. I'm going to predict that Dan will fall more than anyone else next year. Well, I mean, this is the question that I wasn't sure about, and I'm definitely open to people providing feedback on this. In the case of the athletes that are no longer competing, if I look at the, like there were some of them where I looked at the list this year and I'm like, man, I know I had them there last year and I can understand why, but maybe I overranked them or

underranked them, but they haven't actually done anything to change that. Is it appropriate for me to make an adjustment? So I didn't, on this list, I didn't make any adjustments for the guys who have not competed. I only moved around guys that did, that did compete. And then everyone else would slide up or down based on how those, those people moved. Oh, that's interesting detail. And I'm not sure if I should or not, if I, you know, if like we could take Dan, for example, and I could say in the totality of the understanding that I've gained from 2021. I could say in the totality of the understanding that I've gained from 2021. And since I haven't changed them here to 2023, is it reasonable for me to move him down the list because his appearances are

now becoming less relevant as more and more people have six and seven and eight. And I think that's okay. But for me to say, well, now Graham is better than him, even though Graham also has done nothing. I don't know if that's right or not.

Like if I took an independent list of retired athletes, why would I suddenly a year later justify moving Graham ahead of Dan? Because you clean the cobwebs out between your ears. Yeah. And it's something that I've been wrestling with and asking myself. What's the green mean? The best in that category on that page okay and that was a and i do remember josh bridges being number 10 last year because i remember him saying he thought he should be higher he wasn't oh yeah yeah that's right he was 10 last Josh Bridges, six appearances, one podium.

So, eight event wins. Uh-oh. Let me go back over here. Travis Mayer's never had an event win at the CrossFit Games? No. Who's the highest-ranked guy who's never had an event win? wins highest ranked guy with no event wins travis only guy in the top 20 without one the only other guys on the list without one are alex vigno that's it every other guy on the list has won at least one event holy shit Holy shit. Wow.

Travis, you got to get me a win, buddy. You got to get me a win. Give me more ammo. More ammo. Josh Bridges, number 11. Noah Olsen, number 10. Brent Fikowski. I'm not arguing with you, but why Brent ahead of Noah?

What's the thing that just jumps out at you? 4-2-4-3, his best finishes at the games. 2-4-5-6, also pretty good. I mean, this is pretty tight. Yeah, this is pretty tight. It's kind of splitting hairs between these three guys. I would put PKG in that list with those guys as well. So all three of those guys, but 3,

3, 4, 5, 5, 8, 8, 9. I think that's a little bit better than the other two.

Um, yeah, it's tough. That's tough right there. I wouldn't. Uh, and then number seven, Justin Medeiros,

number six, uh,ott panchick uh what what do you got to say about scotty uh is scotty let's say scott comes back next year for one more year is there anything he could do to hurt himself in this rankings even if like he takes 40th or does uh 10th appearance if he took 40th that Or does a 10th appearance? If he took 40th, that would be because of a withdrawal or an injury. It's not going to happen otherwise. How about a 25th? Does that ding him, or does it just mean a lot that he would get his 10th?

It wouldn't be enough on its own to move him down, certainly past anyone who is not competing. Medeiros almost definitely will jump him next year. BKG, Fikowski, and Olsen, if they also compete, could have the potential to base. I mean, let's say that Brent finds a way to come back and finish fourth again next year. And BKG somehow ends up fifth again next year. And maybe no Olsen moves back into the top 10 and take seventh. You know, you could potentially see a guy like Scott slide down one, two, three, four spots

over the next couple of years. But I don't know. I think that the next year or two will be his last year. Noah's last year, Brent's last year. I'm not sure how many more years BK will do it for. But yeah, Scott could, you know, I don't think any performance on its own would necessarily move him backwards on this list. He's already achieved so much fourth, fourth, fifth, six, six,

six, 11th, fourth, 11th, incredible. Never been on the podium for nine years. Just unbelievably consistent. Never been on the podium.

Crazy. Wow. Number five, Jason Kalipa. Kind of, I guess i would say this you know the numbers on their own is very close between noah and brent noah's best years came in the with the years that were anomalies 2019 was his best finish of second 2020 he finished he made the top five brent did not so it's kind of a weird conversation because Brent's two worst years before this year were Noah's two best years. And Brent, in the meantime, was stringing together podium finishes in years more traditional where you had a full field of athletes competing over the duration of the test.

And it's, you know, we have to acknowledge that 2019 and 20 existed. And it's, you know, we have to acknowledge that 2019 and 20 existed, but I don't think that they weigh as heavily as what Brent was able to do 2016, 17, 18 and 21. When I look at these, this is just my, I don't know if you did this to me or I don't know what's going on in my brain, but I think of the, I think that you weighed these in order of how you have them here meaning you gave appearances the most value then titles then podiums then top tens then average finish then event wins but that's not true right but that's the way i keep thinking no not necessarily i mean, I tried my best to look at the big picture and to be as objective as possible across the entire landscape of the CrossFit Games history, recognizing that the field of competition was very different in terms of number of participants and also caliber of athlete and depth of field in terms of people attempting to be great, uh, at different times, but it's a really, I mean, it's really challenging to do and to try to conceptualize how someone like Graham Holmberg did over five years compared to someone like, you know, uh, Jeff Adler or Sam Quant in the five years that he's competed that have all happened after Graham has finished. Javier Acosta,

Medeiros below Pancheck is a head scratcher. Winning the games is not weighed highly enough. Top 10 shouldn't be weighed at all or very weakly weighted. I don't know if I agree with that. Remember how hard it is to get to the CrossFit games. I mean, it is hard to have an appearances. I'll just say this. I talked to BKG right after the final event of this year.

He finished ninth. Okay. This is worst finish at the games since his rookie year. Okay. He thinks he was as fit as he's ever been this year. his rookie year okay he thinks he was as fit as he's ever been this year the guys that had the field was so good that the fittest version of bkg the healthiest version of bkg managed his worst finish he's only 29 it's not like he's 34 35 years old because the field's just getting better and better and there's two kids that finished ahead of him, Lazar and Hopper.

And he still managed to beat Guy, who was right behind him, but you still have these guys like Noah taking 12th and Coles taking 13th, that despite the fact that that field is getting better and getting younger and getting deeper outside of the games that people are trying to make it there, that they're still finding a way to leverage the fitness that they've had into impressive performances at the games. I don't think it's a slight against BKG at all that he finished ninth this year.

It's a testament to him that he's still able to have that top ten finish despite the fact that the field of competitors is improving and he's getting older. So when you put out this list last year, one through five were still Matt Fraser, Rich Froning, Ben Smith, Patrick Vellner, then Jason Kaliba, correct? Yeah. And then Scott Panczyk. And then Justin Medeiros was –

Not on the list. Not eligible for the list. Not eligible. Okay, and that's why it says new. And then Bjorkman went down one, Brent Fichowski went down one, and Noah went down one. And that's all because Medeiros has popped in there. Yep. And where did you – when you originally saw – so let's just say you have these six names, right?

Not let's say. You do have these six names. I'll say them again. Fraser, Rich, Ben, Patrick, Jason, and Scott. And then seventh, you have Medeiros. When you put this list together did madaris immediately land in the seventh spot or did you like did you like slide did you ever stick him in three and was like whoa nope yeah you did yeah and i was just like no he had to battle all of these dudes in your head like you're like madaris ben smith that nope sorry ben wins madaris patrick velner oh no sorry Vellner wins

Medeiros Jason Kalipa oh Jason wins that's how you did it yeah but I think that you know and also it's you know it's it's one of these things like if I just put him third this year it almost takes the fun out of it it's like oh wow it's really difficult to catch Rich and Matt he might be able to do it eventually. Oh, he's going to do it, dude. I'm telling you, he's going to do it. This kid is a savage. We'll see.

And once this article I was talking about comes out later this week, you'll see that this performances that he's had are not just wins. They are very impressive wins. Who? Who? Justin. Yeah. And it's not lost on me of how good he had to be to beat these guys.

Vellner last year, Roman and Ricky this year. There's some pretty cool numbers that I didn't even know at first until I did the research that support not just these being back-to-back wins but being very impressive event wins. I just want to see him do it i want to see him come back for a fourth for a fifth for a sixth year and continue to excel even as the field continues to improve and as he matures a little bit more as an athlete he still has only managed to win one event despite having two wins at the crossfit games his average event finish which isn't on this list his average overall finishes his average event finish is very good his consistency is

incredible and the performance that he's done are not lost on me at all but i want to give him the opportunity to earn the right to move ahead of these guys by doing it over doing being excellent over time not just immediately giving him the third spot when he's only competed for three years because if he decides all of a sudden to not compete anymore, then I think I'd have to move him back down. Man, two wins. I don't know, man. More titles than event wins.

Interesting set. Wow, really? Justin Madaris only has one event win at the crossfit games zero in 2020 one last year on the final event and none this year yeah that's incredible so so next year if he wins you put him at number three and then the next year he wins he still stays at number three with four wins and then the next year he wins and he has five. Now you have a problem. Now you got a real fucking problem on your hands, Mr. Friend.

They will fucking lynch you if you put them ahead of Froning in three years. But it's going to be a problem. All the guys that would lynch me for that are going to be too old themselves by then to do anything about it. And you'll have 20 more pounds on your snatch by then. Maybe. Okay. Wow. Okay, so this big year in the rankings for Medeiros, he wins, he jumps up a lot.

I mean, I think if he wins again next year, without a doubt, he'll bump past Jason and Scott. The worst will be his threat. And Patrick. If Vellner takes second to him again, I don't know. doubt he'll bump past jason and scott it would be the the worst he'll be and patrick if velner takes second to him again oh i don't know then i think i'd probably still move him ahead of pat but pat's resume improves obviously if he's able to return to the podium what if pat were to win the games next year would you put him ahead of ben smith that's exactly the problem if if pat wins next year let's just say that Pat wins, Roman gets second and, and Justin gets third next year.

Then, and I had had Justin third place all time already. Then what do I do? What if Ricky pops next year? Two juicing years count as one year. Will he get like a, at least like a half a year for each? I think that's,

I think it's fair. Yeah. Okay. Two pops equals one uh fool great great great list uh for those of you we started the show looking at the bottom guys uh willie george's gui mal harris and will morad will morad are uh eligible names who could jump up uh next year they're eligible but um they could have been on this year. They're all somewhere in the next 20 guys.

Most of those guys are no longer competing anymore. Then notable names that will be eligible next season, meaning they've only competed twice at the CrossFit Games, are Roman Krennikov, Lazard, Jukic, and Jason Hopper with a Y. There's no guarantee

that any of them will be on that list next year. You know, Lazar's third year parallels Guy's first year as a fairly poor finish. He probably doesn't make it on. If he comes back with another top 10 finish, he's probably somewhere in the 20 to 30 range. You know, Roman has that. He competed in 2020, which is online only, which kind of obviously is amazing this year. If he comes back in podiums again, again, he's probably in the bottom half of this list at that point. And Hopper would need to have, again, an improvement to earn even a chance to be on the list next year.

But he could be four or five years after his fourth or fifth year. Willie George needs to improve from his performance this year to have a chance to be back on. If Guy strings together another top 10, he'll definitely be somewhere on this list. Will Morad, he probably will never make the list, but if he comes back and somehow this guy always finds a way to do it and has a top 15 finish, he could have an outside chance of getting into one of the last couple of spots. But basically, he's in a group of guys similar to Logan Collins, Josh Everett, Lucas Holberg, Patrick Burke, Jeremy Thiel, Chad McKay, Pat Barber, he's in a group of guys similar to logan collins josh everett lucas holmberg patrick burke jeremy theale chad mckay pat barber james switcheril lucas parker rob forte ben stoneberg where his his resume looks very similar to those guys but outside of logan collins none of them are still

competing so they don't you know they're not going to ever move up into this top 30 maybe next year we'll expand it to a top 50 just to just to kind of recognize some of those but um how many apparent how many appearances does rob forte have seven but his average finish over those seven is 25th which is worse than any other name that i listed but dude seven not even uh the the top the only guy in the top 10 who has seven appearances is Chris Spieler, and that's if you include 2007. So I'm going to say that doesn't count because you have to qualify. You have to go all the way to number 18, Travis Mayer. I'm going to put in a re-review for Rob Forte. What's that called?

A dispute? I'm going to put a a dispute a dispute what i'm putting in dispute for rob his remember we were with some other guys we were talking about like their best four finishes his best four finishes were 12th 17th 23rd and 25th i don't think that merits a top third i do the last well well then i would use that same argument and be like then justin madaris deserves to go higher because his three finishes were so fantastic. Yeah. But now you're just,

you're intentionally choosing to focus on the thing you want to, for Rob Forte, you're going to focus on the seven qualifications. And for Medeiros, you're going to focus, you're going to ignore the three and focus on the individual performances of each one of those. I'm trying to be more broadly thinking for every athlete on the list.

You don't know how broad I think. How dare you? Very narrowly, apparently. Has anyone ever had three finishes as good, their first three years as good as Justin Medeiros? Yeah. Rich. Rich?

What place did Rich take his first year? Rich's second, first, first. Justin's third, first, first. Oh, shit. Matt was second, second, first, which adds to the same number of places, but I think that the two wins would trump the two seconds for Justin over Matt just in a three-year window. This picture, my final question, this picture of you standing.

Let me ask you that. What? You put after Matt Fraser's first title in 2016, he's taken second to Froning, second to Ben Smith, and then he wins the games in 2016 with one event win. Where would you put him on the list after just those three years? Would you immediately bump him up to second? Pine Rich? Probably not.

He needs to still prove it over time. And after he wins the second one, he moves up there. He's probably then third. And then he wins a third one, and then he bumps Ben, and then he wins a fifth one, he moves up there. He's probably then third. And then he wins a third one, and then he bumps Ben. And then he wins a fifth one, and he bumps Rich. So let's just give Justin a chance to earn his way up the list. I can understand the argument to put him in third place right now, but I think that it's premature and unnecessary

because I want to give him the opportunity to unseat some of these legends over the next couple of years. I don't like your phrasingasing but your example was fucking brilliant i don't like to give him a chance thing like i want him to have the opportunity to earn his way up on this list not that he's hasn't already done it with with what he's done but let me see him do it over time and let you know let his progress as an athlete speak for itself as he continues to climb up the all-times rankings a great example that you used looking at matt fraser's first uh three seasons this picture of you standing in the corner with a bunch of cinder blocks on slide number one um is that staged

no i was uh coming up and down from somewhere at the Mac and gosh, I'm so sorry. I can't remember who took that picture. I posted and credited for them at some point during the semifinals this year. Well, what a brilliant, I didn't know that they were taking it. I was just,

I had a thought. So I stopped and wrote something down and then continued on my way. And someone must've captured that. What a great photo. Do you prefer, do you wish, sorry, one more question. Do you wish that um you would

have you could change this or next year will you change this to top 30 individual male crossfit athletes of all time will you put individual in there i know someone had made a comment about that as well and they wanted this like elaborate title no i just want it to be clean and concise on the front page as much as possible and then an opportunity to elaborate on the next slide, which is how we decided to do it. More than fair. Brian, any super fucking cool stats that I wasn't able to pry out of your brain

that you're like, oh, shit, we didn't talk about this? Or are you going to wait until we hang up and then be like, fuck, we should have talked about that? I don't think so. I think you did a great job as always thank you I think we covered pretty well alright

is the top women's 30 list done? almost and will we see it in the next 7 days on the Sebon podcast? if you're available next Tuesday morning, we should do it. Okay, perfect. Let me see. Tuesday.

Give me a chance to just... There's a couple things I want to finalize, and then I'll send them to the graphics guy, and then we'll get them ready to go. Oh, yeah. That's good. You know who I have on next Tuesday? In the morning, but not till 10 a. You know who I have on next Tuesday? In the evening? In the morning. In the morning, but not till 10 a.m.

Keelan Henry. I hope people are excited for that. It was kind of a bummer that we didn't get to really see him compete this year. I think he went to surprise some people. And he's an incredibly nice guy. And he's got a great weight loss story. Yep. You'll definitely enjoy talking to him.

Yeah, bitching. All right, cool. Guys, top 30 female probably next Tuesday, September 13th. Top female CrossFitters of all time. Caleb, thank you. Caleb Beaver. Brian Friend, thank you. Bye.