The Sevan Podcast - #680 - Dubai Fitness Championship with Brian Friend

Episode Date: November 26, 2022

Brian is headed to Dubai to commentate for the 2022 Dubai Fitness Championship which is being headlined by names like Brent Fikowski, Lazar Djukic, Matilde Garnes, and Emily Rolfe. Support the showPartners:https://cahormones.com/ - CODE "SEVAN" FOR FREE CONSULTATIONhttps://www.paperstcoffee.com/ - THE COFFEE I DRINK!https://asrx.com/collections/the-real... - OUR TSHIRTS... Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

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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. Bam, we're live. He ended up being on for like an hour and 22. I mean, not to any fault of his own.

I think maybe he wanted to get off in 20 also, but we got going. That happens sometimes. Yeah, he's a good dude. I knew he'd be easy he's a great guest he knows how to talk he knows how to give answers he knows how to make himself vulnerable well like like yourself mr friend like i was gonna say don't expect anything from me uh i want to i want to uh start the show with a little theme that I think is going to become a theme of this show today. I also wanted to start the show with something. Oh, okay. You go ahead. I know why we're both wearing blue today.

Oh, tell me. It's a mourning for Argentina because they lost to Saudi Arabia in the World Cup this morning. How did you know? Yep. We're feeling bad for them uh what what really did they really i can't that's amazing that saudi arabia has a good uh soccer team to me uh i mean they're ranked 51st in the world they all play in a domestic league there in saudi arabia but you have to think i think about the world cup like i think about the crossfit games it's a one competition all year that you know every person or team that's qualified for it

is showing up with nothing to lose and everything to fight for. And there's nothing easy in the World Cup. I coached a lot of soccer games, played in a lot of soccer games in my life, and I watched that game this morning. Saudi Arabia just had, they had the perfect game plan, and the things broke their way that needed to. They took advantage of the scoring chances when they got them. And the last 30 minutes of the game, Argentina was desperate and confused

and couldn't break through to get back into the game. Desperate and confused, my favorite kind of soccer team. I want to show you a professional website. Is this the theme for today? Yeah, I want to show you a professional this is a professional website pfizer's website look how nice it is look at that artwork explore our science i feel like you could just strip away all the language and take that that background and make it a painting in a nice home somewhere get a lot of comments from guests yes maybe at the wines uh at the um epstein

empire uh based on today's visit how would you rate your site experience oh my god that's so cool i'm gonna say a seven god it's so good seven out of seven it's interesting oh my goodness look there's a whole survey here it's awesome i mean this is a nice profession gene therapy myth busting quiz oh it's interesting that to me though we had a long list of topics this pfizer's website wasn't on the list equity and advanced prostate i've never looked at this website i just knew it would be professional equity and advanced prostate cancer begins with changing the conversation. Oh, that's so cool. Equity in my anus.

I mean, this site is so professional. And I'm sure these are all authentic photos, nothing staged. What do you mean equity in my anus? Are they offering shots in the ass now too? For everybody. Okay, now look, and this website is supposed to add to the quality of your life. This is a company that wants to add to the quality of life and help you save your life, I guess. I'm making that up. I haven't read that in any mission statement.

Oh, sorry. Sorry. Here we go. Here's our purpose. We're in the relentless pursuit of breakthrough that change patients' lives. We don't change, and they do that. Pfizer changes people's lives. That is for certain. We innovate every day to make the world a healthier place. I think that's probably just a blatant lie. It was Charles Pfizer's vision at the beginning, and it holds true today. I mean, there's ample evidence.

Okay, now let me show you a site that's not professional. Absolutely not professional absolutely not professional zero profession this is the original uh this is what it originally looked like on crossfit.com those of you people who use the word professional you woke jargon douchebags no name calling seven you're just part of the problem you're just using words you don't even know what they mean you don't even define words when companies are more concerned about their brand than their product if you want to call that professional

let me tell you what's professional you think the nfl is professional so then i would define a professional is sold out soulless companies that are willing to peddle drugs to your kids and candy to your kids and junk to your kids as if it would make them better oh and that's the irony isn't that amazing too what's the VAERS website look like the VAERS website's a complete clusterfuck what a disaster but still the only probably the most accurate measurement we have uh regarding uh on vaccine health the only fact is that it's underreported because doctors aren't paid to fill out the forms they're mandated to fill them out but they're not paid to fill them out so that time is free anyway if you, if you had to choose one site for

your health, would you choose crossfit.com or Pfizer? Would you choose the original cross? I'll ask Brian, Brian, if you had to choose health for your family and yourself, and you needed one resource, would you use crossfit.com with the game site the journal the affiliate map the daily workouts or or or would you choose the pfizer website pfizer site's far more professional brother far more professional careful what you choose here i mean they are really professional trying to see if i stripped away the words from this one if it would make a nice painting in my house or not yeah excellent excellent point of uh well here let's see we can click on some pictures they offer this would you want that hanging in your living room

maybe like a before and after it would be nice i would choose a tiktok for medical advice me too i would choose tiktok for medical advice before fight the p I would choose TikTok for medical advice before the Pfizer site too. It is such a joke. You got me really riled up with those articles you told me to read. We are going to have a blast today. Me? Yeah. I told you the articles?

The article, remember, on Barbell Spin, you pointed it at me. I was like, hey, what's the show going to be about? And you gave me a whole laundry list of things that maybe I should read so we could talk about. Man, you got me a whole laundry list of things that maybe i should read so we could talk about man you got me uh fired up uh caleb there is a um uh a website you should probably load now it has a 30 second commercial in the beginning okay you demand you demand thank you caleb oh caleb and you're back in your you're back in um the seven on podcast hq indeed thank you okay that's nice to see you there. That,

that bunker backs right up to the bookshelf behind you. Word. We had that wall is just a facade. It separates us. And then over there behind this fake wall is Brian. Okay. Um, uh,

Tia has, it, it, it appears if you go to a CrossFit games, uh, to the link from the CrossFit games, uh, video, um, down under championships, top stories. It looks like, uh, CrossFit games is reporting that Tia is injured and she does have a back injury. God, maybe it's in the right. If you scroll down a little bit, it's in the writing. Uh, although Tia Clark, Jimmy withdrew from the competition due to a back injury.

God, that bums me out. It made me so sad to read that. And I saw it on Nate Edwardson's video. And I haven't heard it come out of her mouth. But I remember Annie hurting her back. Whenever athletes get injured, their back gets injured, I get so nervous for them. Or Danielle Brandon. Whenever athletes get injured, their back gets injured, I get so nervous for them.

Or Danielle Brandon. It is – and that's what's remarkable, that Annie came back from that. Do you have any insights on what's going on with her back? I'm scared to say. I'm guessing, and I have no proof of this, that it's like a bulging disc in her lower back or some shit. I have no idea. I've spoken to no one who would have any more of an idea than I would about it. And I'm not too worried about it. I mean, I know it kind of sucks to say,

but I lost interest in Tia with the thing she pulled at the last day of the games last year. If she comes back next year, I'll consider her just like any other athlete. She said she had a back injury during the game, so maybe we didn't see her at her best. Thought she might be done. Looks like she's coming back. Thought we might see her so maybe we didn't see her at her best. Thought she might be done. Looks like she's coming back. Thought we might see her in Australia. Didn't get to see her compete.

I actually think that was good for the competition, the women's team competition, that they didn't compete. So I'm not really worried about Tia. Unbiased perspective from Brian Friend, although it's sacrilege to you. Brian and I stand differ on that. I do think that maybe you should think about the shoes you're wearing and that maybe those noble junk cardboard shoes

possibly could be at the root of your back. More barefoot training, less back problems. Yeah. Brian calls BS on retirement. I don't know if he did that. I just don't think he liked the fact that maybe there was some miscommunication.

No, that there was miscommunication. No, that there was clear communication that ended up being false. Yeah, he doesn't like that. Brian, would you say you stand very loyal to the commentators you have a proximity by this uh in this regard in particular with sean yeah a thousand percent he would not have he would not have done that absent certainty and where is he going to get certainty from i would like to although i don't necessarily disagree with brian i would also like to offer any athletes who would like to announce their retirement, whether it be true or false, are welcome always on the Sevan podcast.

Please. Far more encouraged to do it here. And in fact, you know what? Come on and do it and then come on a month later and un-retire. Yes. Re-retire. Just keep coming back. Yes.

on a month later and un-retire yes re-retire just keep coming back yes uh i i we we also have this news about the great tia to me um it's it's a channel five why it's let me just say the reason why it's it's so sad is because her winning that championship was historic and so the call is historic so why would you give information to the person who's going to make the call about one of the biggest moments in your career that's inaccurate? If you're not sure, don't tell him anything. Just let him do what he's always done, which is make great calls. He spends like the whole week he's thinking and talking and preparing. He'll wake up in the middle of the night and make notes about these calls that might happen that are likely to happen. He pours so much into that. He changed everything on the last day, in the last hour, in the last minutes,

because of information he was given confirmed through CrossFit, confirmed through her, her coach, her team, and everyone who asked about it. So it's a bummer for her too. And that is the final word on that topic. Well, probably not. Calebaleb can you pull up this this is a interview uh um miss tia to me did with uh channel five news by the way in the hillar comments people are because he made that funny video about her people are referring to her as as maybe being a stoner or not intelligent or whatever. That's further from the truth.

I watched this whole video. She's better than the news guy. I mean, I like the news guy. He's cool. But she is good. And much to her credit, the improvement, as it happens with many athletes, from 2015-16 interview Tia to 2021-22 is night and day. You see her confidence, her personality comes out a lot more.

So huge evolution of her in that regard over the last, you know, her career also. I concur. Okay. Let's play seven seconds of this. And then we'll skip to 335. Actually try and cover absolutely everything. Yeah. But the plan is to defend it. So you're going for seven straight. Yeah, that's the plan, you know? Okay. So that's the plan is to defend it so you're going for seven straight yeah that's the plan you know um okay so that's the plan skip seven seconds ahead and then and then we'll go

to 335 and here and here's uh here's the plan this um and then next year the season starts uh around february and you, it's basically getting ready and prepared for the 2023 season. For you, diet is... I love it. And I hope, I hope, I hope, I hope she smashes the competition like usual. I'm excited to see her compete.

And end of story. I'm excited to see her come on the show too what do you think the chances of that are never know okay uh down under championship just happened um it looked like a good competition uh they probably should have paid us our going rate of free to stream the show and to cover it i think we could have done them wonders based on the numbers that i saw um i do think that it was nice seeing any sakamoto uh and that other um older buff guy jeremy austin jeremy austin i liked it i liked it when the first day he kind of looked like a schlep and the second day he put on the tank top he's looking like a stud uh him and a stud. I watched the recap day one, two, and three.

And it's cool. I'm really happy that Maddie Sturt won, looking strong, beautiful, happy, just like I always remember her. Also, Jay Crouch won her boyfriend. That's super cool. Any thoughts on those two? Were they supposed to win, Brian? Yes, for sure.

Given the field of athletes competing in the individual division, and I know you might look and see someone like Lauren Fisher or you might look and see someone like Katlin Van Zyl who's had a success in the team competition the last two years. But no, given the field that was lining up for individuals, if Jay and Maddie had not won, it would have been a disappointment. Anything other than winning would have been a disappointment for them. They were, in my opinion, clearly the class of those divisions and they did what they were meant to do. Keep in mind, even though they both have a

lot of experience, they're both very young, as were a lot of the people from Australia, New Zealand, and that part of the world that competed in this competition as individuals. And that's how I view this competition in terms of the individual, is that it's an opportunity for the young and up-and-coming competitive CrossFitters to get a little touchpoint in the offseason. Most of the people that you see in the top 10 here also competed in the Torium Pro in the semifinals and had a variety of results there. And we've seen some of them make some big improvements. Jake Douglas, if you don't know who Jake Douglas is, he was actually fifth. A lot of people were talking about Bailey Martin, who finished sixth at Torian Pro last year.

Jake was one spot ahead of him. He's very, very good. And, you know, we'll see how many spots they get and who competes. The problem is it's really competitive to get the game spots. So it's nice to have a showcase event like this for the Australians in the offseason where they can kind of shine out. Peter Ellis was third on the men's. He was 20th at semifinals last year.

He's a 20-year-old kid that's up and coming in that region. Zeke Grove is an old throwback name, and that's the other thing that you get in a competition like this is a chance for people who maybe aren't contending for game spots anymore, but are still 28, 30, 32 years old and have a high level of fitness to get a high level competition close to home in their home country and have a chance to compete. So you get a little bit of everything there with the men's division. And the women's division was less well represented for a variety of reasons. But Emma Hawke, 23-year-old top 10 finisher in semifinals last year. Georgia Pryor, same thing.

She might be even younger. I think she finished 10th at the Torian Pro. Christina Livitakis actually is from Zimbabwe. I don't know why they had an Australian flag by her name. But she was second place in the fitness in Cape Town last year at semifinals. So these are some people that are knocking on the door, last-chance qualifier-type athletes from their parts of the world. And this, I think, is a great opportunity for them to compete in the offseason.

A Greek girl from Zimbabwe. Yeah, I guess. Interesting. I'd be curious to hear that, that backstory. I bet you it's pretty exciting. Hey,

is the down under a, how long has that competition been around and where do you place it? Where do you place it with like the, the big guys, a water Palooza, rogue Dubai. Hey, is,

is that even fit? Is, is row a rogue and water Palooza, Rogue, uh, Dubai. Hey, is, is that even fit? Is, is Ro, are Rogue and Wadapalooza and Dubai really all on the same level? No, I don't think so anymore. Um, but to your original question.

So if, uh, Patrick Clark wrote the preview, uh, on bar bend for the, um, down under cross the championship. We had an opportunity to talk to Rob Forte about it.

Rob Forte was a programmer. He's one of the new owners for this competition. I believe if you read through the article, the um down under across the championship we had an opportunity to talk to rob forte about it rob forte was a programmer he's one of the new owners for this competition i believe if you read through the article that he's got some quotes in there and this was they basically are considering it their first year under the new leadership i think it's their third year having that competition but maybe over a four year or five year period of time because of covid you know preventing them from having live events for a year or two. A crowd at the event looked bigger than any event. Um, a typical Australian fashion. I didn't, you know, take a, a, a, a head count, but the crowd looked massive. The crowd looked big, bigger than any of the semifinals, regional sanctional shit that I saw.

Not bigger than Torian pro. Right. Well, I mean i mean i mean based on in the united states oh yes yeah and that's how it is you know australia for these big events they do they i think i saw somewhere 4 000 plus uh in attendance each day i think they had an off-site event also but every time we were in the stadium there you're saying there were 4 000 people at the down under competition yeah and i think that toorium pro sold out their 5 000 seats and then some uh well before the competition even began wow who's that uh not sure geez louise ben what is that no that's a photographer can we scroll up and see who that is oh it's jake

douglas oh nice he's gotta get second place what a hoss yeah who's that i'm not sure it's irrelevant it's irrelevant it's not irrelevant but i don't know and some these could be team pictures like that's a team picture there i know who that was that was Ricky Garrett yeah the down under strength of field was roughly 35% of games meaning games athletes compared to zealous

oh wait the down under strength of field was roughly 35% what's that mean he's using some metrics that he has created to assess the strength of the field. Oh, okay. The down under strength of field was roughly 35% of the games compared to Zell's 70% and Syndicate 80%. It leaves a lot wanting, but still nice to get the Aussies on the floor.

Well, so he's saying that the athletes at Zellos were better and the athletes at the Syndicate were even better than them. But man, nothing beats a big crowd. No. And I would, I would, I mean, this is obviously great to say, I would say it doesn't leave a lot of wanting, you know, there, this is a competition for that part of the world. You know, it's mostly, there's a couple celebrities that have come in big name people with big followings, but almost everyone there is competing from Australia or Oceceania which is the point of the competition i think and so i would wonder you know maybe if we had a if we could do the strength of the field of the down under

championship compared to the strength you know a hundred percent being the strength of the field if we had all of the australians competing like were we getting 70 of the top you know of the best people in australia and oceania at this competition and not necessarily stacking it up to a competition that's entirely made up of north american athletes uh damian castro maddie sturt is hot as fuck way to add to the conversation did i say that i don't know if that was about maddie or jay did i say that hot as fuck probably not now you've said it twice. She is hot as fuck. I mean, if I didn't say it, I need to say it. Aren't they both, though?

Extremely. Yeah, his body looks great right there. Whoever took that photo nailed it. I thought they both looked really, really good coming into this competition, yeah. She looks strong. She's been working on it. She needs to. That's one area that she's kind of fallen behind at times. So that's good. And, I mean, again, they've been around for a while, but they're both under 25. They're not even getting into what we consider the prime of their career age-wise. I wonder what the toll is on her that she went to the games twice.

And then how many times has she missed the games now? Once. I think she went four times and then she missed twice since then. I think she made it 17, 18, 19, 20. And the fact that she's still pushing is really, uh,

I think a testament to her character, Brian, were there any new athletes here? You know, how rogue we saw Olivia Kerstetter making her sort of debut at 16 sorry 16 17 18 19 she made it career best finish of 20th in 2018 hasn't made it for three years since yeah that's tough man that's tough but you're saying that she's not in her prime you're saying that she can still get better yeah i'm also she might be in her prime but she can still get better i Yeah, I'm also saying... Or she might be in her prime, but she can still get better.

I'm also saying that in 2018, she finished 20th. And if you just scan the field of athletes, ahead of her, you have 11th, Jamie Green. Fourth that year, Cara Saunders. First that year, Tia Claire Toomey. And Maddie Sturt was like 19 years old or something at this point.

And they have four in the top 20. And they were getting five people to the games that year and then three years later they're only getting three spots so they've already have four of the best 20 in the world in 2018 and since then have gotten less and less spots available to go that can't be right that would be fucking stupid that's exactly what's happened and that's what i've been saying since then. How Jethro Cardona, how is this podcast stuck at 19,900?

I don't like to use the word stuck, but I, Hey, we're the, we're so banned already on Apple and Spotify. It's crazy. It's so crazy. What we're seeing and what the screenshots people are sending people only subscribe to the seven on podcast and yet they can't on their list of 10 recommended podcasts

it's at the bottom so it's ridiculous uh and any athletes debuting there brian for the first time that we're like okay this is a future contender holy cow and is it i would say probably you know that i know of but that the guy who finished third peter ellis i mean going from 20th in the semifinals to third in this competition the way he did it makes me you know think okay he's he's a guy to watch like he's clearly making big strides especially when you see that he's able to get an event win that he's fairly strong at a young age he's doing pretty well and then i just start i just start to wonder or maybe the programming just was really good for him and what could that mean and so i look at the programming and i say well event one is snatching event you know event two is nasty girls pistols muscle-ups hand cleans so you got two you know kind of

gymnastics dominate or you got a light snatch gymnastics dominated workout if you go through the rest of the weekend you have strict handstand push-ups and chest to bars uh in this uh regional 17-1 so that's another high volume gymnastics you have a snatch ladder so they're snatching again and you look at another one they have overhead squats so now there's overhead position stability again that's three out of six workouts with snatch snatch overhead squat and then you have legless rope climbing thrusters so i basically think everything this guy's great at which is lightweight barbell cycling and high skill gymnastics just popped up and and this position overhead position just popped up every single workout for him and

he was able to capitalize on a great programming that's my guess i don't know if i think he can be good in the future but he certainly caught my eye this weekend either way and you were breaking up when you said his name say his name again peter ellis peter ellis uh i would put um uh hot as fuck over calling something professional as being more descriptive any day would you say pfizer's website is hot as fuck yeah i would say it's hot as fuck yes it is hot as fuck i mean especially compared to that old crossfit.com one uh that's just raw but but in terms of functionality i would say that um yeah hot as fuck does not uh does not change my opinion on functionality the crossword.com website was far more functional

okay um and well anyway if professionality has nothing to do with honesty then pfizer's is more professional what what's lauren fisher doing is she even a contender why does she fly off is she still a potential do you think she'll ever make it to the games as an individual no what's she doing she's uh traveling the world and competing and having fun while she can't you know she's got a she's built a nice platform for herself by having success early in her career she's competed in teams she's done it as an individual she's's, you know, moved. She had a chance to live in Iceland and train and compete last year. I think she's just taking advantages of opportunities from sponsors and fans as a result of her fitness. I think she's living a

great life. You know, I don't know if she's going to a competition like this and she's more excited to just be there and competing in a new environment or if she's trying to win and she'll look at the whatever she finished fifth place or something like that as a disappointment i i would be surprised if it was the second one um i'm sure she's doing her best but i think there's a lot of other things going on for lauren that are very positive and scroll back the other way and click that picture of her and her her boyfriend uh rathmas or husband yep husband they got married i believe look at he he looks like james uh james lipson dave lipson before he got juiced up did you see that picture oh okay maybe

just look at the pic yeah look at him get him on the thunder bro yeah it's dave lipson before he got all juiced up wow get him on thunder bro pro that's the stuff that they don't uh advertise online what a handsome man mr r. Rathnas. Okay. Okay. So, and when you say she's built a beautiful platform or a great platform, you're saying that basically on Instagram, she has over a million followers. And so she's still out there getting at it and adding value to her brand. Yeah. I mean, she's got a great network of sponsors.

She's a very marketable, attractive young woman who had some success in the fitness space and has you know taken every advantage of it in terms of not just competition but monetizing it and and making herself well known around the world you know you go to a competition australia we already talked about it the fans show up there and so she's got a whole new group of people that are following and supporting and loving her now awesome i love it well done uh Daniel Chafee, the head of affiliates from Europe, was there. Gary Gaines, the head of affiliates worldwide, was there. And our favorite CEO, Don Fall, was also in attendance. I don't know if they were there all three days, but in the recap of the third day, it does mention that they were there. So that's interesting. That's all I've heard i haven't heard any feedback um about their trip the dubai championship okay first i want you to first i want you to tell me the tier of of events for the off season or including the everything can you show me that peer give me that

that pyramid okay to me it's um, it's not so much a pyramid. Have you ever been to the Sears Tower here in Chicago? I have. Where you get to the top and there's this spire that just goes up for another 20 stories that they don't measure. It's kind of like that. There's the games. There's Rogue. There's Wadapalooza.

There's Dubai. And then you get to a tier, I would say. So those are still the top ones, but I don't think any one of them is on par with the other at this point. I think there's distinct differences between each of those four in that order. Outside of the level of competition at those, when I think of the games, I think of it as a pretty big community event. There's just shitloads of people there from all walks of life in CrossFit right from the person who's never been

wants to get same with a lot of Palooza when I think of the rogue invitational I think of there being 995 fans there and 1000 influencers got it that's such a disgusting word I think of it as more like one to one I don't I don't think I don't get that impression that it's even one-to-one. I get the impression that there's this group of people who goes to events who wants to be seen at them. And I just get the feeling that Rogue is its own really weird beast outside of the competition. I could be totally wrong, but that's the impression I get. Look, there's Brian Friend. Look, there's Annie Sakamoto.amoto well it's a very intimate setting so if you go there as a fan not only will you get to see all the athletes compete but yes there's a

lot more accessibility to people like that look there's dusty highland who's that oh old affiliate owner masters athlete i don't see him there was he there no i don't know but i'm just saying it's like i just get the impression rogue just seemed kind of uh the crowd seemed that there were more people there who wanted to it was just it's just weird when there's more people there who want to be seen at an event that are there than that are there for the event and i just get that somehow get that impression about rogue like it's the like it's more like the academy awards than it's an analogy than going to a movie there's a chance if you go see a movie in chicago you might see brian is sitting there with you no no you don't go to movies i go at the 11 a.m matinee where no one's there oh this is creepy uh what what when I have the mustache, though.

What's the etiquette in your area about talking in the movie theater? I just picture in Chicago. I honestly haven't been to a movie theater in a couple of years. Okay. And even before then, I might go once a year. But I would assume there's not any talking in the movie theater. Those events, based on the nuances and the depth that we're in the sport, it's almost hard to compare them, right? I mean, it's clear that games is kind of its own thing but it is really hard to compare isn't it because the

crowd is so huge at wadapalooza and in such a different environment than maybe uh dubai or rogue and rogue is clearly way different than either of those i don't i think it's pretty easy to compare them i mean we could talk about the caliber of the field, the size of the crowd, the distinctness of location, the intent of the competition. There's a variety of different ways we could compare them. Hey, does Rogue have a vendor village? Yeah. Does Dubai have a vendor village?

It's smaller, but yeah. Yeah. And Guadalupalooza has vendors all over the place. Yeah. Does Dubai have a vendor village? It's smaller, but yeah. Yeah. And Guadalupe has vendors all over the place. Yeah. I kind of like – I like the way – I like vendor villages, but I really like the idea of the way Guadalupe does it, just having them just scattered all over. So it's kind of like – Almost surrounding the competition, yeah. Yeah.

Have you ever been to a Shakespearean festival? I don't think so. They're really cool. They're like a country fair kind of. There's just stuff everywhere. There'll be a theater here, a small theater here, a small theater here, people walking through the crowds juggling and shit, like games you can play. It's just really spread out, and that's kind of how I picture Guadalupe. I feel like I've been to Guadalupe. Oh, I have been to Waterpalooza. Okay, I went there once. Kind of. Okay, Dubai Championships. That is the next big event that will be popping up on the radar coming to us in December.

I'm flying out November 30th, arriving the 1st, and I think competition starts the 2nd. So early December this year, a couple weeks earlier than it usually is held. Obviously also in that part of the world right now, the World Cup is going on, so I'm not sure if that played a factor and then wanted to move up a couple weeks. But I think it's December 2nd through 4th. Oh, this is important. The Sevan podcast, Wadapalooza Gear drops tomorrow. Don't sleep on it.

That's great. And how long are you staying for? From the first, you leave on the November 30th. You finish commentating on December 3rd, December 4th. Fourth, I believe. And I fly back the fifth. I'm not sticking around. How come?

I usually don't anymore i used to maybe stay another day or something and check some places out but with the number of trips i do now and days i take off i usually just try to keep it pretty tight to miss as little work here as i can i i do i do want to say this uh about jedediah sn, what he says, Dubai and the Wheelwod Games. I suspect, and I don't know, I'll be interested in what you think about the Masters, but this Wheelwod Games, I believe, is more premier than the CrossFit Games by far. And it's kind of weird to say that,

but I think the winner of these events at the wheel wads are can get more respect from um from the analysts than the winners of the crossfit games do you have any thoughts on that brian that it's a more prestigious event tougher competition i don't know how to answer that okay Okay. I feel like it's, you know, it's very different. More respect compared to more coverage. Like, what is prestige? I think that you could say that the winner of that event is the fittest guy, you know, missing a limb from his elbow to his hand than at the CrossFit Games. You mean then the adaptive divisions at the Games?

Yes. Yes, yes, yes, yes. Sorry. Then the adapt. No, no, not then, Justin. Sorry, adaptive class. You guys are. Yeah, at the games? Yes, yes, yes, yes, yes. Sorry, then the adaptive. No, no, not then, Justin. Sorry, adaptive class. You guys are. Yeah, OK. Yes.

To that, I think that it was nice and important that CrossFit incorporated the adaptive divisions into their season two years ago. But in my opinion, they are still figuring that out and they're not doing it as well as some of the competitions like Wheelwad and even Guadalupe, Guadalupe, Guadalupe, Barcelona in Barcelona over there in Spain that have more opportunity for adaptive athletes to compete at a premier event. Yeah, I'm sorry. I thought you were comparing it to the individual division. No, no, no, no. No one can compare to Justin and Tia. They sit alone. Wherever they go, they would make it at the premier competition. Let me ask you this. What about Masters? They have that thing called the Masters Collective where you ran into Sean Ramirez and then we were able to get him on the show. But is that one versus the Masters at the Games versus this thing that's about to go down at Mayhem? I think it's called the Legends.

at the games versus this thing that's about to go down at mayhem i think it's called the legends yeah so masters fitness collective is the first one you were referencing the masters legends championship is the one that's happening the week after wadapalooza in cookville tennessee and then there's obviously the masters divisions at the games um they also have a lot of masters divisions and always have at wadapalooza and even in down under they have. So Masters divisions show up all over the place. I actually thought the Masters divisions at Down Under were interesting because they had like 41 to 47 and then 48 to 54. So they split up those age ranges a little bit different. I was kind of curious. I think that the games is still the premier for the Masters. Been around the longest. Those other two popped up during the season, 2020 season, that CrossFit had to cancel the Masters divisions along with the team

and teenage divisions as an opportunity for them to compete. The Pitt Teen Throwdown also popped up that year in more relevance and created the opportunity for teenagers who'd been prepping for the games to compete in an event and have a champion for that season. It didn't necessarily last in the same capacity as these other ones. The Geyser Masters Fitness Collective had no intention of doing a year two or a year three, but it was very well received and went well. And so they just continued to go with it. And then they're going to go with it again next year. I think the Masters Legends Championship is pretty cool in the regard that you can qualify in a variety of different ways. There's these competitions that host qualifier events, and then there's also an online qualifier,

I believe. And so the idea there is somewhat of the nature of a semifinal, but for Masters, where you actually have live competitions around the world or different parts of the country, and then you'll select the top competitors there based on the turnout. So it's not a guaranteed one, two or three spots. It could be up to five spots, depending on how many people compete in each division at each one of those qualifiers. So I think that they're all good opportunities. It's, you know, the mass, we talk about it with the elite individuals,

like how many times a season a year can you realistically compete? And then you, you know, you, you extrapolate that to the master's division and you divide that by 10 if you're a master's right where it's less so you're gonna you know if you're asking for a master's athlete who's good enough to compete in these things to compete at the games and the master's fitness championship and the legends that's a lot there's a lot of competitions in a small amount of time. And what's their next season going to look like? So what we get here is it's a huge population of people. And you might see some that make a run at the games and take the offseason off,

which means there's others that might not make it or just barely miss out. And they'll have a chance to do well in either the Legends or the Masters Fitness Collective. Do you know if Sean Ramirez is going to the Legends event in Cookville? I don't know. I don't think he's competing. I think he missed the qualifiers for that, but he could be there hanging out. I'm not sure.

Okay. Lana Marstein says Legends at Mayhem december 8th through the 11th i i would that is uh going to be the there's going to be quite an interesting rivalry between jason grubb and sean ramirez uh sean ramirez won the crossfit games either four or five times four times took second to neil maddox and that year he also failed the strike test okay and uh jason grubb has been just cleaning house and and it's kind of interesting because i also see it as a guy who is a lifelong athlete and sean ramirez and kind of just your regular guy jason grubb who found crossfit and embraced it and that is something yeah he is a savage

we're gonna have to uh watch that this year at the games uh it's very maybe it's more interesting than even when hobart competed i'm i'm pretty uh sorry james i'm i'm pretty darn uh pumped uh jamie latimer said something here i hope savon has me on with jason grubb i think we can make that happen okay back to dubai just do so you're going to dubai um no no, no invites this year, all qualifier. What are the implications of that? If any, probably less star studded field than you'd get otherwise. And, you know,

I, I had talked about that. I really liked rogues hybrid approach this year. They brought 15 from the games. They left five spots open and the women's side, none of the five qualifiers managed to finish in the top 10. On the men's side, Chandler Smith took second overall. And just on the outside chance that something like that could happen, I love the idea of leaving five spots for the qualifier. The highest finisher for

the women at Rogue was Manuel Nangonese. We know she had a little bit of a mishap with time zones and video submissions during quarterfinals. This is another opportunity for her to make it there. I think that maybe Dubai could have done something like, you know, because they like to honor history and loyalty and tradition. Maybe they say, okay, we'll invite the top five finishers from our event last year, something like that. And our qualifier will open up 15 spots.

So you're still taking a majority of the field, but you have an opportunity to at least extend an invite to Laura Horvath, Gabby McGowan, Roman Krennikoff, and see if some of these might show up. You know, Lazar Jukic was second last year. He still did the qualifier, qualified and will be coming. But a guy like Lazar Jukic, two times top 10 at the games, competed at Rogue, got a little injury there. I would, you know, I don't see the need for him to do the online qualifier to make it to Dubai. He was second place there last year.

He was eighth and ninth at the Games the last two years. He's going to compete at Rogue. Just give him an invite and let him come compete if he wants. So that's how I feel about it in general. Maybe there could be a little hybrid model there. But they're going back to their roots. They used to only have qualifiers pre-2016. Everyone had to qualify. And before 2016, you were still getting people that were winning that event, like Annie Thor's daughter and Jamie Green on the women's side, like Noah

Olsen and Frederica Gideas on the men's side. So there were good athletes that were coming through the qualifiers back, if you go back historically as well. What did Fikowski place at the games last year 16th and what did lazar jukic finish eighth now i want to read this to you and uh i want to read this to you uh back the other way i don't know who the author of this article is back the other way to lazar jukic is this your article, Brian? Yeah, it should be good. Yeah, well, this is some biased shit in here. The biggest threat to Fikowski is likely Lazar Jukic. No, no, no.

Let me, let me, let me, next time send me the article before you guys publish. The biggest threat to Lazar Jukic is Fikowski. Fikowski shit the bed last year at the games, showing us that he is a waning star in the field of formerly great athletes that the tide has turned for many, including Fikowski. This will probably be his last run at a major event with peace and love. Good luck, Andrew Fikowski. What's his first name? We do need a, another, a third writer on the team at Barber.

That's pretty good. I'll, I'll submit your name. Well, let me see Fikowski's first name. I'm having a senior moment. Scroll the other way. Brian's not going to tell me. He thinks it's insulting to him. Brent, Brent, Brent Fikowski. Look, I'm faster.

Beaver's faster than you guys are in the comments. Thank you, Jessica. Brent Fikowski does amazing in these style of events incredible in these style events I believe I don't have everything in front but I believe he was one is regional the last four years that they existed and what I mean by these style events is three day six to nine workouts that style of competition in his sanctionalsals career, he had first place in Asia Cross the Championships, second place in the Granite Games to Travis Mayer, first place in Dubai in 2019, which I reference here, where he beat Vellner and Krennikoff, who beat the rest of the

field by over 100 points, which was BKG, Lazar Djukic, Yonah Koski, et cetera. And he's been in Egypt where he just won a competition there, which is nice for him. And he's going to stay over there. I think it's a huge advantage for him that he's already acclimated to that time zone spending a month there. Yeah, he already did that competition, but I think he'll be just fine and is still the favorite to win this thing. Especially lazar did did take last place at rogue and got an unfortunate injury there if he'd had a clean run at rogue no injury finished eighth which i think is maybe the best he could have done given those workouts yeah maybe i would consider lazar the favorite coming in but given everything i'm going to go with brent as a favorite

what and and the fact that you know the workouts is is lazar is is um but what happened to lazar at rogue i can't remember what his injury was i do remember though it gimped him checks his trail the first run the offside event he rolled i think he rolled his ankle to the inside. And I'm not sure. It was either a really, really, it didn't seem like it was a ligament. So it might have been a small stress fracture. It was sensitive to touch. I know he was struggling with lunging, going up that hill, some of the box jumps.

Like there were, you know. So it's not that long ago. And this competition's come up. He's training in Serbia. It looks like he's fine, but it's just in the back of my head is like, not something that you want to have going into this kind of competition where yes,

he's going there and definitely expecting to win. Yeah. He's, I think you, I think when, when will you come to terms with the fact that the Kowski is on the back half of his career? No,

he's definitely on the back half of his career. Sorry, back, back one 15th of his career. Sorry, back one 15 half of his career? No, he's definitely on the back half of his career. Sorry, back one-fifteenth of his career. Sorry, back one-fifteenth of his career. I mean, look, he won semifinals last year at the Granite Games. Yeah, he didn't have a great showing at the Games, his worst live performance at the Games ever. If that happens again this year, I'll say it's over for him. But I still think it's possible to have a top seven game finish.

Well, plumber that's known as a medial ankle sprain. Well, thank you. Is, um, did you see any of the footage of Fikowski competing at this event in Egypt? Very minorly. Any sign of injury? I feel like the last two times we've seen him at the game, something's wrong. I don't know what, but maybe like his hip or something seems uh not not up to par well the one thing i mean brent never uses that as an excuse sure in 2021 it seemed like he had either a hamstring or a groin thing and

um he still finished third some people think he might have won absent of whatever was bothering him there, but he's never, as far as I know, gone and said that publicly. He competed the best he could given the circumstances and took third. Last year, I don't know if anything was wrong with him or not, but I know his mindset coming out of that season was,

okay, there's some holes in my game that I need to address. And he's been working on those. Speaking of beautiful bodies, man, he is a specimen. Brent is going to spank them, but I agree with Sevan and go as far as to say he would be lucky to be on the top 20 next year. Wow, okay. Tough, tough call.

Tough, but it is tough, though. The men's field is getting to be so, so difficult. There are definitely 20 guys out there that are phenomenal. It is tough, though. The men's field is getting to be so, so difficult. There are definitely 20 guys out there that are phenomenal. More on Dubai. Any athletes debuting there that we'll be seeing for the first time that we should be watching? Like, okay, this athlete is an athlete we've never seen in the games field, but hey, look at this guy. They're going to show up at Dubai. We're going to see them get tested against the some of the fittest in the world a lot of guys and a lot of guys and men and women that could make a breakthrough and it's difficult to maybe select

the one or two that's going to do it i mean look there are some people that you've heard of like guillaume briant and moritz phoebeck that made games, but we didn't get to see a ton of them at the games. And even at semifinals, they're getting overshadowed by some other storylines. So one of the groups of people you could look at are guys like that, that maybe this is an opportunity for, you know, Guillaume Briant, 26 at the games, a very good showing in his rookie appearance. But how much do you remember about him competing there? He was the swimmer. I think he, did he win the swim event?

He didn't win it, but he is a swimmer. Yeah. Okay. That's all I remember about him. That he wasn't good enough on the ski. I think he took 11th or something on that event. Oh shit.

Okay. But if it's just a pure swimming event, he's probably third, maybe fourth, you know, anyway, if you know, maybe a guy like this has an opportunity to be more in

the spotlight and make a i'm not just a guy who can face you know 26 of the games i can take the fifth in dubai and if he's in the top heat of dubai maybe wins an event has some good showings has a little battle with brent or lazar yona in one workout we might have a much better better picture and understanding of who guillaume briand is. Going further down the leaderboard to people that are even less well-known and more likely to come out of nowhere, I would look at a guy like maybe either Victor Hoffer or Vladimir Sashin. So Victor Hoffer is a young French kid. He was 19 or 20 now.

He was competing on a team, CrossFit Grislin, in lowlands. He's got a gymnastics background. He's insanely good at gymnastics. He's been lifting a lot. He's been growing his hair out. And you know, if you read the Bible, that means you're getting stronger. I understand. Yeah. So, Victor Hoffer, young French kid to look at and see. We'll see if his strength, aerobic capacity, et cetera, can come up to par with his gymnastics. And like I said, he's super young. I think he has a good future or at least a good opportunity for a good future in this sport. Oh, I see a little Enrico Zanoni in him, in that body. A little bit of model. Maybe similar body build, yeah, just a few years

younger. Or Nicholas Joyal. I see a little bit of Nicholas Joyal, like that model look coming out. I see a little bit of Nicholas Joyal, like that model look coming out. Yeah. So nice, young kid, hardworking kid. I'm excited for him because, you know, he went team last year. He wants to eventually compete as an individual. So this is a really good environment for him to have a chance to do that. Let's kind of see where he's at. Hey, this kid's not.

What is it? What do I see in his body? He's the skinny kid that got buff, right? This kid's not strong. is it? What do I see in his body? Why he's the skinny kid that got buff, right? This kid's not strong. He's getting strong. I think he, I don't know if it was on a story or a post, but he recently was posting a heavy split jerk. I think off the blocks that looked pretty impressive. I think it might've been on his story. He could be James Sprague's little brother, similar age. Yeah. Not quite as tall. Um, but like if a workout shows up, that's really gymnastics dense, you know, he can do very well in it. Uh, and like I said,

he's been trying to get stronger. So I'm hopeful that there's also some strength tests where he can, uh, answer those questions for himself in competition. Cause it's one thing to be in the gym and say, yeah, my numbers are improving, but when you have to do it in a competitive environment, a limited number of lifts on a strength test, or, you know, uh, Dubai also often has like a short sprinty barbell cycling workout where the weights are like, uh, you think you could do it, but you're just not sure. So those types of events, if he gets one or two of those would be nice for him as a little checkpoint to see is my strength training actually paying off in competition. The other guy I mentioned is Vladimir Sashin, who's, I mean, I didn't really know anything

about him. He's from Russia. Um, and I, and I reached out to him, like I did all the athletes. And I, I personally am excited for this guy. He gave me a lot of information and his summary was, I was built for CrossFit. Does he speak English? I don't know. I mean, he responded in English, but who knows if that's a translator or what? So we'll get to meet him next week. God, we need a Russian that speaks English so we can. Yeah.

Sorry, sorry for being so biased or we need a, or we need a podcast host that speaks Russian. Prize money at Dubai? I know it's 50K for first. It goes down from there. And honestly, I can't keep track anymore if they have – which one of these competitions have payouts for event wins or not. I think this one might be one of those, but I'm not 100% sure on that. And Rogue was like two 50, right?

Yeah. Uh, 215,000 base. And then it might've gone up from there. Yeah. And then what about, uh, Wadapalooza? I think they dropped it from 75 or from a hundred thousand last year to 75,000 this year. Last year they had a huge discrepancy. It was like a hundred thousand and then dropped to like 30,000 for a second. So I think they might've maybe tightened it up a little bit this year and maybe distributed some of that money differently. Um, first place prize is less, but doesn't necessarily mean that the overall prize pool is. This is a total, uh, this has no relevance. I just opened a tab and wanted to show you this. Do you know who that is?

I don't know. I can't tell from this, whatever this is. Do you know who that looks like? No. Oh, shit. It won't play. What if I hit reset? You know who that is?

No. how about that that's Katrin David's daughter's doppelganger isn't that crazy I invited this girl I jumped into this girl's DMs and asked her if she'd come on the show and play katrin so i could do a like a skit with her like pretend like i was interviewing katrin doesn't it look just like her i mean i can't even i can't even believe it i cannot even believe it

and did she take you off on the offer no she didn't she didn't respond she didn't she didn't. She didn't respond. She didn't. She didn't respond. I was going to go over here to my. Maybe eventually. What did you say? If I get big enough?

Someone said they just sent me a DM and I wanted to see it. It might have that guy's Vladimir's. What's the guy's name? Vladimir Sashimi. Sashimi. I think S-E-C-H-I-N. no but i don't see your dm whoever said that jeremy world or whoever uh and um how much so so uh how much does like and how much would the down under pay oh there he is okay i think it said it was either 12 000 or 10 000 dollars i don't know if those are australian dollars or what but something like that okay and when you think of events and their size does that matter to you does that go into it

also the amount of the payout is that is that for sure like no one will ever catch rogue no uh well but i mean that's the reason why when we were i was going through the spire of the sears tower rankings that i didn't include the semi-finals yet like this some of the semi-finals have a great caliber of athletes and this year that's going to be extremely good i mean one european semifinal like that should be that is harder than dubai like way harder than dubai but the prize pool is not the prize payout is not going to match that even if they doubled it from last year it's only you were only winning 10 000 instead of 5 000 honestly it's laughable like that is such an elite competition to win and

then they would say well you're really just competing for the games but it's laughable. That is such an elite competition to win. And then they would say, well, you're really just competing for the games. But it's like on its own, one European semifinal, two North American semifinals, those are massive events. And I would love to see some kind of partnership or something where someone's able to come in and provide more money because placing 10th in that competition is insanely difficult and you're going to get almost nothing for it. That's interesting. I never, ever thought about it, but, but those events have no incentive to raise the prize money. I think CrossFit should be making an effort to do so. I don't disagree, but, but, but they have no incentive. Well, that's, I mean, no, it's not like you're going to raise the prize pool and get better athletes. Like all the best athletes are still trying to come. It's just, why would you not want there to be something in terms of a financial payout

for athletes that are doing well at those events? There's some of the like outside of the games, they should be the biggest events. Can't argue. I mean, it's interesting. What do you think? What do you think about the Zellos games? Why don't you think that there were more people in the house there?

Why don't you think for like there's 17 or 14 affiliates in that area? I want to say they had anywhere from 200 to 400 people there. Why didn't let's say 10 people, let's say every athlete, let's say 20 people came from every affiliate. That would be 10 people with their, that would be five people, or that'd be seven people with their wife and their kid. It would be 40 people from every affiliate. Why weren't there 600 people there?

It's the same. I mean, it's the same thing that keeps happening at these uh semifinals in north america is the fans just are not showing up and i don't i don't know why uh it's kind of sad when you see australia and you see that it's a packed house and there's tickets are selling out and you go to a semi-final in north america and you could pick any seat you want you know there's no one there do kids have to pay to get into the Zealous Games? I don't think so. I think there was a cutoff for that.

Because that's another thing, too. If the tickets are $50 and you have a family of five, you're like, fuck that. I'm not going to the Zealous Games. But if your three kids can get in free, then you're going. Yeah. I have very affordable consulting fees for all sorts of stuff. But it's kind of like, you remember in 2018, we went to the regionals. There were fans there in Albany, New York.

Albany, New York. Who's going to Albany, New York? Del Mar, California. Sold out. Packed. Packed. People five deep on the rails, every seat full. Yeah.

A fire hazard. West Palm Beach there's a just an empty space they built the bleachers packed full every event it's not happening now i don't know it's it's i wonder if those if that's because those are deeply connected with the affiliates which the regionals yeah theals, the basically it's a CrossFit event and they're deeply connected. Call her. Hi. How's it going? Good. Brian,

how you doing? Good morning. I think a lot of the reason, at least what I've seen is like community divisions, right? You look at water Palooza and it's a packed house because there's other competitions going on around the elite. And then also you looked at granite games this year compared to 2021.

And it was like three times the people because there's people competing. You mean, so if you have different classes, every master's athlete brings his wife and his three kids, there's a team class and then both parents and the aunt have to come. And you're saying just make more events, more categories of competition, and more people show up. I mean, it seems like a no-brainer, right? Yeah. I mean, you think about it.

A team of three, right? If each person on that team has two people come watch them, that's six more people that are showing up. That wasn't going on during some regionals, though. It was not. As a matter of fact, it's a very exclusive competition. Shana Medeiros,

that's why regional competitions will make a difference. More people can and will travel to watch athletes they know. We had talked about that when we thought there were still going to be four semifinals now there's only two and so you know the trade-off is you might have to travel a little farther but you're going to see a better caliber of field you know not top to bottom i will see about the bottom but at least at the top you know you're going to see 20 men with a chance to make the games instead of 10.

20 men with a chance to make the games instead of 10. How many athletes are there at Guadalupalooza? Total athletes across all divisions, there's usually 2,500 to 3,000. So if every person brings three people, I mean, just as, you know, some people bring 10, some people bring none. So there you have 6,000 people. Will, thank you very much, brother. Yep.

My strong coffee is getting low. Thank you. All right. And tell me about the Dubai, what it's known for. What do you think we're going to see? Pretend like you don't know shit. What is Dubai known for in terms of the competition, the movements, the workouts? What Dubai has been known for has changed a little bit over the years, but going back to the kind of their origins, they were, you know, you were used to seeing something in the ocean, possibly something in the desert, but more than that, uh, you would see

unique movements. And if you remember actually the, the 2019 CrossFit Games we talked about with Fikowsky, they had the DFC original workout that included things like deck squats, or is that what they're called? Deck squats and jumping push-ups or flying push-ups. They had inverted chest-to-bar pull-ups with the pronated instead of supinated grip. They were the first competition to program devil's press i believe all the way back in either maybe 2012 um and they used to be beat downs of competitions like 10 to 15 events for four days some off-site really heavy they've tailored that

back a little bit i believe there were nine events last year for example um did have those, but like they'll do some unique stuff. They were obviously on the ski slopes for the first two workouts in the Dubai Mall last year. So it's a destination competition for some people. Most of the Europeans compete there, but you have gotten some big name Americans, Canadians, et cetera, in the past. Australians, people from New Zealand like Jamie Simmons. And you get just a little bit different flavor of programming that's a little uh they have a lot of freedom and liberty to do it they're you know they're it's uh there's not a lot of as many checks and balances some of the other ones have so you get a little bit of diversity from programming perspective

movements or diversity of movements you might not get in an in a other competition so you know there's there are if you study their history of their programming there's some like i said earlier like they like to have these uh short sprinty power output workouts either with a barbell or with machines like we had the acid bath they had that little snatch ladder one year where it was like a one and a half minute workout but it was somewhat challenging snatch weights so usually get a big array of stuff from their programming

Will Branstetter if you have to rely on community divisions to bring people it's not a real sport I don't know I don't know I hear you Will but what if they didn't serve beer at football games I only go to at football games? I only go to the football games for the band at halftime.

Yeah. I mean, so I don't know. Each one has its own kind of screwed up reason. We could pull football apart and explain why people go there and it wouldn't look pretty. Go ahead, Brian. I was going to say Dubai does have a new venue this year. You know, they're not using the tennis stadium that they've always used in the past. They're doing it at this Coca-Cola arena. I don't know. You know,

so I don't know. I don't know how that will impact the presentation or workout selection. And HWPO is working in partnership with them to program this competition oh is the way you were describing uh dubai i was starting to get some sort of like it's somewhere between crossfit and grid yeah maybe um much i would say more leaning towards crossfit than grid because they still have like uh safe movement standards outlined for the athletes to follow. It makes sense that Brian is a band geek.

The band needs love, uh, to, uh, and they've changed the name is, is the Dubai. It used to be the Dubai CrossFit championships, and now it's just the Dubai fitness championships. So they have reverted back to Dubai fitness Championships, which is what it originally was. They were Dubai CrossFit Championships, I think, starting in 2018, and now they're going back. And what happened? They just couldn't agree with the sponsorship package with CrossFit? Yeah. I mean, people are always asking this question like what, why do you pay CrossFit to be a licensed event or a sanctioned event and what do you get't really need it. And they're perfectly fine with the DFC title that they had had years ago. I'd be curious what the, what the, that conversation's like, because you think the wrong guy, I think it's important to have, um,

the word CrossFit on it, unless it was out of some sort of safety concerns. But just because you want to bring awareness, I mean, they're trying to grow the sport, right? I mean, look the way they did, and we'll get to this too, but look the way they're doing the road to the games this year in order for athletes to get here. Is the goal not to appeal to people outside of the areas where it's already massive? It's already massive in the United States. It's massive in Australia. It's massive in France. You think they'd want their name on,

on such a prestigious event? CrossFit. Yeah. Well, maybe they did, but if Dubai didn't, for whatever reason, then what's CrossFit going to do about it?

Right. Okay. I was just thinking that maybe CrossFit was asking for too much. Well, I mean, that's where it may be interesting to know the conversation. If they're asking for X and Dubai says, well, that doesn't make sense for our competition,

and CrossFit's not willing to budge at all in their position, then Dubai's going to say, okay, see you later. But we don't know if that happened or not. We're just speculating. Very true. Just speculating. Like an Andrew Hiller video. Can we pull up the the the athletes really quick uh

caleb if you get a chance for the men who are there we'll just have brian give us a quick little pick and then we'll move on to my favorite article that was in the barbell spin uh recently is there a place where we can just see a list of the athletes? Like their lead? Is there a leaderboard up yet? I think maybe I put a link to a leaderboard. I sent you the online qualifier leaderboard that has, you know, basically has them all there in order of how they finish on the qualifier.

I didn't send it to you, Caleb. I'm sorry. I think I'm, I have it in my notes, Caleb, but maybe not. I don't send the text between you me and suza

it's on the um registrate look at caleb there he goes so these were the these are the qualifiers in order of how they did in the qualifier and so who are your top three picks here for for the men i think for the men? I think for the men, it's a very, very clear top three. Brent, Lazar, and Yonikoski. Yonikoski, if you forgot last September, so like 14 months ago, he had surgery, I think rotator cuff surgery. And he's been on the mend ever since then. In my opinion, he's looked better at every competition I've seen him at, semifinals, last chance to call our games, and rogue. better every competition I've seen him at semifinals, last chance to call our games and rogue.

He's a, so he's someone I'm looking at to see if he can challenge Brenton Lazard and possibly even for the top spot. I thought he looked very, I actually thought he looked, you know, he didn't do amazing at rogue. I thought he looked really good there. And if he's still continuing that upward trajectory,

I mean, we know when he's healthy, he's very good. So those are the top three. I would say. Is Con Porter going, he is going kind of fun to have him back in the individual field. So just Moritz and Nikita Yundov.

Those guys are in because two of the guys within the first 20 dropped out. Will the super next is not. Oh, that's a shame. It is a shame, but. And, and,

and, and the story of the people who aren't going, who we would have loved to have seen is Samuel Cornwallet and Ricky Garrett. Correct. All right. So be it. Can we check out the female competitors? Both of whom would have been podium threats if they'd showed up. Yes.

Yes, it would have been much more difficult for Lazar to win. Women's side, we haven't talked about the women yet. There's less well-known names even than on the men's side here. You know, Jamie Simmons pops off the page. Emily Rolfe pops off the page. And I think, I can't remember

if there's 15 athletes out of the 20 that have not competed in Dubai before. And like maybe 14 or 20 that have never made it to the games before. And a couple who've made it to the games only made it in 2019 as a national championship. For example, Valentina Rongel was the national champion from Columbia that year. She got cut after the first workout. So it's not, it's like, yeah, she just made it to the games, but basically there's a ton of opportunity for women here including a girl amy kringle maybe

oh where's she where's she how'd she she's up there somewhere there she is yeah amy at a girl um i think matilda garns is someone to watch in this competition who could uh could do extremely well and if you're looking for a little bit, uh, less well-known who I've got my eye on is another French woman. She actually won the qualifier, Claudia Gluck. She was, um, she's, she was doing quite well in, uh, in, uh, about half the workouts at semifinals and pretty poorly on the other ones, but she's really imploded on the legless rope climb workout and it costs her like three or four positions on the whole weekend. So I think she might do fairly well. And then again, there's some athletes like Freya Moosbrugger and Seher Kaya, who both made the games this past year. They finished, I think Seher was like 28th

and Freya was like 32nd or something. And we didn't really get to see too much of them. Even Karen Frey, who is 20th, Karen Frey is someone who could potentially win this, this competition. You know, she was in that year of 2019 where we had a Brent and Pat and Roman battling out. I think it was 2019. Um, I know that was 2018, excuse me. Karen Frey was in a group of Sigma's daughter, Jamie Green and Sam Briggs that year, who all were within 10 points of each other going to the final workout. And so obviously all could have won it. She ended up taking fourth that year, but she came back and got second the next year to Sarah.

Wait, wait. This isn't at the games. This is at Dubai. Oh, Dubai. In Dubai. So Karen Frey has a good track record in Dubai. Fourth, 2018. Dubai. So Karen Frey has a good track record in Dubai. Fourth, 2018. Second, 2019, beating Sam Briggs, Gabby Magawa, Jamie Green, Emily Rolfe, Alessandra Pacelli. Yeah, she's great. And she's getting better. So those are some of the women I would be looking at. uh scroll back up a little bit there was someone i wanted to ask you about up there and i forget what i was going to say but but if i see their name i remember uh tilda garns emily rolf oh

france has france ever sent a female to the individual games uh outside of 2019 and 20 i don't think so interesting and i and i think france has exploded i want to say france has i don't i need to look at the affiliate map but i want to say they have they're approaching a thousand crossfit gyms lazar jukic hi everyone hello hello my friend congratulations on your victory in dubai lazar uh impressive performance um not cool to take advantage of a waning Fikowski but whatever you do you okay

unpopular opinion Sevan okay okay is there anything else you want to touch on before we switch to this article about the barbell spin in regards to the Dubai

Fitness Championships formerly known as the Dubai CrossFit Championships no I think maybe we can even come back to Dubai another time so we can move on okay and you'll be doing the commentating there with Derek what's Derek's last name Forrest you'll be doing the commentating there with Derek. What's Derek's last name?

Forrest. You'll be doing the commentating with Derek Forrest. And he was one of the sideline reporters at the CrossFit Games. And he did the commentary last year in Dubai with Tommy Marquez. Oh, okay. Fantastic. And is this a – you had this gig before you did the Zealous Games? I did. Have you been offered any other gigs or reach gig before you did the Zealous Games? I did.

Have you been offered any other gigs or reach out since you did the Zealous Games, since you got on your? Haven't been offered any gigs yet, but some people have reached out and said that they liked it. Yeah, it was crazy. You were doing your Chick Hearns. Do you know who Chick Hearns is? Not by name. Oh. Let's see not by name oh let's see if i can let's see if i can i think chick chick horse racing commentary from the 60s no but uh a chick hern uh born in 1916 died in 2002 wow i remember when he died like yesterday

uh he was uh an american sportscaster who was the play-by-play announcer for the Los Angeles Lakers of the National Basketball Association for 41 years. So that's kind of high praise, I think. Yeah, he said the funniest shit. He was so great. You think I'm funny? No, but there's room. I mean, yeah. No, you're not funny. I don't think you're not mean yeah no you're not funny i don't think you're i don't

think you're not funny but you're not funny uh can you pull up this article by barbell spin this is an interesting article on barbell spin uh we've had mr spin on the air several times it was written by uh the guy, Peter at coffee pods and wads. The title of the article is, is from paying athletes to poaching them. I would like to just say right off the bat that one of the people that he interviewed in the article said that we shouldn't call it poaching.

We should call it recruiting. And it's, it's, it's an interesting distinction. Yeah. I get, I get a little, I just want the facts. I don't need too much analysis from people, or I'd rather have it say the paragraph be titled analysis

and then just straight facts before the actual title of the article insinuates poaching. From paying athletes to poaching them, should CrossFit adopt rules for how training camps approach athletes? I am very impressed with the article. It's cool to see something like this in the space. You can tell Peter did a shitload of fucking work to bring this article to light. But the thing that stood out for me the most, there were three things that stood out to me. And if you could scroll, do you want to say anything about this before I dig in, Brian? I agree with what you said.

He has clearly reached out to many people and gotten a variety of different input on this. I also know that there are people he reached out to many people and gotten a variety of different input on this. I also know that there are people he reached out to. I think he even mentions it in the article that chose not to comment or commented off the record, but he had an idea and instead of just going with the idea on his own, he also took the initiative to try to get in touch with some very well-known, relevant, and I would say important people in terms of having this conversation before putting this out there. Yeah, and to double down on that, I really appreciate the people cooperating with this article. Matt Torres, Matt O'Keefe, Max Elhaj, and the list goes on and on.

I didn't see – Justin Kotler, yeah. Yeah, Mr. Kotler. I didn't see Ben Bergeron's name. Justin Kotler, yeah. Yeah, Mr. Kotler. I didn't see Ben Bergeron's name. There were some that – I know there were some that he reached out to that chose not to weigh in on this.

Drew Crandall from Misfit Athletics. Generous quotes from him. Did he have anything from Proven in there? I can't remember. There was a lot. I don't know. I know he reached out to Comptrain. I know he reached out to mayhem um uh and and basically this is there's there's

i think that this article if i would sum it up there's there's a couple things ideas being brought to the light one should you pay or not should you the topics of athletes who get paid to be at training camps versus those that don't get paid and then poaching athletes or recruiting athletes who are currently with other camps as opposed to just waiting for them to reach out uh but when i mentioned the word poaching when it comes to attracting athletes to camps crandall offered an alternative term recruitment and i think recruitment is far more honest, truthful. Are you sure poaching is not just a trigger word for you? Maybe.

I'm not 100% sure. Should we look up? Dive into your subconscious self. I think poaching is a subcategory of recruitment. I just smell victim all over it. It's like, hey, listen. If you train at the Three Plain Brothers Empire and you only get to train with my kids versus Matt Fraser reaches out to you and says, hey, do you want to come up here and train in my compound in Vermont with Mal? But I'm calling that poaching?

Like, fuck you. Do you care about yourself or the athlete? The illegal practice of trespassing. So right away, it's not the right word. Right away, the word's just a fucking lie because there's nothing illegal but going on. Well, that's what he's talking about, actually, throughout the entire article. Should it be illegal?

In some sports, it is illegal. Or there are clauses that are put in place that should make if that at least if you do it outside of the bounds of how it's written that you get a slap on the wrist or a fine or whatever right and he also goes on to say that that's a professional practice that's professionalizing he basically suggests that it's exists in in most sports yeah so it's something that we should explore that that's the nature the point of the article is explore that question should this be a practice within crossfit or something that we adopt pretty soon yeah would you also consider professionalizing

the way they treated kairi or the way that they made the players kneel or the fact that they sell sprite non-stop on their commercials or that the entire league is racist, openly racist? These leagues, would you, is that professional too? Just tell me, I'm just curious. Can you show me that list of what professionalizing means? It's just dishonest reporting in the article. It's completely dishonest. I think, and I think it is, I want to bring up one quote from Matt O'Keefe in here. By the way, I really like Peter and Matt O'Keefe too. Don't anyone get this shit twisted. O'Keefe and HWPO do a lot for their athletes, but they don't pay them.

Instead, quote, we tell their story with content, support them around competition, care for them when they are in town. We feel comfortable that we provide a massive value to them with our coaching and support, explained O'Keefe. I remember when Miko Salo was signing with Reebok and they were going to give him like, they gave him like a $34,000 gift certificate to buy shit on their website. And Miko said, Miko Salo said, said uh no thank you i'm a 34 year old man i don't need a 34 000 gift certificate to a clothing website what i need is cash because i have a fucking mortgage to pay and i just o'keefe didn't say it but there's this sort of

like poo-pooing around there's this sort of poo-pooing around paying the athletes cash maybe and i also think that he almost did say it i think i think that um oak it's it's interesting um to say it would be like if i bragged about how much better my podcast is than other people's without showing the fact that i'd worked at crossfit for 15 years and i didn't mention all the support that i get from other people etc i just feel like that there's a uh like yeah dude you're at top of the food chain you have the five times fucking games athlete there who's selling fucking protein powder like come on dude i it's it's uh i just think it's a disingenuous i think it's a disingenuous kind of like corporate quote. I'm not a I know I'm being a little nitpicky here, but then I even went further and I went over to the HWPO website and I went to their I went to their YouTube page and I don't see I don't see anything that screams out at me supporting athletes.

I just looked at the first page and scrolled through quickly. I couldn't find Jason Hopper's name once in one of the, in one of the videos. So I, I, I just, well, that's what, that's the kind of,

I love, I love the idea of the article. And don't get me wrong. I, me too. I love the idea of the article too. And don't get me wrong. If I was an athlete and Matt said,

Hey, come over here and you have to pay me i'd be like yeah sure like i'd pay matt but that's like that's the category that they're in at the top of the fucking mountain matt's king kong sure but like i mentioned you know i believe he reached out to comp train i believe he reached out to mayhem i have to imagine he reached out to proven i apologize i can't remember if there was anything from them in here or i don't remember seeing anything either you know he talked to a bunch of people we forgot about singleton he talked to some athletes but i feel like part of the perspective is is missing

like i don't actually know which which of the camps do pay their athletes and if there's you know if they have been paying them for a long time or not but it sounds to me like a majority of the people that did want to weigh in on this are the people who are not paying their athletes for whatever reason, either the O'Keefe's who don't want to, or don't need to, or people like Kotler and who said like, we can't afford to, which is fine. I'd like to hear from the other side, you know, when, when Matt O'Keefe says something like, I think if you're paying athletes for them to be coached by you, that you're likely compensating for value you aren't providing. Like that's a pretty aggressive statement, in my opinion, maybe a passive aggressive statement. And I'd love to know what someone

who is paying their athletes or who has been paying their athletes thinks about that and has to offer in most sports. I mean, you play, he talks about soccer. You pay the athletes to play for your team. They have a contract to play. That's not, so that point of view from O'Keefe is a little bit puzzling to me. And it contradicts the professionalization. I think there might've been something in the beginning of the article about professionalizing and what that means in terms of finances. But if you're a professional athlete, that means that you derive your salary from the sport that you play like you were providing for

yourself and your family based on your work which is your sport um where that money comes from can change and we've seen you know jason cf media did an exposition on this uh in j I think, where he talked about people leveraging some success on the field of play. We mentioned it with Lauren Fisher. She leveraged some success on the field of play into a lot of success in the world of influencer, sponsorships, endorsement deals, traveling around and putting on different camps.

I don't know how much money he makes from it, but train like rich, that model is being adopted by other people. If you're living in Europe, you can do train with Lazar now. And he's having these couple dozen people come to his camps and certainly making some money off of something like that. If there's a person who's willing to pay you to be on their team for a season or three seasons or whatever the contract says, and you're an athlete who's trying to become a pro in this sport,

let's just say that you're Sidney McAlishan and comp train calls up and says, hey, move to New England and we'll pay you to stay here for three years and this salary on top of it and whatever else. I mean, you have to consider that if someone makes that offer. It almost, I don't want to say disingenuous. Fuck it, I'm going to say it's almost disingenuous what I think O'Keefe is saying there because of this too. It is a – I don't know if it's a symbiotic relationship. But the relationship there is, yeah, maybe Hopper does get a shitload of eyeballs if you did make videos about him.

Or Mal O'Brien would get a shitload of eyeballs. But the truth is that they're bolstering your brand too with their performance. And so if it's a wash, then why can't you pay them? And by no means am I suggesting that you should pay them. I'm just saying, I think it's, it's a, and once again, I don't know the details of what, he is a very cool dude. He treats people in his circle like family. I'm not questioning his credibility on that at all. It seems like an empty statement to me. And I think the quote that Peter was able to get from Pat Fellner kind of summarizes what I was saying. But Pat says, I'm happy for athletes to be earning. Every athlete needs to do what they think is right for them to be successful.

It's not for everyone, but it works great for others. So if you don't want to do it, that's fine. But I think there are other people, similarly to O'Keefe, who are not doing it. But they're like, yeah, but if there's others that are doing it, great. Good for them. I'm going to pretend like I'm Matt O'Keefe, and you ask me, do you guys pay your athletes to train at HWPO? You can call me Matt.

You don't have to call me Mr. O'Keefe. I know you're friends with him. Matt, are you guys paying your athletes up there? That's hilarious. You mean, are they paying us? Do you know how fucking good Matt is? Have you seen our media team? Are they paying us?

They come there. They get to use a world-class facility with the fittest man ever who has an attention to detail like no other in the business we charged matt mal o'brien a hundred thousand dollars last year just to hang out with matt one hour a day 200 days a year that's the contract that that would have been i think more of i don't know i just i'm okay uh stifle uh this goes on to say in the article you like role playing stuff i do okay i do with my kids all the time it's so fun i tell whenever they whine and ask their mom for something like no no no let me show you how you do it hey Hey, baby. What's up? I can't believe how nice those little lemons look on you, mom. This isn't true.

The article says this, and this is written in the article. This is 100% not true. Nobody wants to stifle the earning potential of the athletes of the sport we love. Where is this from? This is from that article, from the Barbell Spin article. Everybody shares the goal of professionalizing the sport and increasing the opportunities available through the sport. We'd have to define professional and, and sport because clearly the CrossFit games broadcast,

the CrossFit games broadcast doesn't even know it's a sport. They don't, they seem to not even know what the definition of sport or competition is. Smaller training houses will always struggle to offer the same support to athletes as their larger counterparts uh that is not true in in the ufc that's for sure there are some very small uh places like where kamar uzman and uh rose nama unis and uh justin gachi train now granted that guy is a very famous coach, but it's a very,

very small, uh, camp. Uh, I want to get, but caller high, I will get back to this after we listened to the caller, uh,

caller. Hi. Hey, um, I just had a quick question. So about this coaching and stuff, like, shouldn't it be up to the athlete? If they think that this relationship would be better than wouldn't like, wouldn't it be more beneficial in their favor?

Like it should be up to them. It shouldn't be legal or illegal. Like it should be their decision if they think that this relationship or this coach is going to benefit them more. Like, then it should be their choice. Let me play devil's advocate here real quick. Do you have a husband? Seven. Can we know the name of the caller first?

Paulina. Paulina, do you have a boyfriend? No, I'm not. Do you have a girlfriend? No. I told you you didn't have to do this for me with every female caller. What I was going to say is, here, let me just play devil's advocate. I don't think my neighbor would appreciate me going over there when he's at work.

And right after I'm done jerking off on my podcast and go over there and start talking to his wife. Right? So I don't want to play completely stupid, like he does not like i know he's a contractor and works 14 hours a day like he does not want me going over there talking to his wife probably like sitting around having coffee with her in the morning smoking cigarettes um right so do you think that there's anywhere that there's a there should be a line i don't think so because like if the athlete is comfortable with their relationship with their coach then like there shouldn't be anything else that comes in between like them and their coach

or like them and their manager or whatever it may be like it should it should be their choice in the end I think um because I devil's advocate one more time. What do you think about contracts with an athlete? Let's say Matt knows, hey, I'm going to sign Mal O'Brien. He wants to protect his brand and doesn't want her to leave before two years are over, and the time commitment he's willing to give. But let's say six months into that, Nike calls her and says, hey, we want to bring you to Portland. All you have to do is take this vaccine and you can train here for the next

three years and we'll pay you $300,000 a year. But, and then Matt's kind of would be like screwed because he already made this to your commitment. I think the contract would be fair. So that's the leaves like poaching on the table. But like, if you have a contract in play and you have like if you agree

to that then um yeah i mean that's kind of on you that's that's still the athlete's decision you know fair right good point i i mean i know that there are examples in the sport right now of people who came up through a homegrown training environment with local companies, coaches, or communities that were investing in them before they made a big breakthrough. And then after making a big breakthrough, there was nothing bad about that relationship. These athletes were happy there. They were getting what they needed and it helped them get to where they were. But that homegrown environment, whatever it consisted of, was suddenly had to be weighed against another person who came calling and said,

Hey, we want to bring you on to our roster and we can offer you this, that that small community from wherever couldn't offer them. And those are, you know, while Paulina is saying it should be the athlete's decision, it's not an easy one. Emma Lawson and Jack Farlow, there's two just fish out there swimming in the pond. Yeah, and I was thinking about Adam and Justin, their relationship. Justin doesn't feel the need to go to this big name brand. Well, he's the title male sponsor for Noble. I'm sure that they're taking good care of him. Right.

Yeah. Yeah. But look at Emma Lawson. She belongs to a small gym. go ahead right but she's also with noble so this is what velner's talking about is that earning opportunities for athletes are not just one-dimensional some can earn enough money on the field of play others will earn money through sponsorships if there's another opportunity for a training camp to be your primary source of income until you either make it or you don't.

If that's the best option available, I could understand someone taking that. I think what Peter's asking is, if you're in a situation where you are this company that's invested in an athlete and is helping them on the way, and there's nothing that's preventing them from leaving should someone come calling, that the governing body CrossFit in this case is, is not, you know, implementing something like that, that it's just free reign. It's the wild West in that regard. What do you think about this? This is a different subject, but what do you think about the fact that, and I don't know what Ben Bergeron's finances are, but let's say he sells programming for $40 a month and

he has Katrin David's daughter there. I don't think there's any problem with him saying, Hey, I'm going to give you 3% of all the sales from training as long as you train here. Yeah. There it's, I think that's so weird because there's like this flip of where, um, I think you'll have athletes who like train with a smaller group or like a smaller team. And it's like, is the athlete paying the coach, um, a certain percent. And then there's also different scenarios where like someone at a big group, like we can say HWPO or something, um,

are they paying their athletes for like, where does that switch happen? Uh, does that make happen? Does that make sense? Yeah. Yeah. I don't know. I think it's a weird line. And I don't know if that comes with growing more as like a professional sport, like NFL. When does that come into play where like the actual league is paying their athletes and you don't have to worry about like traveling expenses for the athletes because if you're if you're having athletes complain like i'm not going to go compete

because it's so expensive when does that get brought in and don't and don't forget we just saw one of the biggest names in the sport just get kicked out of a training camp we just saw danielle brandon get booted out of underdogs athletics so it can go the other way it can go the other way too yeah exactly but you know but what peter's saying is if matt torres was interested in danielle brandon and he was actively pursuing her while she's at underdogs athletics that's one thing and maybe enticing her with whatever he has to offer but as soon as that relationship is severed and it's known if he just waits and then makes the play at that point, that's what happens in international soccer and football. There are

transfer windows and there are specific times during the year when you can engage in those conversations and the rest of the year, you're not supposed to be doing that. Well, I think that there is a piece of integrity or courtesy where there does seem to be a distinction between a coach. Let's just, let's just go keep going with that. Whether Matt, even though it's just an example that none of what this is true,

by the way, not even close to true, but if Matt reaches out to Daniel Brandon versus Daniel Brandon reaching out to Matt, it is, I would not like coaches reaching out to my athletes. That doesn't mean it's wrong. No,

but, but if my, but if my athletes want to reach out to different coaches, I mean, look, Justin took Danielle Brandon to HWPO. They went there together. Look,

um, uh, Adam Knifer went to HWPO with Justin Medeiros. I mean, so they even go into the lion's den. I think if the athletes like dancing on that line though, like, do you really want them as your athlete then like is your is it does it mean that much to them like do you have a million

dollars a year worth of programming for you you want them yeah I mean, yeah. Yeah. Yeah. That's true. I'm sure that I have to guess, and this is not a dig at Ben Bergeron at all. I have to guess catch and brought so much fucking notoriety to that camp. You think it's up to the athlete to bring that up though,

to be able to say you wouldn't mean anything without me. me no i guess that's what agents and managers are for i guess that's what agents and managers are for they play the bad guy yeah all right well thank you for your thoughtful call okay thank you bye is it a clear line brian do you stand anywhere with like clear distinction like hey athletes shouldn't be reaching out or coaches shouldn't be reaching out. Do you have any thoughts on it? I thought that this part of the article was actually fairly perspective, a good perspective from Peter. I think it was in the intro when he talks about there are ways to do that that are just a little bit less invasive. You know, you happen to see some athlete at a competition that

you think in your mind, man, if I could just get ahold of that person, I would have a chance to really do something with them. And so you run into them at a competition. You say, you looked great out there today. Just kind of that nicety dropping that in there. The next time you see them in a competition, you say something else to them. Wow. Didn't realize you'd gotten so good at the overhead squat, you know, and then you're just planting these seeds and waiting for the opportunity. Again, we could just use the same example. Say it's Danielle Brandon, and you've had a chance to see her at this semifinal. And then you saw her at Guadalupalooza and you ran into her a couple of times and you said those things knowing that, man, down the line, I would love to get my hands on her. We could really help

do something cool together. And then all of a sudden she's available and you reach out and she might have that memory of, hey, you know what? That person did say a couple of nice things to me the last couple of times I saw. Maybe I should pursue a conversation with this person. So if you're a coach who's like looking at that, some of it comes down to what you're comfortable with morally. How much do you want to press the issue? Or are you just going to take little opportunities to drop compliments, hoping that should the opportunity come up in an appropriate setting, that they'll remember

those little things? I do want to point out to this, there's this Taoist saying that says, if they lie for you, they'll lie to you. If they cheat on you, they'll cheat with you. Yeah, there's a bunch of variations for it. Yeah, and I'm not saying that just because your boyfriend in year one cheated on you that 20 years later in your relationship, he's going to cheat on you again or vice versa, your girlfriend. But and I want to go back to this word professionalizing. It is it is a many of the brands that are in the CrossFit space that people think of that are professional in the sport have zero integrity, zero morality. The things that you see them doing publicly and the virtue signaling, just remember, you're

just garbage to them too. They make garbage products. I mean, Noble is the one that just stands out the most to me. If you remember who you're getting in bed with the alligator that smiles is still an alligator just look at look at how they treat so so the athletes have to think about that if you see your if your coach quote-unquote poach you just remember that's who you're dealing with you well if they recruited you is different i think of yeah but i understand if you see is if you see it as is your

coach poached you um it it's the same thing like this i see this a lot i see this a lot in in couples maybe it's just because i'm older but uh a husband and wife get uh divorce and uh let's say the let's just use the husband for example and they have five kids and the husband gets a new wife. And then the new wife is pissed off that the father spends so much time with his kids because she wants that time. That's not a good new, that's not a good new wife. Like there's things that you might not like that people do, but because it selfishly doesn't suit you. But remember, they're showing their integrity to you, and they're showing their morals and their bounds to you.

Fraser's never going to talk to you again. Why? Because I said he has the best programming. He's King Kong, and he's at the top of the empire. Or because I'm never going to answer my phone. Which one is it? Yeah, I know. I hear hear you that's almost everyone that advertises i know it's it's gross it does not have to be that way it does not have to be that way the authentic brands will always win at the end trust me they will win um i and, and to go, there's this, there, the, a cowboy is a cowboy for a reason because he wakes up

at five in the morning because he, and because of the job he does, because he drinks coffee spurs on the boots. And no, thank you, Brian. That's and that gets to it right there. Look at the people who are really wearing the chaps and the spurs because they actually ride a horse and they ride in the brush. And don't get confused. This thing of professionalizing, this word is because those people are tricked by the mannequin in the window as a real cowboy. It's not a real cowboy. A real cowboy has a lot of distinct qualities that are built up around the authenticity

and needs and the function of his job. Happy this article is out there? I'm very happy. It stimulated me quite a bit. I really appreciate it. I'm actually very impressed with the, like I said, I'm very impressed with the fact that, thank you for letting me save myself, Brian. I'm very impressed with the fact that Peter reached out to so many people, that he got so many quotes.

I'm impressed by the fact that the community, so many people like O'Keefe, Elhaj, that guy Crandall, all were willing to share their… Or Singleton, Fikowski, Felner, a lot. Awesome, yes, yes. Thank you to all those guys for contributing. It's good. It's a good conversation. Okay. Anything you want to, you want to make a closing statement on this article? I agree. I think it's a great topic of conversation. I'm glad that, you know,

Peter put it out there and we had a chance to talk about it. And I, you know, I think that it'll probably continue to be a topic that's addressed a little bit privately and maybe in a couple of public settings as well over the next season. Peter writes very well. We could say nice things about all these people. Keith's an amazing manager. Matt Fraser is an incredible coach, etc. These are all things that don't have to be separate from just looking at the start. I quit you, Sevan.

You ain't quitting shit. Eat my ass. Okay. 2023 CrossFit season. What has changed? Oh, my gosh. Why, Brian, why aren't they just using, why don't they just use the open?

Why don't they add value to their own brand? Why do they keep saying, well, this is what soccer and tennis does. This is what soccer and tennis does oh this is this is what nascar does this is this is what uh or golf and tennis do this is what golf and tennis do like dude well let me say this when i first took the when i first went to scott steller zona to do the opex immersion course with james Fitzgerald, he opened his first seminar by saying, I stand on the shoulders of giants. And he's saying, I've learned from those who've come before.

And in that regard, I think that it's perfectly normal and expected that CrossFit and Justin Berg is almost like a nerd in this regard, would pursue understanding how sports, individual sports that have long seasons operate. So he studied the PGA. He's pursued conversations with people involved in that. And with all those other sports, he talked about golf and tennis and swimming and horse racing. I don't know, car racing, whatever. And then he's trying to pull the best from those things to make a plan that could apply to CrossFit. However, you must remember CrossFit is, while similar, very different than those things. And also, those models have been refined over decades

based on experience. And I would want to know, what did it look like in year one? And that's what I'm not sure if he's done or not. I don't know if he's talked to someone who was around when the PGA first started implementing worldwide ranking systems and said, okay, I see that you have that now and the model makes sense and they draw on this number of recent competitions or years or whatever. Before that was a thing, what happened? How do we get to this point? Because that's what I see for CrossFit right now. And I posted on my Instagram the day that they made that thing. I said, any system that's drawing retroactively on athletes' performance for a future model to rank them in a worldwide system is irresponsible. the world cup. That's the one competition that I know everyone is showing up at their best. And the only thing I can say that for in CrossFit is the games,

even at rogue. I don't think that that's the best version of Justin Madaris. I don't think he thinks it's the best version of him. There might be some athletes that it is. Maybe Manu Nangonese is at her best because she didn't get to do semifinals or the games. The point being, if you're going to look backwards,

you're taking inaccurate information because we know for a fact that there's people that didn't try in the open last year. We know for a fact there's people that didn't try in quarterfinals last year. We know for a fact that there's athletes that didn't even taper for semifinals last year. And so their performances are skewed and you're going to base those performances and how you're going to assess a ranking for this year. And you couple that with the fact that the open numbers are not where they want them to be, that the buy-in from the top level athletes is not what it should be to inspire the rest of the community to be bought in for the open. And I know that that's a massive interest for CrossFit and a massive interest for Noble and a massive interest for the season as a whole. It's a jumping off point.

Yes, it is so obvious to me. Put some amount of weight on this year's Open and then a little bit more weight on this year's quarterfinals. Make those relevant as the beginning of a worldwide ranking system and then build upon it from there. You reinvigorate the Open, you reinvigorate the quarterfinals, and you give yourself a clean slate jumping off going forward. Maybe we want to get to the model that PGA Tour has

or the Worldwide Tennis Association has, but we're not there yet. We have to start somewhere. Why not just start with Open this year? I'm completely with you. The Open is open, right? You can register for it? Yep.

November 17th opened up for quite a bit earlier than usual, almost two months. I think that's the only positive thing I can say about it i think it's great that they opened it up now it's weird that i i have not heard about it except through word of mouth i have not seen anything anywhere i haven't seen any media on it i'm not saying that there's not some out there but i haven't seen shit if you go to the crossfit can you go to the crossfit games youtube page, Caleb, for a second? Brian, did you ever hear that idea? The first time I heard it was from Chase Ingram, I think, where basically you use the open to affect the last chance,

instead of the last chance qualifier, therefore invigorating or incentivizing people to do better in the open. I have about 10 minutes, by the way. Okay. Go to videos. Let's put them in order of like Sam Briggs, Camille,

Game Central. This is like... I don't see anything about the open in here. Do you? No. God, this site is a fucking mess. Professional? Yeah.

Very. Very. What is going on over there? How do you get to the games? Do you even know? Yeah. I mean, yes and no.

Um, Grundler said it. Yeah. That's a brilliant idea. Do anything to make the open, uh, more relevant, anything,

not less. It's all, you know, we started the show by talking about how about crowds you we all know why there's crowds at the games it's the affiliates we all know that's it it's the affiliates it's the crossfitting community is that their post right there early i'm in early for the open yeah that's horrible too I don't need your early on there how about just the CrossFit open I'm in well there's a reason for that early to be there but I know the whole thing looks like it's just

ripped off of some of Nike I'm in how about I'm out how about we make a list of the people who said I'm out while we're at it I'm in jackasses uh barbell spin I agree open in quarters of the current year We're at it. I'm in. Jackasses. Barbell spin. I agree.

Open in quarters of the current year. Determine qualification spots for the semis. Hey, once again, they're making it more complicated than Tyler Watkins' scoring system. You're just making me just want to follow it less. All I want is competitions where there's shit on the line and I see what the relevance is of winning and losing. I want to know that what I'm watching and investing my time into will be life altering for people. You win the open, you go to the next one, you win that one, you go to the next one, you win that one and you get in you and you win all the

money. I don't need any fucking to do math. CrossFit had a press conference last week, and I actually asked Adrian and Justin if there was any consideration because they've publicized that they've taken away some spots to the games that will then be redistributed after the fact. But they only took those spots away from the strongest regions. And so I asked them if they'd consider it, which they're most likely just going to give them straight back to those regions. and what it's going to be like, oh, well, we didn't

give them straight back. Europe only got four guys instead of five and North America got six instead of five. Yeah. You're just giving them straight back. And instead they didn't take any spots away from the other continents. And I asked him, did you ever think about maybe just guaranteeing one spot for content? Everyone gets one that's six. And the other 34 are up for grabs for semifinal spots based on opening quarterfinals. What's wrong with that? Everyone gets one.

We still have global representation. Everyone gets one, everyone, North America, Africa, everyone in between gets one. The rest of them are earned through competition. They just basically dismissed it.

Of course. Brian, why not just give – so let me just go through this really quick. For all the regions to have – how many people does Australia get? Currently, minimum three. And you'd have a smile on your face tonight and pull the blankets up to your chin and smile if they had five, right? No. Here's why. Because more than likely, if Tia does compete, it's going to be in the United States.

More than likely, Kara Saunders is not competing. More than likely, if Jamie Simmons competes, it's going to be in the UK. I don't know. Madeline Sturt will definitely be there. And I don't know if some of these other women are going to go team or not. The point is we cannot say in years past, they should have definitely had five spots for women. We talked about it with Maddie cert from 2018 through now, they definitely should have, you know why? Cause they earned those spots through competitive excellence. They performed in live competition to the caliber of a region that should deserve more spots.

So are you saying the spots should change every year based on some? A hundred percent. If Tia and Cara and Jamie aren't in the field, why are you going to give them five spots? Let them earn the spots. And then the people that make it through there, there's still a model where you can have value for semifinal, especially if it's uniform programming performance and definitely games performance. value for semifinal, especially if it's uniform programming performance and definitely games performance. Tyler and I wrote

an article about it 18 months ago that did a three-year study going backwards and redistributed the game spots based on performance at the games. That wasn't a waste. We found some information out there. They're actually getting better at those, but... They should stream that shit live.

Why don't they? Everyone else does. It's pretty easy. I'll do it for you guys for free. You guys just can stream it through the Sevan podcast like I did. You're just going to give them your normal rate like that? Yep, absolutely. That's a nice guy. A ball.

Brian, what if they use the current model that they have, but they didn't go minus the fact of going back two years would you be happy with it i think the model the model they have now could be fine but start at zero and let it develop over the next two years yes okay i think even what you're saying is a little complicated i i think that like hey you pick these places based on the number of you you find a finite number of people so you give instead of having one i say you increase the games field by 50 or by 10 so you go from 40 to 50 and you just sprinkle you so so south america i think it's it's weird to have a sanction with only one person going i really do you got to have two and and you do two in south

america two in siberia, whatever the different regions are, you give it the minimum of two. Fine, so then that accounts for 12 of the, and you have 38 spots available that the athletes can earn based on their performance. And we know that a majority of them are going to go to North America and Europe, but what we don't know is if all of a sudden one year,

let's just say that Ben Fowler and Peter Ellis and Jake Douglas and Reese Michelle all show up in our fucking incredible through court semifinals and quarterfinals. We're like, damn, that's an addition to Ricky and Jay and Royce and all these other guys that are, we already know are good.

Maybe they deserve a couple extra spots this year. And guess what? If they continue to do well, then they'll retain those spots. And if they're going to, they're going to are the argument on the other side is is that yeah but they did do that by allowing um by opening up all these spots that they took away from north america right uh will brandcenter they screwed themselves do you see what i posted about asia and south american men outside of Guy and Roman?

Their performances at the games are last, last, last, did not start, did not attend, last, second to last. Two guaranteed spots to both Asia and South America. Why? Don't forget Roman will compete in the U.S. Guy may also. We're not sure. Look at the other finishes besides them. Wow. Look at the other finishes besides them. Wow.

That's it. Second to last. Did not start. Did not start. Withdraw. Online. And it did not start. That's the Asians' representation.

Why are we wasting spots on them? Show up and do something relevant at the games, and we'll give you as many spots as you want. Look at the others. Key, 10th and 7th august you know chrome a 38 32nd out of 34 pablo show phone 38 there's nobody else there that's doing anything meaningful at the games it's a waste of a spot it's not that anything against asian men or south american men in the slightest i just want competitive athletes there oh you want

it to be a sport they screwed themselves with those minimum spot numbers they used by screwed themselves they made it a guarantee that the system will not work this year um i had a parent speak to me the other day because uh their kid learned the word screwed from my kid i didn't like that i felt like my kids have carpentry class no screwed in the light bulb? I just like saying your name, Devesh Maharaj. Why they can't use the 2023 Open to decide how many slots each semifinal will have? It's the most relevant source. I think he means quarterfinal. I know.

Open plus quarterfinals. Why not? Think about it. Then you have at least three plus at least five workouts. That's eight workouts. You get a diversity of tests time domains equipment available we've seen that they can do tons of different stuff in the quarterfinals ghgs rope climbs ring muscle-ups pistols whatever and you can have great eight eight sample size tests it's more

tests than there are at semi-finals to determine game spots it should be an ample sample size to get some semblance of where the strength of field is. This is a professional site. This is the game site. Where do you register for the Open? Oh, down here. Yeah. Oh, man. Oh, look it.

Featured athletes. It was a pleasure. Let's do it again next week. Kylie Rainey was on my CrossFit podcast. Great person. Everyone should follow her. Thank you very much, Brian Friend, for coming on the show. Yep. It was, I can't believe we did

it. Another one. Easy day. I'll put out the predictions for Dubai over the weekend maybe if you want to talk about them later on okay maybe tuesdays tuesday or tuesday is good for you do tuesday last day before i leave that'd be good okay perfect let's do it maybe maybe uh maybe we can even talk when you're over there for shits and giggles i think we can make that happen all right um you want to leave or do you want me to kick you out of the studio are you gonna stay on i am okay

then i'll see you later on i'm gonna leave okay bye i won't kick brian out i don't want to shit i i don't want to shit on my actually i don't want to shit on Actually I don't care I was going to apologize But I'm not going to apologize It was fine Uh Cat Shearer send everyone over to our channel For an interview Okay

Everyone go over there for an interview Oh Dave Durante Durante That's the monkey Dave Durante. That's the monkey, a monkey guy, right? Power monkey fitness or something like that. Yeah. I was actually, um, Brian was just hanging with him and I, so it kind of inspired me to go over and look at their photographers, Instagram page. I think his name is Jordanordan sam samuel samuel and now he's the i think he's the director of their media over at uh monkey land and holy shit he has a cool instagram page man he does a lot of fun shit he's jacked he's the most jacked photographer i've ever seen really yeah he's

so jacked he looks like um like a ufc fighter bye talk to you soon cat uh seven i used a chan bar it has center knurling and that helped align my hands to the center of the barbell oh for your 135 uh snatch yeah you you were sad that was savage you ain't seen me seven i ain't seen you someone I know ran into you though. And really liked you. You were somewhere. They're like, Hey,

that dude's cool. Jonathan or Daga or Daga. He was at zealous games. He was. I've seen him around other semifinals too. Hey, that's the best pro. That's like the most like powerful profile picture I've ever seen.

Like I all, like I know as soon as I see him come into the comments, I see him. I don't have to think twice. Yeah. I think he's a photographer. Yeah. He,

um, Jonathan or they, or they, he drives a lowered, uh, Honda Accord. Uh, 2002. No, he's not there yet. That's his dream car. He drives a lowered Honda Accord. El Camino?

2002. No, he's not there yet. That's his dream car. But soon. He drives a lowered Honda Accord. I wanted to steal my grandma's boyfriend El Camino so bad when I was younger. We used to just go over to my grandma's house and she got this new boyfriend. And we were like, he just pulled up in this like low rider El Camino.

It's like, I'm going to steal that from you. What happened to it? I don't know. I think they stopped dating and then I never saw it again. How come no coverage or recaps of the down under games? I don't know. Cause Brian, did you see there? I don't know. Cause Brian, five minutes.

Did you see there? Um, I think we, Oh, you mean he, Oh, I mean, we talked about the down under games,

but did you, I think they had one locked off camera, the entire event down under games, YouTube. I watched their recaps. Um, uh, games youtube i watch their recaps um uh videos i can't even find down under games did they have eight subscribers what's it no i don't know i know they have an instagram account but i didn't try to watch it honestly down under games youtube maybe i have to put a crossfit down under cross it

down under oh down under championship oh that's me no that took me to oh here it is okay so here i'll take you this is the page oh you can go here after you're done with the show, you can go watch this. Seven hours of this. Oh, no, they had. Oh, they had. Yeah, they had production. Will said it looks like they had a locked up camera for intermediate masters.

But. Oh, yeah. The couple of times I went and looked, it was I saw a locked off camera. Maybe it'll be interesting if it's at one and a half speed. I'm fading. Caller, hi. Hi, Dr. Vaughn. Can you hear me?

I'm walking my doctor just to make sure the audio isn't shit. It's pretty shit, but we're at the end of the show no one's listening anymore go ahead okay uh by the way peter yozell from boulder colorado um earlier you guys were talking peter from boulder i bet you i know exactly what you're wearing you're wearing pants that are too tight you're skinny as shit and you just finished your your you have ultra marathon runner dreams and your dog is a Labradoodle and with it, with a custom collar that you, that you,

that's made of hemp and you make $192,000 a year working at some fucking tech company that's falling apart. Uh, I do not. That was very funny. Uh, our tradition is 99% of people here do look like that. Thank you,

sir. But I, I grew up in Brazil. I've called her a few times in the past, especially when we were talking about Pedro Martinez during the games. Okay. But a little FYI for you, I coach. I'm an L3 CrossFit coach, and I coach at Eric Rosa's gym, CrossFit Tanita in Boulder.

Oop, oop. Congratulations, brother. Yeah. I've been here for a couple of years now. You're doing the, you're doing, you're saving people's lives. Thank you. I appreciate the recommendation. What I'm calling about is earlier you were talking about not seeing many people live at the American semifinals in comparison to in the past,

we've seen a lot of people in the regionals format. I think one of the arguments for that is that we used to have teams of even up to six in regionals that were comprised mostly of affiliate members. And when you have six people from affiliates going to compete at a regional that is most likely close to where the affiliate is, you know, maybe max a two-hour drive, each of those people can bring up to like five other family members

or affiliate members that want to go watch them. Or if you're just a Madeira, you bring 30. Exactly, exactly. And my exposure in Brazil, another caller commented on the fact of having other divisions like an open division for just amateur athletes and like scaled you know brazil those competitions you get up to 20 000 people present because you know like maybe 5 000 of them are there to to, which is insane. You have so many different categories of all different levels with teams of like three.

You pack up the place and the energy is crazy. So it's tough. You know, I don't see in my affiliate any members talking about the athletes. Like we have close to 300 members at the affiliate. And I'd say like 200 have no idea who won the crossfit games last year who wasn't the top 10 but they knew who the ceo was but they knew who the ceo was they did because he's in there um i have a number a lot so more more by uh by being around don't ruin my joke please Don't ruin my joke.

Please don't ruin my joke. Don't ever contextualize my shit. Thank you. A lot of the people we get in the gym to test out a class are there because they heard or they know that Eric Rosa owns the place. You know, they instantly connect that

to a high position in CrossFit. It has nothing to do with the athletes. So I don't know what to do. What would be the best way to fix the regionals in terms of just getting people in the door? But maybe connecting with members to the athletes in a way where, look, if you keep training, you can get a lot fitter, maybe not like them. But I think that's the argument towards why we used to have a lot of people in regionals in the past because we had these huge teams that

were connected to affiliates yeah i think that's a huge part of it in the other part i think you said that was valuable too is the proximity um yeah huge it's not for the lack of them that that guy who put on those two events um wilson tang i think that's his name that it's not for the lack of them that that guy who put on those two events, um, Wilson Tang, I think that's his name that it's not because he doesn't know how to put on an event. Those were fucking amazing events, amazing events. So. Wilson Pack.

Pack. Sorry. Racist, racist Tang, Wilson Tang. Oh, that might be the other guy who works for Wilson. That might be the other Wilson who works at CrossFit HQ.

Wilson Pax did the semifinals and Justin Berg has a right-hand man. It's Wilson. God, what's Wilson's last name? I probably shouldn't, I would just say this. I don't want to say anything too nice about Wilson cause I don't want to, it's a hurt his career, but that there's a Wilson Tang. That's an amazing guy that works at CrossFit HQ. All right. Well, thank you.

Thank you very much. Are you going to get your level four? Hell no. I'm not getting CrossFit anymore money. Oh, okay. All right. So, bye, Siobhan. Thanks for the response. Okay, bye.

Jeremy, World Tang is the shit you used to drink as a, no, not that Tang. No, no, not Wilson wanks either. No. And by the way, I don't agree with that at all. I think, I think taking your level four is a brilliant idea, but what do you expect from a guy who works out at CrossFit? All right. but what do you expect from a guy who works out at CrossFit Senitas? All right. People at my gym don't give two shits about the seat,

who the CEO is. No wonder shirt sales aren't, aren't at an all time high. How's the Spiegel calling it a night? All right. Caleb. Thank you. Who do we have on tomorrow?

Do we know? I haven't prepared. I'm getting anxious. Oh, Luke Parker. Yes. That'll be fun. Luke Parker. It sounds like he might be going individual this year.

Yeah. Patrick Clark. Yeah. He is a good dude. A crazy good dude. I always enjoyed working with them always always always uh we know who the ceo is thank you all right guys um that's it have a good one bye