The Sevan Podcast - #746 WZA 2023 Team Prediction Show with Brian Friend & John Young

Episode Date: January 11, 2023

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Bam, we're live. What kind of cereal is that, John? Hey, thank you, Mike Halpin, for the beautiful spreadsheet this morning. Brian was just raving to us about it. Thank you. It will be a nice improvement from yesterday's show. Not that there was anything wrong with yesterday's show. I do want to thank the sponsors, California Hormones. If you're interested in

seeing how that works, Andrew Hiller at Hiller Fit has a series. It's called Testosterone Tuesday. Go ahead and check it out and you can follow his journey with testosterone replacement therapy. And then we have a bunch of people who come on the show regularly now. Kat Shear, Gary Roberts, come on the show regularly now. Um, Kat Shear, Gary Roberts, uh, uh, Philip Kelly, who, uh, will also be talking about, um, their journey and we'll be adding more to that, uh, story. So there'll be people in our community who you can talk to and ask about it. And there's a bunch of other people in the comments. Um, if you look closely in the chat, you'll see, they are also, uh, have taken that journey and they can answer any questions for you. And then of course, if you need to get wired every morning and you are addicted to caffeine, the place to go is paper street coffee, code word seven for 15% off, at least I

think. And, uh, Hey John, what, what time do you eat when you eat at night what's the last time you eat um falls asleep falls asleep with a protein bar in his mouth probably probably like seven and then um what time do you get it go ahead sorry last night i i will drink like a little fair life protein around like nine and brian what's the last time you eat at night probably within an hour of going to sleep maybe i eat a lot of my calories uh after 6 p.m caleb 5 p.m and then what time do you go to bed 11 you wow wow have you lost weight since you've been over there i don't know if i've lost, but I'm definitely strong and muscly, I guess. So your body composition has changed. Yeah, I think so.

I was watching a Thomas Delore video and he was giving, and you know, he's just shredded. I mean, just crazy shredded. And he gave like these 15 pointers of things or 12 pointers of things he does. And I always like, I have no problem sitting down at 9 PM at night and eating 2000 calories, like a bucket of cottage cheese, a chunk of chicken and like two sweet potatoes. And so yesterday was the first time I didn't eat after 6 PM and as far back as I can remember. And I woke up this morning and I'm already like a totally different person. One day. I've not, I was a little hungry when I'm already like a totally different person. One day. I was a little hungry when I went to bed, but whatever.

I woke up and I wasn't hungry. I think I'm going to start doing that. Just not stop eating after like six or seven. I always wake up hungry. Oh, you actually wake up hungry. Yeah. Wow. I think in general, when it comes to nutrition, try it, try things out, but try things out for, you know, a couple of weeks to a couple of months at a time and see how you react one day. But I want to see consistency over time and not every, I don't think everything's going I am. I always do my first session. And then my first time I eat is like at 11.

And then I will eat a lot. Um, after 11. Can you, can you eat ass after 6. PM? If you want a question, any time of day,

Philip, go for it. If you want pink eye, if you want pink eye, I, um, Oh shoot. I meant to tell you something off the air. Remind me to tell you it's no, it's no big deal, Brian, but I just wanted to tell you, um, Oh shoot. I meant to tell you something off the air.

Remind me to tell you it's no, it's no big deal, Brian, but I just wanted to tell you, uh, someone I reached out to. It was untraditional. Oh, look, Jason Hopper commented on your Instagram account. I know it was so, it was so thorough and thoughtful. I thought Jason Hopper was actually dead because he doesn't really, because he hasn't returned a text message in six months. Yeah, there it is. Wise words.

Where did you put his? Oh, fifth. Oh, come on. Come on, man. That's not. Come on. Hey, you know, I have Jay Crouch and Dallin Pepper, maybe two of the most difficult people I've ever interviewed, coming on back-to-back tomorrow. Please come on for that one. You invited them both, and I'll be flying in the air to Miami, so it's going to be difficult to make. I really like both those guys, though, a lot. A lot.

Like dudes like you'd have to date your sister. I'm looking through the comments. Some guy named Andreas Kobart trainer. I will prove you wrong, Brian friend. Hey, click on the replies on Hopper's comment. Get me. Okay. Jason.

Yes. Hide replies. View replies. I got y'all. Oh, good. You're a good dude, John. for for andreas yeah yeah basically jason hopper but come on dude he didn't like brian putting them in fifth place and then uh john young says i got jason hopper better be careful or else i'm gonna just spoil the ending of harry Harry Potter for him.

It's probably very difficult to not. It's amazing that he doesn't know anything. It's actually great to like see him experiencing it for the first time. I would never do that. And Jason, just show me, man, just show me. I can relate to not knowing anything,

Jason. Okay. just show me i can relate to not knowing anything jason okay uh we are this thursday and friday at wadapalooza 2023 the individuals will take the field if you want to see our predictions uh go watch yesterday morning show and then today is the uh most exciting of the shows i believe uh and the most exciting event uh team event in the history of the CrossFit ecosystem. Can you start a counter on that? How many times will you say that over the next five days?

Very exciting. It will be Saturday and Sunday, and you will see the greatest cast of characters ever in a CrossFit competition take the field, take the floor at Wadapalooza in Miami. You can get, take the floor at Waterpalooza in Miami. You can get coverage at the Waterpalooza YouTube station.

And anytime their feed is not live, you should come back over here because we will be live and we will have cameras wandering around with the best access we've ever had to any event. Hopefully it will be like Zelos level. And so you'll be able to see the athletes talk to the athletes uh get insights uh last year we were able to glean some pretty amazing uh stuff if they do have a rain out we will also sneak onto the venue like we did last year and uh it's gonna be a good time weather's looking good though weather's looking good that hurts it always says that. Okay.

Mr. Friend, would you and Mr. Young, would you – and that's John Young over there with a Trey shirt on, like ashtray. Prey. Oh, Prey. Prey and lift heavy. Prey and lift heavy. Prey is when you put your hands together and you glance your eyes up towards the heavens. You guys know what the rest of that stuff means and then the og shirt is uh brian friend from bar bend and then our friend who is coming to the uh end of his equity experiment uh caleb uh beaver ant man what

the fuck is ant man uh seven we need a normal uh interview on brian friend i think we got it scheduled or we're close to getting it scheduled we are we are going to uh dig deep into the mind of brian friend hopefully in january or february find out what makes him uh tick okay no one prays to the devil what are you talking about that's like that's no one does that no one does that okay he meant maybe he meant to put press at the end pray to the devil press oh he probably did i call it a jesus swing but i hope these go up oh john young is ant-man isn't ant-man um uh was played by who's the bald guy who sells energy drinks ant- man who does paul rudd oh i thought it was um the rock no uh we we have flooding in my town but not at my house it's crazy over here

it's pretty cool all sorts of shit unless you own a small business then you're fucked uh is there a uh deadline for substitutes what if some someone individual gets injured ahead of team comp? They still have time? Guadalupe usually makes a lot of effort to be accommodating to the athletes in situations like that. I would expect them to do the same. Obviously, when we're doing these preview shows, predictions, any kind of things along those lines for Guadalupe, we're aware of the fact that there can be changes to the roster

pretty late in the game. So not really a deadline necessarily there. we're aware of the fact that there can be changes to the roster pretty late in the game so um not really a deadline necessarily there if that's the case i think i think based on what elusa's history that they'd be accommodating to try to find someone who can fill in if they still want to compete yeah very accommodating right it's that it's kind of it's it's a endearing part of this competition that they make sure that all the athletes, I mean, they do that to their own detriment. It's, you know, when you're planning an event that big, having roster changes, additions to the, uh, the elite lineups late in the day is put stress on the competition, organizers, teams, planners, but they are prioritizing the athletes

there. And that's what they've always communicated that their intent is to do so it's very much in line with their nature uh yesterday kyle landis uh yesterday we did get confirmation from two of the athletes on that team that they will be competing and that the team is uh spencer scott panchik and uh jacob heppner so that's pretty darn cool that'll be cool to see jacob heppner back on the floor uh going back to what Brian was just saying, Brian and yesterday's show let us know that in 2018, the day before the individual started, Katrin David's daughter entered the individual comp and won it. And I am expecting something similar to happen this year since there's $75,000 on the line. to happen this year since there's $75,000 on the line. And not that the athletes in the women's division aren't great, but I think the two boys above me here can easily name off 10 people

who could come in and win it and take that $75,000 home and get a new Toyota Sienna with a little pocket change. That's it. That's the car all the athletes have been talking about probably probably like 50 60 grand you could you could pay it off after taxes it's a nice ride okay uh oh here we go is hepner's oh great question uh divesh maharaj the hammer uh early we were doing a show and we had, uh, um, Spencer on and Spencer said that they were looking for a teammate. And Brian said, text me after the show was Jacob Heppner, the guy

that you referred to the team. No, it was, uh, more, it's feedback. And, um, you know, I knew he had been looking for a team, and he ended up finding one. So I'm happy for him, but his team will – Moritz's team we'll get to later on, but he's going to be a Fabian Benito and Tristan Leclerc of Pro and Montreal's games team. Oh, okay, cool. Sevan is used to two men above him.

I don't know if I like that. The barbell spin, yes, it's – thank you, Mr. Spin. It's $75,000 for first place, $35,000 for second place, $25,000 for third place and 10th place gets $10,000. Uh, is there an orange theory podcast? No, there's not even a CrossFit podcast. Why the hell the hell could there be an orange theory podcast it is there is there jacob is there a caleb is there a uh orange theory podcast

sounds like good uh fodder for hillar to make a video okay i was only told that i could do shenanigans for five minutes uh this morning because brian is on a tight schedule i'm already 12 minutes into my shenanigans uh as soon as caleb's done uh finding the orange theory podcast we will start with the women's teams like i said they'll take the floor thursday um let me see how many teams there are as of now there are four oh so they got the full rosters full for the teams the individuals uh the women only had 38 and the men had 39 but the teams look packed 40 and 40 god that's a lot of people and they take the floor saturday correct brian teams are saturday and sunday yeah and these are i mean this is a big field like it is yeah brian will there be cuts also for the teams as the individuals? I believe so.

Okay. I think that it will just be before the final. I don't have the names of the teams. Oh, no. Oh, we do. Team name. There it is. Okay.

I don't recognize any of these names. Why does it go to 43? That's the number of teams that are registered. Oh, okay. Okay, my bad. Oh, what was the max amount they were going to allow? There isn't one. I think that for planning purposes, it's a lot easier if they can get down to 40.

But like I said, they're very accommodating for the athletes, and they're not going to say it's too many so you can't come. So when you say better for 40, meaning if there's five lanes, they could do eight heats. If there's eight lanes, they could do five heats. Yeah, on Flagler, there are 20 lanes if you go the long way. And so if you have more than 40 40 you have to do a third heat now it does create a little bit less uh congestion per heat but obviously it takes you know 33 more time to do that third heat um why do they call it flagler how do they name the is that just arbitrary to what wadapalooza chose or is that um have some correlation to the locations actually in the park there that's on the water i'm not a hundred percent on flagler or um but like bayside for example is reference to bay

bayfront park where the event takes place and it's right on the shore of the bay so it's called bayside stage it's on flagler street oh okay street there you go uh heidi i, it's not that we can't. I just don't. You're right. Last year we did also stream during some of the events. I think it was we didn't. Did we do that for any of the main heats? I don't remember.

We got to get together and figure that out. But I don't think they have a problem with us streaming during their event either. People can keep both windows open. They can keep the window open for Wadapalooza's YouTube page and our YouTube page. You can kind of get multiple angles. RB, really cool seeing you guys all come together last night for the draft.

You wouldn't see it anywhere else. I agree. And thank you. That was fun. Okay. Brian, I guess you can just you. That was fun. Okay. Uh, Brian, um, I guess you can just go ahead and stop me.

I just say Caleb start scrolling until I see something, you see something or John see something we want to talk about. There's 43 teams. Uh, we're starting with the women and, uh, yeah. So just, just once again, so that, you know, in case anyone's unaware, there were 20, 20 teams I believe that were able to come through the qualifier. Maybe it was even more than that. But more than half the teams are through the online qualifier.

And then the rest of the teams met some kind of criteria to pre-qualify for this competition. So you got a blend of teams that were put together and assembled based on achievements in their career already, and then about two two thirds of the field that made their way into this competition by doing the online qualifying. Probably the grossest comment I've ever seen

is Kate says, that's my gym baby. I think a comma would have gone a long way there. And then Trish has to follow up. I had a gym baby once broke the plumbing. God, that's disgusting. My God. Oh my God. has to follow up i had a gym baby once broke the plumbing god that's disgusting my god oh my god there's no way trish is a woman there is no way right someone someone back me up on that i could be hiding okay uh what's this number mean on the side this difference zero negative one one zero so if you look on the left far left column you'll see my ranking in the case of this team

i had him 41 john had him 42 and so the difference is john's ranking relative to mine so he had him ranked one spot lower than me the team below he had one spot higher but at this point a leader board i mean that's almost negligible these are the teams that uh like we said yesterday with individuals simply getting into this competition is impressive but because you do have 40 plus teams competing and we know the caliber of some of the top teams there's going to be a big discrepancy still in terms of ability so these are the teams we don't know a ton about um incredible accomplishment to make it there and there is likely going to be some team that we have 30 or lower that will do a lot better than that we just

don't know who it is uh we will make a quick uh divergence back to individuals nick matthews is top two strongest dudes in the field janikoski is top two most aerobic dudes in the field brian has them finishing 400th place should be reconsidered i think uh yikes jordan vance uh katie uh is olivia kerstetter the athlete who's competed at wadapalooza the most no great question by far yeah there you go. Question answered. Well, good job, Mr. Spin. Olson has been competing since the first Wadapalooza in 2012. There's a lot of Flaglers in Florida. He was one of the main founders. Well, here we go.

We're getting all sorts of information. Might be interesting to see the wiki there. Trish, I'm a 65 year old retired attorney who is now working as a realtor in retirement my husband ron and i have been doing there is no way if you are a 65 year old woman you are the funniest 65 year old woman who's ever walked the planet holy shit and you have a mind of a seven-year-old boy and i mean that with peace and love and envy. And he knows because he has basically three seven-year-old boys.

Yeah, I have a mind of a 10-year-old boy. If I could just ratchet it down three years, it would be a little cleaner. We had a 62-year-old climb a rope for the first time today at the gym. Oh, wow. Super proud of her. Not like an eight-foot rope or anything. No, 15 feet feet touched to the top first time ever wow crazy hey were you scared i mean i was down there nervous yeah you were okay good you're a good dude you are a good uh dude uh cory uh god i have to stop reading these comments uh cory crossfit cory god, everyone can be a realtor these days.

Anyone can be a realtor these days. Everyone can be a realtor these days. Okay. Okay, here we go. Starting at 43, it looks like John and Brianrian between uh 43 and 40 are pretty much uh neck and neck they know who the ass teams are as we scroll up to uh 39 so i do want to say something about somebody on the team 39 just something fun uh marissa flowers probably has the world record for fran She did it in 145.

Wow. She's like four foot 10 and she lives in Katy. I know we talked about Katy, Texas earlier, but I don't think anybody's ever done Fran faster than her. Has Hiller seen this video? Yeah. Yeah. And what did he think about it?

He approved. What was he approved? Yeah. It's did he think about it? He approved. What, he approved? Yeah, it's on her Instagram. I have, I'll pull it up right here on YouTube real quick. She was at the MAC last year in the semifinals also. I mean, yeah, she's obviously tiny, but she's good at something. She is. Yeah, just like in case there's a specialty event,

like she's somebody who can do things faster than everybody else and that's always something that needs to be that right there is how you have a world record on fran look at how tight that kip is and being four foot wide wide grip pull-ups yeah yeah her physique is like perfect she's like she's like a perfect human for fran yeah i don't know i just think this isn't even the one like she just did this on She's like a perfect human. For Fran. Yeah, I don't know. I just think she's great. And this isn't even the one. She just did this on her Instagram.

She did it for the Waterpalooza qualifier and was 145. She was fast. Someone's just like, man, a fit woman that's six inches shorter than me? This is great. Yeah, crazy. Hey, you know what's nuts too? She's doing this in a class. This isn't like the whole class is around her.

She set it up, and she's got, you know, Max Ahaj. No, she told nobody. Yeah, she didn't? I mean, it just looks like that. It looks like nobody knows what it means to have a sub-two-minute brand. She's just filming it, showing how fast she can be. Damn, that sucks. I wanted to see if she was crushed afterwards.

Yeah, she has a perfect body. It's Marissa Flowers. Just type it into YouTube, Fran, and if you want to see what a perfect body looks like. And a good Fran time. Okay. Good little piece. You're already 1-0. You're beating Brian on contributions. I'm going to keep a good fran time. Okay. Good little piece. You're already 1-0.

You're beating Brian on contributions. I'm going to keep a little tally here. Good job, John. Got to get it when I can. Okay. And Marissa Flowers is on the F-A-L-O-F-L powered by Puma team. Falafel. Your kind of food.

Yeah. That must stand for something, right? It's a brand. I think it's fuck and laugh out fucking loud. That's it. Uh, 38, the Milford monsters,

37, the Latina gang. Let's just read their names. Cause it's fun. Uh, Laura Sanchez, Maria Quintero, the Yanya Vincentelli.

Okay. Biggest discrepancy we've had now is two places for the 38th place team is just two spots between John and Brian. No big discrepancies yet. We got a great name on the 35th team, Oakley Woodhouse. Great name. 34th, CrossFit Hype. I like you because you used the word CrossFit in your team name.

Yes, sir, Jim. They have a history of competing in team competitions. And Kayla Stefano, former team, teenage games athlete on their team there. The Bromies. Then Motown. We got a Stevie. I'd like to ask her dad why she he named his daughter stevie it's a nice name for a girl stevie dellinger great name uh caroline klutz oh that that i have that team i have that team uh caroline klutz she probably had uh some fun how late were you up

last night planning where you're gonna play play them? Very late. Very late. I didn't even sleep last night because I was concerned with the teams we picked. That's a tough name, Caroline Klutz. Elementary school, junior high, must have been a son of a gun. Okay. Keep going up. We're at Westchase. I mean, look, at this point, Westchase is a gym that's regularly contending to send a team to the CrossFit Games out of North America.

They had two teams competing in the same semifinal at the MAC this year. And we have them down here around 30th on our rankings. So, like I said, the team, the caliber of teams in this division, even though these teams are ranked 30th, these are still extremely talented teams. Team Savage and Team Extraordinary. Why don't they call it CrossFit Team Extraordinary or CrossFit Westchase? Not sure. I don't know. Team Extraordinary, Northshade, Black Leaker,

they're one of the two fittest women in the Netherlands. And I don't know if she'll make the games, but she's like, well, they're combining the semifinals. So top 30 in Europe, maybe. The Kalashnikov team. So are these, is this a team that this is a team from Russia? Yeah, I think because they had a roster change on their team last year due to injury. But I think Keshna and Aijan, I think, were the women that ended up competing at the games. And yeah, basically dominated the Asian semifinal last year.

So they got their women competing here. Trish trying to show off his or her skill set, telling us that Oakley is a CrossFit level three. uh, skill set, uh, telling us that Oakley is a CrossFit level three, a team, uh, Savage,

uh, is the collision of cough team from the same area that, um, Karenikoff, uh, Karenikoff Romans from, uh, well,

not where he is from for sure. I'm not, I don't know exactly where the last place he was training when he was in Russia is, but I think that the collection of cough team is basically a congregation of athletes in Russia. And I think they've all come to Moscow basically to train in one area. If someone knows,

I think it's certainly can correct me, but I know that they've kind of brought most of the top CrossFitters or competitive people that are trying to compete in Russia into one location and have a lot of training together there. Uh, on, uh, the,

the training culture team, uh, training culture is a camp. The first time I heard about it was the last couple of days when Brian was telling me about it. It is a training camp that is out of Spain, Brian. Yeah, so it's basically the same thing that I just said with Kolesnikov, only in Spain. And what city in Spain? Do you know?

Is it one of the big ones like Madrid or Barcelona? I think so. I kind of feel bad bad i don't know for sure on that is on your akai a part of training culture yeah and so this here the women we know i oyana moya well i picked her to be in the top 10 for the individual competition the other two women i don't know quite as well so curious to to see how that – like Ollana is very good. So I want to see how it goes having like one really good with two more unknown athletes. Could definitely see them doing better than this, but just too little data on the other two to move them any higher. Okay, and Anyol Akai will be on this podcast for the first time. I'm actually quite excited about it today at 5 p.m. Pacific Standard Time.

Going up to the Yala Shit Brickhouse Road, Martha Cook, Gemma Rader, and Evie Hollis out of Israel. Not out of Israel? Well, no. Gemma, I believe, is from Australia. Evie,ma i believe is from australia evie i think is from uh the uk i think martha cook is also from oceania are they jews why do they got the yalla yalla or maybe that's arabic are they arabs yalla yalla yalla i think that i'm not i'm not 100% sure on this but i think that they may be in the middle east either in abu Dhabi or Dubai, like coaching and training there.

I think yalla means let's go, by the way. Caleb? Yes, it does. Yalla, yalla, get on your camel. Yalla. I would hear that a lot as a kid. I had a lot of family who spoke Arabic. Yalla, yalla, yalla daha.

That means hurry up, boy. And very common, you know, in the last five, six, seven years that international Cross Valleys get an opportunity to go and coach at one of those gyms in the UAE. And then they get to have like an international group of friends. And a lot of times they do make a team that ends up competing in some of these competitions. That's what originally, that's where we originally found out about Jamie Green before she was Jamie Simmons. She was living in Abu Dhabi, Cross of Yas put a team together. She was on it. They did great at the games.

And then she transitioned to the individual competition from there. We got a team that definitely needs to be canceled. Inappropriate vernacular. But by the way, any reason, before I speak about that team, any reason why that there's a five-place discrepancy with Yela? I mean, I don't think it's that big of a deal, but it's the biggest one we've seen so far. John, I mean...

No, I don't... Brian knows he's right, so it's up to you to explain, John. Yeah, the bottom 20 teams, I think Brian would agree, they could all be... No, I mean, this team is like... These are...

Like, Evie Hollis was sixth in the semifinal in the online format in 2021 in Europe. I think that's, you know, pretty good, but she wasn't able to do as well the next year when it was live competition. Emma Radar, I think is a pretty good competitor in Oceania. So, I mean, I don't know, John may not know those names as well as I do. And maybe I just weighted them a little heavier because of familiarity with them. I would also like to speak about the MZA at Wadapalooza team. Ashley Shoemaker, I believe, is the wife of the guy who hosts the Brute Strength podcast, which I listen to periodically to plagiarize stuff from. Zoe Warren is married to Joey Warren, the former games athlete out of California. Oh. I don't think that's true. I just made that up.

You know what? I was close. I was actually wrong, though. Gemma Rader is South African, not from Australia, but she was fourth place in the African semifinal. That's where I recognize her from. I think that's okay to mix those two countries up because of the way they sound by the way south but she is it is listed on her games profiles crossfit yes so that is in abu dhabi

and i think that's where those three women all currently work and train i always i always trip out on how people end up in abu dhabi or in the desert i mean i know how caleb ended up there uh uh and and then finally on that team the um mZA at Waterpalooza team is Michelle Bassanet, who I am in a courtship process with currently to get on the Sevan podcast. So hopefully that'll be something we can look forward to in January. I mean, if Taylor can't hook that up, then we might have to cut them loose. She is doing Taylor's programming, Taylor Self's SMTP programming, I believe. Okay, number 22 from Brian24 from John, the Invictus Chicks, inappropriate to refer to women as chicks. That's so 1980s.

What are you talking about? They have a chicken farm. Oh, my bad. God, I'm so close-minded. Another beautiful name, Lauren Stallwood. I'm so close minded. Another beautiful name, Lauren Stallwood. Lauren Stallwood is one of those athletes that used to live in the Middle East and trained there for a long time. I think at Abu Dhabi, she's done a lot of training with Jamie Green, Sarah Sigma's daughter, a lot of top athletes over the years. Emily Rethwell is married to Holden Rethwell, who used to compete on the Invictus team at the games and is a coach now for their, some of their teams and Allie Weiss, a former CrossFit teenage games,

I think champion in 2006 sister of Brittany Weiss who's Invictus's top team. Yeah. Okay. And we, I think the other day we actually went, uh, uh, Jorge, uh, Fernandez was on, there was actually in his Instagram, a picture of him and Allie Weiss. It may have been a romantic interest. It was kind of hard to tell. What do you think Caleb? Did you see the way they were sitting together yeah i think they were together i don't think they are anymore okay just a little gossip a little gossip anyway again so

they're a pretty talented team but down here in uh 20 22nd 23rd place so just speaks to the overall caliber of this field. Okay. Shall we keep scrolling down? God, Mason, you have a good memory. Ever since someone started telling the crying under the sign story. Wow. Okay. We are now 18 through 21 in the women's field at Waterpalooza 2023.

Still, the two men are very close in their rankings. I guess a negative two would be a big deal if we were in the top five, but down here, 18 through 21, it's not much of a big deal. When does the prize money start kicking in? I'm not sure, but I was going to just talk about these teams a little bit. Okay. Michigan Made Orange is the eighth-day black women's team from the games. They took 10th place, a very impressive finish. The independent TTT, training think tank team,

they usually outperform relative to what I expect from them. They seem to have really good team chemistry and maximize their potential in a lot of the competitions. Probably good coaching, good strategy, and good execution. The Conquerors BBC team, Christine Middleton, has several records for weightlifting in CrossFit competitions. Brooke Haas has been really threatening to make the game since 2016 or 2017 here and there. So they could be pretty good on the strength test if nothing else and then the other team the french girls team is actually quite interesting to me

because it's a very very like a diverse group of athletes alize andreani has a few top 10 open finishes in her career but they're always almost on like high skill or high level gymnastics and like burpee style workouts she's just got an engine and can go really, really good at gymnastics. I think she's done over a hundred toes to bar consecutively. And then Mary Robin was really impressive to me last year at semifinals, but she's much bigger than Alize. I think she was 10th place at one of the semifinals and kind of someone I'm looking to see if she can make that next step next year. my finals and kind of someone I'm looking to see if she can make that next step next year. Is this, so you have the Michigan made orange team who took 10th place at the games at 21st,

both of you do. And is that because, why don't you have them higher? Is that because there's so many great individuals going as teams and it's pushed down these other guys? Yeah. I mean, the individual field for the women, if you took the games individual field and put them in the team, this is where a top 10 place for the team would be. That's why this event is super unique, because I don't think we've ever seen anything like it before. How many women, do you know how many women in the individual are games caliber, individual games caliber athletes? Are there 20? Like games caliber or have you repeated at the games games caliber for individual yeah like you wouldn't be surprised um if you would yeah let's say let's say i've been to the games would that be better who've been to the games at some point in their career it's a lot i can find i can count real quick if you just uh you know fill the air for

for individual or seconds for for individual because that would give you an idea if there's three people per team and brian says 30 um and you would assume that they were and you make the assumption which is a wrong assumption but just for ease of math you make the assumption that um they're all on the same teams together, that would push it down exactly 10 places. I mean, I would say anybody in the top 12 teams. Not everybody, but most people in the top 12. Through 17 teams, I've already counted 30. Our game's caliber. That have competed at the games as an individual.

Wow. Okay. So you just, just looking at half the field less than half the field you come up with 17 so in that scenario 17 teams there's 51 athletes on those 17 teams 30 of them have at least one individual crossfit games appearance the entire rest of the roster might have zero though or maybe one okay i hey i wonder if that is just man wadapalooza the more and more i look at this event i see more and more how clever it is because they've made these i i keep getting it wrong but the way i'm thinking in my mind is if you have two athletes who've ever been to the games or in the last couple years have been to the games you could

make a team and have anyone on it, right? There's all these, not quite that, but if you, if you were an individual games athlete in 2022, or you were on a top 10 team at the games in 2022. So that means that there's 40 women and then 20 more women from those 10 teams. So those 60 women, any of those two can join up together and then add anyone else to the mix. And you're good to go. Yeah. Smart. And as Brian was pointing out to us yesterday, this is where sponsors really come in because let's say you are part of sponsored by RX ropes. It gives you access to a lot of other athletes who are also sponsored by RX ropes. And then those are one of the ways that we're seeing some of these unique teams come together through the relationship of their sponsors.

Okay. The French girls. Yeah, we hit on them. We should hit on them. It's a great name. Team NoCo. What is NoCo? Is that a drink?

I see that everywhere. Yeah, it's like FitAid or whatever, but just I think originated in Europe. This is a team that I drafted last night. I think it was our last female team. We talked about Emilia Lepinen, Yonakoski's girlfriend, 2021 Individual Games competitor, 2022 Masters champ, 35-39. And she's paired up with the girls from the Finland team

that's done really well at the Games the last two years. I think it's a great team. But, you know, 17th, John Asim, 16th. As we will continue to say, it's just a product of the depth of the field. I'd love to see Amelia Lepinen enter the individual and win the money. The champ from the CrossFit Games this year. And if the events hit right, I could see them making a push for a top 10 finish, just depending on the team events. It wouldn't shock me if they were around top 10.

What about Chloe Gavon-David? How do I know that name? Games athlete? Yeah, so Chloe will skip a couple teams here i guess but she was on pro one montreal's team this year but you remember her probably from the 2018 albany regionals where she competed and i think she took i think she took fifth that year and snuck into a game so it was either fifth or sixth okay uh anyone else you want to talk about on here uh brian the med girls josie and the dudes dudes well i mean carolyn privo's on that team um dead deadlift specialist and then the uh team

above that you know we got elisa fuliano and elena caratala who both made the games this year out of europe didn't have the greatest games performance until long ago pretty good uh competitor in europe as well italian so they're both competing individual as well so that could have a little effect on them okay yeah and we're getting and that is a conversation that now when we're getting close to this top 10 athletes or top 10 teams there's going to be more and more athletes for who that's the case and it's really tbd how much that's going to impact them i do think it's going to have it's going to have an impact on the overall results for the team division that what is if you have two teams if you have two teams that are very close i would favor the

team that hadn't the less the least amount of athletes doing the individual competition two days before um okay uh paper street copy i should have had a female team paper street but no one communicated with us um if you do ever have a paper street coffee team um you should give them a butler so it's like a dude in a tuxedo who just has a like a uh uh you know polished silver tray following them around with little shots of espresso you could see that the paper street cough females no yeah i like it not females good females coffee males coffee males it's a new gender okay uh let's scroll let's scroll down a little bit anything is possible oh look at how confident this team is team podium uh then there's the best butts and scuds underdogs they're sponsored by podium oh they are i think so the uh the the matt fraser drink

the buttery bros yeah kelsey keel works with them interesting okay uh uh misfits with uh lady bits Interesting. Okay. Misfits with Lady Bits. Oh, I like that. God, I'm so proud of these names. And Invictus, you got Brittany Wise, Devin Kim, and Jesse Smith. Jesse Smith is married to Chandler Smith, as we talked about the other day. I'm guessing that Chandler Smith went out to CrossFit Invictus to qualify, to do his qualifications for the Rogue Invitational this year. And I'm guessing that's where Jesse met Devin Kim and Brittany Weiss, who took third place at the CrossFit Games this year in the team competition with Jorge and Alchapa. Alchapa. Yeah, so in this group here, the...

Is that... Do they... I don't know if that's, the teams keep changing, but originally that team podium had Winter Nicolette and Nicole Soto on it. And maybe, I'm not sure what their most recent roster is, but those are the girls from, were the girls from Move Fast, Lift Heavy. They were in the top 10 at the games. Kelsey Keel was on OBA, was 11th at the games. So a lot of team experience on that team. The Buds and Suds team did not pre-qualify for this event. They came through the online qualifiers.

They were second to that French team that we talked about with Mary Robin and Alize Andriani on it and Mary Greneron. And so we're seeing here that now we have some of the pre-qualified teams that we think can be competitive and fight for possibly a top 10 spot. Last year at Guadalupalooza, there were some qualified teams that did even better than that. So just because there's all these special teams doesn't mean that teams from the qualifier can't still be competitive in this field. Brian, do you have any problems with the objectification of the women using misfits and lady bits and best butts

and scuds underdogs you know that none of that stuff bothers me okay caleb does it bother you no okay i think it's great oh my god me too in case everybody doesn't know um on team podium kelsey keel is probably by far the strongest woman in this field. Mm-mm. You don't think so? In Middleton. Well, Kelsey recently squatted 360. I have Christine Middleton is stronger than her, then I stand corrected.

But Kelsey Keel is one of the strongest people in this field. I'll correct it. I didn't think anybody was out squatting 360, but I guess so. Um, Wow. She's got a huge, uh, Instagram following Kelsey Keel. Yeah. Yeah. Super, super marketable, friendly, nice woman. When you say super marketable, you mean she's hot with a great body and very, just very personable.able oh and personable right oh she has a kid no i don't think so oh nephew nephew she tried out for the looking

bobsled team too oh my god she looks just like her mom that's crazy did uh did middleton was is that the one who won the um front squat a couple years ago the one at max front squat a couple years ago the one right max front squat like 313 maybe i mean christine middleton has her lifting numbers are off the charts uh not a lifetime pr but definitely a body weight personal best pr since starting with coach l 360 pounds that's why john likes her so much 74 pounds hey man she did that easy let's watch that one more time that's crazy they have the same coach seven oh they do yeah and that's the same as fikowski's coach no oh proximity bias it doesn't defeat the purpose that's just making 360 look like this okay proximity bias oh she looks so happy to put that bar down crazy good job kelsey looking

forward to seeing you compete crazy we could spend the next 20 minutes and scrolling through her instagram i could invite her on the show yeah what uh-oh uh-oh oh no okay i did not know i did not think that's where you were going uh i just i saw some gatorade in there and i started judging poor kelsey she she deserves better oh she's friends with this girl she's friends with that girl who's also competed in albany uh kelly baker yeah wow she keeps good company okay they've competed at wadapalooza together before i'm following this account her tagline is her pronoun is athlete and uh her tagline in there is 6.4 million followers on TikTok. No, it just says be a nice person.

Be a nice person. A podium athlete also. Okay. Sorry, Kelsey. I've fallen into the Kelsey rabbit hole. Where are we? Who is the team right below that, Caleb, in 11 or 10? What happened to Kelly Baker?

Is she still competing, Brian? Yep. Patrick Clark is her agent, actually. No shit. Good job, Patrick. She's on the athletic team with me, and she'll be competing this year. I'm not sure exactly in what capacity. I know there are still a lot of things to be sorted out in terms of the team competition since with the new rules this year.

You think that both those girls are single, two cute single babes. I don't think that Kelly Baker. I don't think that those, those girls don't stay on the shelf very long. So getting into the top 10 here and these, you're going to recognize most of these names, Paige,

Caroline Connors, both coming off a CrossFit Games competition this past year. Aaron O'Donnell, previously Aaron Van Dendreich, winner of the Italian Throwdown in 2019, competed at the Games that year. I think it was 2019, yeah. So we'll see. I mean, this is the Misfits. Paige and Caroline have been training with Misfits forever. They often have a team together, put a team together to compete.

I think that they can do very well. Paige had probably her best season or definitely her best season ever this past year. Caroline Conner is a good she's a good teammate to have because she's so good at certain things. You'll see if anything comes out where she has a chance to show her prowess with gymnastics barbell cycling burpees that she's specifically yeah and she can really help out on that um rings and squats workout if you have one female athlete on your team that's really good at ring muscle ups it'll go a long way in that workout and so she can probably carry a lot of the load there hey um how does it uh this team this uh go wad girls team with uhahlstrom, Emma McQuaid, and Sola, you think that team, if they won this, would you guys be surprised? Very. Yes.

You would? Won the overall competition? Yeah. I don't see a way they could win. Wow. Okay. All right. Yeah, but when we get to the top five, you'll understand.

Yeah. Emma won the individual last year. Jacqueline Dahlstrom is the real deal. Yeah, they're all good. Three games, athletes. Sola was awesome at semifinals, underwhelmed at the games. And we'll see. I mean, they'll be good.

They'll be in the top ten in most of the events. But it's not going to be even close to enough. Emma McQuaid would have finished. If the full slate of women were competing at waddleclues last year a lot of which are in the top five i mean i don't i don't even think there's any shot that podium like at all where did emma finish at the games this year she was uh 12th or 13th man it's so hard to be good for 13th. Man, it's so hard to be good. It's so hard to be great.

Okay. Let's keep cruising. Let's stop on the Spacers Angels. John's got them in fifth. I've gotten them in eighth. It's one of the bigger discrepancies we've had so far, and it's inside the top ten. What are you seeing?

How did that team come together? Is that sponsor thing toe spacers oh oh really i think yeah john you're up buddy hey and what happens if sarah gets injured in the individual i can't hear anybody oh well brian what happened i mean, there is a chance Sarah won't even make it through the individual, right? Uh, come on, man. Let's not talk about that. Okay, all also doing the team competition. And so when I'm looking at this team in comparison with the few teams above them that John has them ranked higher than, I basically bumped them down a little bit because of that. I think that that's going to be very difficult to have all three of your athletes coming off of the individual competition. And a lot of these teams that are in the top for the,

have no athletes doing individual competition. What, what is, what is, uh, Caitlin Van Z, uh, zeal,

uh, done. We've talked about it like three times in the last two days. So no surprise that you can't remember. I cannot. Yep. She's been on CrossFit games team out of New Zealand the last two years. I cannot. possibly in the mix, depending on how many game spots they end up with down there. She's very good on certain things, running machines,

swimming. Um, she's pretty strong and decent with gymnastics for a bigger girl. Uh, Rambler says, uh, he sees Sarah at whole foods all the time. That's cool.

Uh, Trish toe spacers are just a way to get athletes to post feet picks to drive engagement. Holy shit. Very clever. Uh, Jessica, uh, Ray, Brian, down the smackdown on Seve. Valid question, Sevan. Thank you.

That's how Chase talked about Emma Carey yesterday. Thank you. John, can you hear us now? Yeah. Darn. Okay. Basically, I said that I ranked Sigma's Daughters team lower because they were all doing the individual competition.

And of all the teams that I have above them, I believe there's only one woman that's doing individual competition, but their entire team is. Yeah, no, it makes sense. Further looking into it, I feel like I probably have them ranked a little bit high. I agree with that. Okay. Let's go on. I agree with that. Okay.

Let's go on. Especially considering Sarah has trouble making it through any competition. Did we hear any stories about maybe Kara Saunders making it out to this event? No. I have not. Now we are 6th, 5th, 4th, and 3rd, 3rd, 4th, 5th, and 6th. The girls, a.k.a. Humbler Killers, All-American Girls, P10 Performance. And now we recognize all the names.

Right. And so this is tough. I mean, it's really difficult to say who's going to have necessarily better chemistry, a team of Brooke Wells, Amanda Barnard, and Christy Aramo, or Alex Kazan, Carrie Pierce, and Ariel Lowen. Kazan has had the opportunity to learn from Carrie Pierce over the last couple of years in Vegas. Even though Carrie didn't compete this year, she was still very much present and part of their crew out there. It's awesome that she's coming back to compete. And there are a couple of workouts that that team could have top three finishes on. But i think you could say that about every team in the top seven here let's talk about uh carrie pierce for a second what so she retired uh you know people calling her the greatest american female crossfitter who

ever lived and this is we haven't seen her on the competition floor in how long one year a little over a year year and a half yeah it's only been a year uh what what do you think's going on here you think this is just fun or you think she's jonesing for uh some uh field play some field time you think this is to test the waters to see you know maybe she was burnt out or she wanted to get her business started the abs business and now she's she's coming back to make another run. You think we're going to see her try to go to the games this year? You know, just, just thinking about it, a lot of these athletes that have said that they're retiring, you know, we see them come back into the fray. They just love doing it. And they've been doing it for so long. I think that

maybe Carrie, I wouldn't be shocked if, if underdogs put together a team at some point and Carrie Pierce was on it. And then two years from now, she's eligible for the master's division. So maybe she does this. She loves it. They put a team together. She does team this year and goes masters the year after that. I mean, that would not surprise me. Uh, Christine Kolenbrander, uh, Fisa Goffey, Alexis, uh, Raptus, and, uh, another amazing team, strong team capable of a lot of stuff. And then, of course, the top team up there, Taylor Williamson, Andrea Nistler, and Sydney McEllishan. Sydney has a lot to gain this week.

Well, I actually misspoke. There are two women on that team that are competing as individuals, and maybe that's why John in this case waited in less than I did. Yeah. John, why sixth? I mean, I'm just because the, I think the individual games athletes are better. Um, similar to, um, last year, Ryan had Richie's team winning and I had them like fifth and it's because Travis mayorer, Chandler Smith, and Noah Olsen were a team. Like more games athletes were becoming teams.

And I think the fitter people will always win, no matter how good your team dynamic is. It's just if you're close, the team dynamic makes a huge difference. But if you're not close, then i think being fitter will always rank superior and nobody on that team is as fit as brooke wells nobody on that team is as fit as amanda barnhart and nobody on that team is as fit as christy aramo i agree i don't know i'm willing to say the same with the humble killers i don't think anybody on that team is fitter than anybody on um ariel lowenstein um and that's i tell that's why i rank them where i rank them

that team is pretty crazy that all-american girls team that's that's like yeah the one thing that i would say it's john's to counter john there and he's not he's not wrong i don't think i mean a lot of people do think andrea nistler's top 20 top 15 something top 10 in the world so maybe she's in the conversation with a couple of those women but nistler and williamson despite the fact that they're not amongst the fittest always seem to find a way in these competitions to outperform what you think is possible so that's their winners their winners yeah and they've ever been in a field like this though i mean you could argue that at the rogue invitational in 2019 when they beat Rich's team, you know, they're just good. 2019, three years ago.

Don't ask a question with Everett if you're not going to count 2019, John. Yeah, John. Hey, what about this team right here? I think it's safe to say Brooke Wells and Amanda Barnhart are going to show up the fittest they've ever been in their lives. I'm just going to make that statement. What about Christie O'Connell? Did she retire? I don't know if she's officially retired or not.

I do. You just can't say, I don't think so. I don't remember, but it's, it's like with so in the last 18 months, so many athletes have announced quote unquote retirements. And then so many of them have backed down. And I was planning to write an article about it after morning chalk up like a year ago. Last 18 months, so many athletes have announced quote unquote retirements, and then so many of them have backed down. And I was planning to write an article about it after morning chalk up like a year ago. And then all these people just started changing their mind.

And I just scrapped the idea because I couldn't even consider it a retirement. So I can't keep track anymore who's retired and who's not necessarily. But Christy's an amazing teammate and she will fit into this team very well. They could definitely podium. They could win it. I don't think they can win, but I definitely think they can podium. Yeah well they could definitely podium they could win it i don't think they can win but i definitely think they can podium yeah they're definitely in podium contention okay uh let's go down a little bit more let's look at this top three yeah you guys are fucking nuts this is these are some horrible this this is these top two are not going to be

top two you guys are wrong okay hey there's there's no way uh gabby and jamie have too big you're that team number one right there i i just see it's just a team full of holes where are the holes you know where the holes are let me look. I just have to look at this real quick. So Savan, here's an example. They announced this workout yesterday. Start fast, finish faster for the teams. In this workout, there are a total of 84 handstand pushups, 84 pistols, and 84 chest-to-bar pull-ups.

Yeah. You are probably immediately thinking, well, what exactly, case in point. But only one athlete has to do handstand pushups. Only one athlete has to do handstand pushups. Only one athlete has to do only one. Only one, only one has to, or only one can, only one can,

only one can do pistols and only one can do chest to bar. So they're able to avoid problems. And this lifting event, there's a three rep max overhead squat, a two rep max front squat, one rep max shoulder overhead. Again, you can pick in,

you can mix and match and capitalize on everyone's strengths and weaknesses on the ring and bar muscle ups squat clean and squat snatches if you like we said if you have one athlete that's really good on the rings jamie simmons laura's not bad either gabby doesn't have to do any ring muscle ups that's amazing for her if someone's not as good with the squat clean maybe it's a little heavy for jamie relative to the other she she can snatch. So there's, there's plenty of ways to mix it, mix and match around in this competition. And there are some cases like the swimming, if you have a bad swimmer, you're going to be exposed on that, but not in every, but in a lot of the workouts, there's an opportunity to hide, which is not often the case in team competitions, which is one of the reasons why I'm, I'm thinking this team can win.

Let me, let me ask you this just for shits and giggles. Let's just with these top four teams here, John, a team one, who's going to do the handstand pushups. Jamie Simmons. Brian is Jamie Simmons.

You agree? Yeah. Team two. Who's going to do the handstand pushups. Annie Mal or Catherine. Probably Mal, but Annie's also decent. Team three. Who's going to do the handstand push-ups?

Taylor, Andrea, and Isla? You didn't even ask if I agreed. Oh, do you agree? I think Annie might because I think that Mal is a lot better than her at pistols. Yeah, yeah. I mean, yeah, if you have to pick and pop, then Annie. Yeah, for sure. Because Mal's amazing at pistols.

Number three, Taylor, Andrea, or Sidney McElishan? That's going to be a bad workout for their team. Yeah, yeah. Probably Andrea, but that's damage control. So you're saying that they have to pick which one's the best, but none of them are super efficient at 80. And then Andrea, do you agree brian andrea nistler yeah but i mean if in the preview articles that i've uh written i specifically selected that

team for damage control for this workout it's not gonna be a good workout for uh geez louise uh uh john may make up your mind john i know that was pretty good back and forth on it well he just uh brian just was just telling you, probably Annie. You're just a target for any misplaced aggression, John. Don't worry about it. Yeah. There's a psychological term for it. You're a scapegoat.

Number four, the 14, Brooke Wells, Amanda Barnhart, Christy Arama-O'Connell. Who will do the handstand push-ups, Brian? This is a tough pick for this team. Christy won't do the pull-ups, but she's the best pick for both the handstand pushups and the pistols. Amanda Barnhart will do the handstand pushups because Amanda Barnhart is filthy at handstand pushups,

and Christy Aramo, she can do pistols better than the other two. Okay, and scroll down just one more and uh go down here uh so look uh alex kazan can win that workout right yeah and so we know who's going to do the handstand push-ups there right carrie pierce she'd be yeah i mean the workout is not one on the handstand push-ups it's i think it's one in totality because it's only 42 handstand pushups. Correct, Brian? Twice. 42 times two. I mean, still, all of these athletes are capable of doing that very, very, very fast.

John, don't call any of these ladies filthy ever again. It's a term of endearment. Terry Pierce isn't even the best handstand pushover in this field. Who you think Alexis Raptus is? Yeah. Whoa. Is that true, Brian? She beat her on a strict handstand pushup workout two years ago at semifinals.

Wow. For those of you who are new to the game, Carrie Pierce had this remarkable finish. I believe it was at the CrossFit Games where she beat not only all of the women. 2019 Mary, yes. And all of the men and and you don't see that uh has that ever is that the only workout that's ever happened no t has beaten everybody before swimming workouts yeah that's pretty cool okay uh back to the top three uh we'll look at these uh great explanation uh brian and john thank you um great question seven thank you uh should we just log off and hug each other we should switch over to the men unless you i mean who do you think is going to win of these of these teams seven well now that you said it i'm starting to i'm starting to believe you a little bit but i i think that

brooke wells amanda barnhart christie arama, O'Connell team just sounds... I did not expect John to also pick BPN to win. I think that the easy and most popular pick is definitely the Daughters with Mal. But we have this problem with Katrin. We don't know. She's been on a severe decline, wouldn't you say? And Team BPN has the 2023 CrossFit Games champion on it. And Team BPN has the 2023 CrossFit Games champion on it. Now he's going to piss some people off with that.

Who's the champion? You think Laura's winning the games, John? Yeah. Yeah. And again, I think more people would pick Mal than Laura to win the games next year. John and I both also favor Laura, so maybe we're a little bit bias in that regard with these picks. But basically when this team was announced, the daughters team, there was so much hype around it.

And the day before the BPN team was announced and I'm sitting here thinking, I know that daughters team looks impressive and is extremely endearing and their resumes are great, but don't sleep on that BPN team. Like they can hold their own. I think this is going to be a dog fight. I think you nailed it. I think that the Daughters team is endearing, but I think Katrin David's daughter is the biggest wildcard in the entire field, even more so than Sarah Sigmund's daughter. Someone, it may have been Keith Gordon,

if it was someone else, I apologize. He often puts good comments, though, and he specifically talked about this in the comments section on my Instagram post and said, look, if you're just putting these teams next to each other, you got a little bit of unknown in both Katrin and Jamie who are coming off of less than desirable years last year, both missing the games and being close to making it. You have Laura and Mal, the two biggest contenders to win the games next year in almost everyone's minds. And then you have

Gabby and Annie who Annie, the last time she competed individual at the games was on the podium and Gabby's been threatening to be in that conversation. So it is pretty even on paper and it's going to come down to, you know, teamwork, execution strategy. None of them are doing the individual field of competition, so they should all be healthy and ready to go. But I think you're going to see a lot of top three finishes out of both these teams and a small amount of points being the difference in the end i also think that after this weekend mal o'brien's confidence is going to skyrocket

regardless of where she places i think she's going i think if she doesn't know how amazing she is she's about to find out because uh being with annie and katrin she's going to get to see uh up close that uh mal's yeah i mean whole nother level yeah if she's waiting on them in workouts it'll be she'll know that she's fitter than the best in the world oh this is also a great point by the way there is that chemistry between annie and katrin is pretty remarkable and they if they can keep if they keep their heads in the right place, which they're pretty good at doing when they're together, they could really elevate each other.

So that's another great. Yeah. And certainly if it comes on Sunday and, and Katrin and Annie and Mal win, neither John or I are going to be like, damn, didn't see that coming. We just think that Laura's team has just a good of a chance.

Mal isn't short on confidence. Ask her. I don't think she can talk. I don't think I'm not even sure if Mal has a tongue. So I but I would be curious to ask her. But I don't even presume she has a tongue. OK, off to the men. One more time.

Sorry. OK, fine. One more time to the men. One more time. Sorry. Okay, fine. One more time to the females. Sorry. Okay, so just so you know, the winners, both these gentlemen have picked the winner to be the team BPN. I think that's like some sort of protein powder. Laura Horvath, Jamie Simmons, Gabriela Magawa, pronounced with a W. Do we know what camp Gabriela Maglla Magawa is in like training wise?

Yeah. I don't, I don't think she's really formally with a camp. Okay. All right. Uh, going to be amazing. Look at all those names.

People, those people will all be on the floor at the same time. Yep. Yeah. Crazy. If I haven't told you yet this is going to be the greatest team competition ever in terms of caliber it's only wadapalooza's to fuck up which they won't you know it will be fun it'll be fun to see uh rich in a games field

let's go to the men and then hey what video did someone in the comments yesterday said that rich posted something yesterday that, um, made them concerned about rich. Do you guys know what the post they were referring to? I don't, but I've, but there've been a few athletes that people have sent me some concerns

about. And it's one of these things like, yes, there's always the possibility that someone's coming in a little banged up or a little under the weather. And we don't know his shoulder, his shoulder is jacked i mean he said in that interview that hey he was surprised i mean he said he's gotten he's gotten 400 over

his head we've all seen it and he said he was surprised that he was able to still get 300 over his head he said he was shocked that's a 25 you know reduction and whatever you want to call it but he's still choosing to show up and compete. And I don't think that he's choosing to show up and compete if he doesn't think that he can do everything that's required. And if I, and if he's not going to be, uh, you know,

have a competitive mindset throughout, uh, his, Oh, his mayhem Monday. He says he's 75%. Well, I mean,

yeah, we just didn't, uh, mayhem Monday video. I think rich said something like I'm 75% of what I used to be. Still 150% of what I used to be. Still 150% of most men. Uh, loved Emma since the podcast she did with several.

Imagine if Mal came on here, you'd love her too. But until then, she doesn't even have a tongue. Okay. Uh, to the men, what do you think? Do you think we're going to be able to do this? brian it's gonna be close okay uh the 43 uh men uh men teams for a total of 129 athletes just showing off my math skills there uh very impressive you have like um you know elementary school kids or something i'm amazing at uh simple math three pappas latinos poppies poppies poppies does that mean they're all dads

does that mean all those guys are dads latin dads uh brazilian old school uh mayhem project and uh road to asgard i don't get that Is that like a... It's a Thor reference. Yeah. Thor reference. Again, just in case you missed it with the women's side. Huge field. Incredibly impressive just to qualify for this field. The bottom, you know, 20% are a lot less known.

I'm expecting there'll be a team down here that outperforms what we expect. But regardless, great credit just to get into this competition pablo chalfon did make the games one year in 2018 as south america's person he was last in the games but he didn't make it it's just something to be said oh he rode a marathon that's cool pablo chalfon last place at the games uh tf in 30 39th is le france do general de gaulle uh if you want to go to the world's worst large international airport visit the charles de gaulle in france it is a complete fucking shithole france should fucking burn that fucking shithole down americans do do not go there. What a fucking dump.

What a dump. Have you guys been there? Every time I go through there, I'm like, what a shithole. It's massive, and they got it designed with all this beautiful glass and all this cool shit. They can't keep the temperature in there under 85 fucking degrees. It's dripping from the ceiling. It's like you're in a – what are those things called that you grow plants in in your backyard greenhouse a greenhouse greenhouse it's a fucking greenhouse it's disgusting it's the worst representation it makes everyone hate france france charles

de gaulle airport hate that oh is montreal bad too yeah same people france gross what it's a cool country but what a shithole of an airport it's an embarrassment okay where were we uh tall dark and handsome oh i like that uh hans rafael and uh malachi they sound like they could be the next uh malachi teenage ninja mutant turtles that's a dog's name isn't that a dog's name Malachi Malachi has to be the handsome one here Hans Kolenberger I got a shirt for you

Hans is tall for sure first world problems for Seve that's the only I'm fucking I'm elite what am I that's the only problems I have Hans Kolenberger wait there was another Robbie Rodriguez that's the only problems i have uh uh hans colin brand oh wait there was another oh robbie rodriguez that's a great name yeah uh so i mentioned yesterday we were doing the men's individual field that there's always just someone or some team or something that i get a bunch of

messages about and this gilman athletics teams they had like three or four people messaged me yesterday and said these guys are elite. I'm not buying it till I see it, but I am going to be watching you, Gilman Athletics. What are they saying about them? I don't recognize any of those names. Seth Charite. Just that they're a lot better than I know them to be. Brandon Smith, Eric Thomas.

Wow, what country? I think they've got to be from North America. But, you know, this happens a lot where they're, you know from North America but you know this happens a lot where they're you know and I'm sure that if you train with these guys that they are absolutely savages and embarrass you every single day that doesn't mean that that's going to happen when they go to this field at Guadalupalooza so like I said

until I see it I don't believe it okay fine Thunder Buddies that's a titillating name Brandon Willis uh oh never mind do you guys get your names read? Oh Brandon Willis, Willis. Oh, never. Uh, uh, do you guys get your names read? Oh,

Brandon Willis, Gage Barone. Thank you, Mr. Beaver and Connor volts, uh, CrossFit, uh,

Shrewsbury. You guys, uh, John, just so you know, all the team names I've read so far, Brian and John, don't think you have a chance in hell,

whatever that does for you. There's another team, AOD boys with feelings. They were this actually the second place qualifier team. I have gotten some messages that people think we've way underestimated them. And to be fair, the first place qualifier team, we have a lot higher than that. So maybe that's true. But again, looking to see these guys in a live competition and see if they're really as good as they were in the online qualifier. I'm going to give you one guess what ethnicity Harry is.

British? No, hell no. Irish? No. New Zealand? I don't know, but that's for sure native american isn't it harry harry harry that that guy's uh harry lightfoot yeah that guy's gotta that guy's gotta have a spear in his hand right and sitting on the back of a horse or they're married to the mayor of chicago or something

oh he's not is this guy's not Native American? Where's this guy from? Cornwall. Isn't that England? Oh, yeah. Harry, how the hell do you have the name Lightfoot? It sounds British. It does? I think so.

Oh, I think it sounds like he's a Native American. Say it in a British accent, Sevan. I can't do a British accent. Oh, look at this. All right. He looks fun. He looks playful. Cute. God, European. They just dress different than us.

All right. Smaller sizes. What'd you say? Smaller sizes. Yeah, smaller, yes. Try on clothes and then buy the size smaller? Mm-hmm. I like that.

Well, except for Craig Ritchie, he's try on clothes by five sizes bigger. Polish underdogs, Czechoslovakia. You want to read those names no uh and it looks like uh both john and brian are uh happy with the picks there um we scroll down through 25th through 28th uh mayhem avengers conquer lift heavy often uh michigan made black al, John and Jack. Oh, I like that name. So lots of good teams here. Those guys are some of the fittest in Italy.

The Michigan made black team is the same team as Michigan made orange. That were 10th place at the games that conquer lift heavy, often very talented, a lot of experience on that team. Obviously people recognize Elijah Muhammad more so than the other two names, but those guys have been around and done a lot of competitions and team competitions. They're quite good. Mayhem Avengers, three of the fittest in their countries, respectively, down in South America, coming together.

They should have a couple of pretty good events, like bodyweight ninjas, good at gymnastics, barbell cycling type stuff. All these teams are very good, and they're down here in the mid-20s. So like we've been saying, very strong field top to bottom. Just because you don't wear the 5-inch inseam. I got a bunch of shorts with a 5-inch inseam. I do. I do. I dabble in the European decor once in a while.

Thank you, Brian. What about that Mayhem team, mayhem avengers what's that mean does that mean that they uh they follow mayhem's programming what a lot of them work with facundo and are they do they can anyone just use that name i guess so it's wadapalooza but they but they are a rich froning programming jake lockhart uh darren hunucker. They fall under that. There's a couple of them. Mayhem teams? Yeah. Okay.

Butterfly Bandits. My heart is with this team. Jake Marconi, Tristan Moriano, Oren Bernstein out of the Northeast. All of them have been training up there and competing for a long time. A lot of experience. I think they're going here to have fun. I mean, they'll still compete and throw down for sure. All of them have been training up there and competing for a long time. A lot of experience. I think they're going here to have fun. I mean, they'll still compete and throw down for sure.

But I don't like where some of these teams I think could have, like the team just below the Mammoth Avengers, I think could have one or two top 10 finishes and one or two pretty bad finishes. I think this is a team you're mostly going to see like 20th to 25th on almost every workout from. And just so you know uh uh the butterfly team john and brian think you are nothing but caterpillars placing you down at a 24 john gave him 20th you know a little bit better you're caterpillars you're the caterpillar bandits um okay oh these are nice uh the lads uh okay past a few teams there that's okay uh the lads

underdoggy style team from underdogs athletics mitch mcclune is gary pierce's boyfriend ethan hellbig former games athlete raft rand if if it if underdogs ever does put a team together you could see some of these names potentially on it um which one's your boyfriend which one's kerry pierce's boy mitch mcclune oh that's a great name that's a uh uh uh uh bart simpson the simpsons character isn't it mitch mcclune oh i don't watch the simpsons i don don't know. Ethan Helbig is the guy who did 100 cows on the assault bike in one minute. Oh, shit. They're engaged. I thought they might be.

Wait, who did 100 cows on the assault bike? Which guy? Ethan Helbig. Oh, that's right. Yeah, we watched that. He sent the bike in the Zelos games, too, and then died horrifically. Did it on purpose. Okay.

Here's Mitch McClune with Cary Pierce. This is six weeks ago. I couldn't have asked for a better Thanksgiving. Thanks for making it super special, Mitch. I can't wait for the future with you. Oh, and the ring. Yes, it's perfect. He's an Air Force guy too. He is?

Yeah. Good people. Very good people. No, I've talked to them in my DM too. He is? Yeah. Do you know him? Good people. Very good people. No, I've talked to them in my DMs. It's pretty cool. Oh, wow. Okay. Oh, yeah.

We've been to his account before. That's some sort of space capsule he's working on. Holy shit. Yeah. Standing in front of NASA's – He's an aerospace engineer. Wow. Okay.

I expected her to marry smart. Standing in front of NASAa's orion capsule we launched on the delta 4 rocket in 2015 all right it's a old school uniform they've updated it with a rainbow patch yeah yeah rainbows i think the next team on here is team mexico You guys may recognize Mora and Goldbaum from the Mack and Syndicate, respectively. Very strong, but also pretty talented when they're put in a situation like some of these workouts we'll have where one guy can go do something really fast and tag out a teammate. So they can have some pretty exciting performances.

They should be a very fun team to watch. Obviously, there's a big Latin community in Mexico. I think the fans will be behind this team and that they'll have some impressive performances this weekend. So not a top 10 contender, but should be a fun team, maybe in that second heat, getting some heat wins. So they'll be exciting and fun to watch. Will Luis go to the games this year?

I don't know. I don't know. It's going to be tough i mean he'll have to have uh he'll have to have changed his training like he basically is the guy type of guy who doesn't need to lift the barbell anymore but he loves lifting a barbell so i don't know if he'll want to give that up to pursue the games or not uh that guy um luis oscar mora if you guys don't remember when he was competing the semi-finals what there was what was the lift where they had to do the the complex what was it three three cleans two

front squats one jerk or shoulder overhead that guy opened what did he open with like 315 or something yeah he probably failed his first his first one he actually might have been able to win to have the record on that event worldwide if'd had a little bit better strategy going into it. This is one of those guys that with this shirt on, you can tell you're looking at something freakish. He has some, his body is freakish. After every event,

he would go find a trash can and throw up. It was hilarious to watch. Honestly. Wow. Dude, I'm not, this massive dude just hurled over a trash can, just vomiting his guts out after every event was in the finals.

I'm just curious. Did Hiller pick this team in the draft last night? I can't remember. I can check, though. This guy's shoulder, lats, and tits are huge. He's a bowling ball. Yeah, he's a freak. Okay.

Anything else we want to uh talk about here lsk the team so johan van zil that's catlin's uh husband a couple games experiences under his belt i don't know the other guys quite as well um so just kind of put them here in the middle and then the team above them omnia uh jacob sch Cooper Weiss, top 10 at the games this past year. Really impressive after a not-so-impressive 2021 relative to, I know, their own expectations. I've had a chance to talk to those guys. I don't know the third team mate very well, so that's a little bit of unknown. But the other two guys are pretty good, but they're generalists. They're going to be good at most things, not exceptional at any one thing.

All right. We're breaking past into the top 20 now. Oh, that's a doozy. Team 247, team training program. Brian? Yeah. No, no, no. I need you to read that for me.

Number 18. Jai Ladois. Jai Ladois. Oh, Jai Ladois. That's what I was going to say. And the lads. Oh, Sam Stewart, who's been on the show. Good guy. Yeah, Sam Stewart, Jamie Heaton, Michael Smith, along with Petey Savage.

Those are pretty much the top four guys in Ireland. So three of them competing here together on a team. They did pretty well in the qualifiers. I think they'll have some decent performances, but I think it'll be tough decent performances but we'll be i think it'll be tough for him to do much better than this those are the top three guys in um pd savage those would be the top four those four guys wow okay uh has anyone how many people does ireland send has ireland is he the only guy from ireland to make it to the game sam stewart i think so i believe so well this this guy uh frederick uh

dubay has he been on the show is he the guy with the big fro the young kid the 19 year old kid who am i thinking luke de young oh oh yeah okay luke de young's from oceania frederick to bay i believe is the one is the guy from pro in montreal okay all right uh and uh anything else in this uh 16 through 19 team 247 nick thomas i mentioned last night as a guy to maybe watch he got injured after having a good first day at the mac this past semifinals um and mitch wagner lalo tours these guys i like for that workout we were talking about the handstand push-up pistol chest bar watch out for him on a workout like that uh maybe struggle on the machines type stuff, but they could have like a couple top 10 finishes offset by some lower ones.

But that's what you're going to see in this middle range. Some teams that will have some highs and some lows, and some other teams that will just kind of be 15 to 25 on every workout. All right. Team 247. 25 on every workout all right uh team 247 uh 15 14 13 and 12 okay daddy's angels there just as of this morning i found out about this so christian harris and will carter are the guys from move fast lift heavy they had blaine mcconnell on the roster they've changed to david bradley david bradley was second place in the teenage division the year that Nate Ackerman won it. He's trying to make that transition into the individual elite field, just like Nate is. I think this actually is a great opportunity for him. It's not a super stressful environment to go

out there and get your competition legs. There's still going to be plenty of chances, as we talked about, to show what you can do as an individual on a part of your team. He's going to do it with some guys that have been around for a long time and know how to work on a team very well. I haven't seen a lot. I don't know too much about Blaine McConnell except he's super strong, like really strong. And so I think that maybe they take a little bit of a hit on the lifting event,

but on everything else, I think Bradley's just as good or better. So I might have even bumped this team up one or two if I knew he was on their team. Hiller, Liverking, and Nicholas Joyal would have been a good team. I agree. That would have been fun. Um, we think,

we think alike lampshade. Uh, okay. Uh, the three winners, the California hormones games. Absolutely. Uh,

the three wizards, Samson, I've been with Scarella's team took fourth place at Wadapalooza last year. And that's what I was talking about, where a team can come through the qualifier and do very, very well. It was one of those things where as the competition went on, I was like, they're going to struggle here. They're going to struggle here. They're going to finally drop. And they never did.

They just kept doing great. TJ Gerald's replacing the third guy that was on their team last year. But again, similarly to what you said, what we were talking about with Emma McQuaid, like you've just inserted 30 games athletes into this field or maybe 20 in the case of the men that weren't there last year. And so even a top five team from last year is going to move down, you know, seven to 10 spots this year. Was Tyler Eggerman the third guy on that team?

Yeah, I think that's a pretty pretty that's a decent drop off on that because tyler regman i i think would be the best out of those three guys uh it's hard to say i mean he had a really good 2021 and then he was really underwhelming last year in 2022 in fact he cost me a fantasy launcher leader that's why you're down on him yeah that's the guy that cj is replacing yeah yeah and yeah so uh in 2021, Tyler had a great season and definitely contributed to their success. So CJ will need to step up to fill those shoes for sure. But even with Tyler, I think that they would have moved back quite a bit in this field. Go ahead, John. No, I agree with that. Just so you know, the ability for us to send people to Wadapalooza this year to get

coverage for you guys was money that was given to us by California Hormones. If you go to CAHormones.com, they have been, along with Paper Street Coffee, our most loyal sponsor. Every time we ask them for anything, they always do it give us a thousand dollars for shirts and a bunch of money for airfare and hotel you can go to their website cahormones.com and you can put in the code word sevan and you will get a free doctor's consultation and if you're in the california area by their headquarters you can also get your blood work done for free and if you have any questions feel free to dm me or reach out to Andrew Hiller. Hiller has a video that comes out every week called Testosterone Tuesday, and you can figure out if that's the path you want to take. Alex Smith, Ben Smith, and Dane Smith.

This one kind of hurt me. Because you want to put them higher because you like them yeah like i mean you just hear those guys they're they're staples in the crossfit world uh the smith brothers are and it's just they're just not better than the other people and it's just it doesn't seem right but this is where they should be uh here's the thing here's why they're the best sponsors and and well i wouldn't say they're the only thing. Here's why they're the best sponsors. Well, I wouldn't say they're the only sponsors, but here's why they're the best sponsors.

Because every time I've asked Gabe or California Hormones for something, they've always said yes. And not only that, periodically they'll call me and be like, hey, we want to give away an L1. Hey, we want to give away an assault bike. So last year at the games, Gabe said, hey, I'm going to buy an assault bike, and you can give it away under your banner, the Se on podcast. That's crazy for him just to do that. He made cups this year, a CEO cups that he's going to have at a Wadapalooza. He made a booth that's supposed to be the paper street coffee booth. If you ask me, it looks more like the seven on

podcast booth. So that's why California hormones, anytime I ask them for anything, they say yes. And so it's, it's,'s – and these are both organic listeners. These are people who listen to the show, who gave money to the show because they want to support the show. And so, yeah, they're the best. They're not here just to peddle their wares. They were listeners. I mean, you guys all know the story. I didn't even drink Paper Street coffee, and Gabe's like, I don't care.

I mean, of course, now I do. Okay. No, I don't always say yes. That's not true, Mr. Walters. That is definitely not true. I mostly say no. Or go fuck yourself. Team, so it hurts you.

Mr. Young, it hurts you. Brian, does it hurt you? You rank them higher than they deserve to be because you love, uh, Ben, Alec and Dane. You got a little old school in you. Oh,

oh, you're muted. I try, I try my best to never do that, but, uh, yeah, I think John and I are pretty much on the same page here where somewhere just

outside the top 10, possibly getting, sneaking into, you know, ninth or 10th by the end of the weekend is about as good as they can do. Will Ben be frustrated? No, I think he'll be happy to be out there competing with his brothers. Okay.

And this other team, I don't know if you mentioned it already because I spun off into my own world. This team with Moritz and Fabian, Fabian will have a little bit taken off of him, correct, because he's going individual also. Yeah, I mean we're going to get into a conversation about that here with the top teams for sure. How big of an effect the individual competition will have on the competitors of which there are 11 including him that are doing also the team competition for the men is an unknown. I do think that it will play a role. How big

of a role? We'll'll see this was a team that was put together last minute moritz was supposed to be competing with enrico zanoni and yorgos karavis they were both unable to make it what happened what happened i think that's been reported on karavis at least that he had some kind of injury and i believe this is having a peck yeah he's rehabbing a peck tear okay so moritz was scrambling he's the guy that i had uh mentioned to spencer that to consider they'd already been pursuing heppner but he had like they had like the idea moritz is a very very likable guy um i know he'd also talk to a hopper and sprague but they'd already talked to pepper so he was just

like one step behind on these and then uh fabian was willing to do it, but they needed another athlete from those 60 that I told you about. And Tristan Leclerc, they were able to find he was on Pro 1 Montreal's team this past year. And so they qualify and are a late addition to the field. You won't see that team on my Instagram post because I didn't know about him at that time, but I mentioned a couple hours later just to slot them into 12th, John Adam 13th. And so here we are. And we're still expecting more changes,

right? Probably. Okay. But both individual and team, anything's possible. Hopefully minimal, but yeah, it's possible.

Why hopefully minimal. It's cool. Change that shit up. Because of all the work that we've done to prepare for already that we have to go back and do more work after no it's exciting it gives us shit to talk about uh did you know lazar just win european comp man couple yeah he and karen fray just dominated everyone over there brana solankovic's team got second jonas muller and nicole here got third um but it was like just a showcase for him and karen basically easy paydayday. Renata. Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah.

From Brian Friend. Okay. Thank you. Thank you, Renata. By the way, I appreciate it. Shall we go up? Oh, we're getting into the top 10, and we're looking good for time. I love this.

There he is again, Anyola Kai. Like I mentioned, he'll be on the show today at 5 p.m uh training culture above them the panchik brothers uh-oh why are the panchik brothers so low yeah brian well you know so i've got the training culture team three spots higher than john they were the top team out of the qualifiers people are probably more familiar with anyola at this point because of the off season he's had second place in Madrid, which is how he qualified for the individual. And then this, uh, Dubai, he was in the top 10, Alex and Pablo were on that training culture team. They did really, really well at semifinals, not as well at the games as I expected their team to do. I think this kind of competition suits them well.

Um, they'll have maybe one pretty bad workout but most of the workouts i think they'll be 10 to 15 and hover around the top 10 come the end of the weekend uh panchik brothers and heppner to me is just a giant question mark i mean uh it seems like scott is is pretty much back to himself but heppner hasn't been training for this sort of thing specifically they're definitely going to have fun. They'll definitely do some impressive things, but I think sixth is a reach for them. See, anytime I hear the name Panchuk and Heppner fits in this boat as well, I just think sixth place. Fair. I understand. I get it. I get the joke, not joke. I get it. Somehow that's what they will end up as. Sometimes usually sometimes I think they're better than sixth place.

They'll end up in sixth place. And sometimes I think they're worse than that and they still end up in sixth place. So, uh, that's what I thought when I was reading Brian's IG last night, you will never get them back on the show. Now I,

anything that Brian's that comes out of Brian's Brian's mouth, I will take 100% of responsibility for him, back him up. If someone doesn't want to come on the show, cause that then so be it. What's James Newberry doing here? Doesn't, didn't he just like retire and wear Speedos and like triathlons? Like what's he doing on here with Yonikoski and Nick Matthews? Having fun and his company the boys you know sponsoring this team um yona and nick are both doing the individual division i could have seen

this i think this team could have even been a couple spots higher i think they actually complement each other very well uh you know but james similarly to jacob heppner is not necessarily competing for high level crossfit competitions anymore so this is more of a fun team than a trying to win. I mean, they'll still be competitive. James Newberry is still very competitive. But I think that compared to the teams ahead of them, it's going to be tough.

So this is the, this is his company, the boys, he and con Porter. Yeah. Oh, so that boys is like the boys. Oh,

so con ditched his team for a better team then what do they sell what's their they sell uh oh speedos oh god could you imagine hey is that what do you think they sell i mean i i thought it was an OnlyFans account. I thought that was Tanner Shuck in the middle there. It's not. Wow, can you imagine the DMs these guys get? Holy cow.

Okay, I guess you can ride a motorcycle without a helmet in Australia. That's cool. Freedom. Wow, holy cow cow look at this all right uh if to get any of your uh this these guys should be a sponsor of this show are you kidding me this is the perfect fit i would lose 20 pounds and wear one of those for a small fee i'm not what are you laughing at caleb i don't think you have 20 pounds to lose i do i do i have body dysmorphia don't fuck it up for me

that's a really weird page well you're just not into speedos uh hillar's wearing a speedo and a headband for the gauntlet bullshit he will not do it okay uh here we go uh training culture team we talked about that pantry brothers talked about the boys uh invictus tiny dancers with uh joshua alchama jorge fernandez and Dancer. Let me ask you something hard, Brian. Is Sam Dancer the weak link on this team or no? I think it's a pretty well-balanced team. If they were all competing in the individual competition, man, it would be tough to say who I would have ranked higher necessarily.

I think this is a good team, and I think it is probably the first team that we're going up here that I think does have an outside chance for the podium. By the way, anyone, if there's any agents out there who need models, that Joshua Alchama guy is like a model in the making. I mean, Jorge is not bad himself, but someone should grab those dudes. Start them an only fans page. Uh,

why, why so low? Uh, these two guys, uh, Joshua and Jorge have a lot of, uh, team competition experience together.

Isn't that experience going to count for a lot there? I know it definitely could. And that's why I'm saying like, this is to me as like the backend of what I would call like tier two of these teams. And they, you know, they certainly could finish. finish, I think it's maybe like fourth or fifth, I would say is maybe the ceiling for them. But yeah, they, they could be better than this for sure.

It's just, when you see the teams ahead, you see the caliber of individual athletes and you think about what John was talking about. When you put the games, the fitter athletes out there together, we haven't seen these guys at the games. A lot of the other ones we have, and we haven't seen these guys at the games a lot of the other ones we have and we know how good they can be this competition does have a lot of opportunity for one person to go and do their thing on their own and i think that they're that elite level fitness that some of these other teams has as individuals will transfer to success in water palooza this

year look at how much experience some of those teams have. Go ahead, John. I think this team in particular will have a roller coaster experience. Tiny dancers? I think they'll have events that they'll absolutely crush, and then I think they'll have events where they finish 15th, and then this is where they'll end up. They could be 5th or 10th tenth anywhere in between that ranking uh kenneth de la a missed opportunity they should have named their team uh meat mountain i agree meat mountain would have been good for uh joshua jorge and sam yeah that's gonna be a fun team to

watch all righty oh we're doing so good for time brian you're so proud of me 20 minutes yep uh king bk and friends good dudes i don't know if you guys can use that a trademark issue team go wad and zeus and the dogs wow look at ricky uh ricky tim paulson matt delugos was uh what's uh what's going on there now why do you hate ricky garard yeah i picked him to win the individual competition uh nothing no no problem with this team at all it's just a very competitive at the top um and i know and delugos surprised me last year how well he actually did fit in with Kahn and Newberry. And their team did extremely well.

I think this is a great team. I just think there's some teams that are slightly better. I want to ask you this question that Jay Crouch, Roman Krennikoff, Willie George's team. I was watching an interview, just kind of a vlog yesterday with Jay Crouch. And he was talking about wow the games athletes are really really good and it was it was post uh crossfit games this year nice nice there's a roman krennikoff and his newborn congratulations roman um jay crouch was talking in the video it seemed like he was shock maybe too strong but he was like holy shit like i thought i was good it's it's on another

level at the games the guys there are so freaking good when he goes on a team with someone like roman who is super human does he glean stuff off of roman and learn or does it fuck with his head going forward like oh shit like he's gonna stand next to arguably the the 2000 uh you know very easily to argue the 2023 crossfit games champ for an entire uh two days is that good for him or could that get in his head and be like fuck i'll never be like this i think it's good for jay but for the team dynamic i mean i think uh i think roman's too fit to be with these two and that sounds bad that's kind of my concern that's kind of my concern that it's gonna be so young though you can say that about rich every year he competes at the games and so and that never

seems to matter instead all the other guys raise their game and i think that's okay okay so those are the two options right john it's either gonna fuck with them or it's gonna they're gonna, I think Jay Crouch doesn't speak a different language than that. There is a, there is a potential for a communication barrier here. And I'd say that would be the biggest problem. And some of these events do require a lot of, uh, strategy communication and maybe the adaptability on the fly. So that could be an issue. So that could be an issue. But, you know, Roman has been spending a lot more time around people who speak English. I'm sure that he's getting better at at least being able to have small, meaningful communications, one and two word phrases. Jay Crouch is I would consider him meek as a personality off the competition floor. But I think even he undersells what he's capable of when when he's forced into action. And I think he'll rise to the occasion. I think they'll do very well. Yeah.

I, I, I'm really, I want to see Jay's an awesome dude. Awesome. Awesome dude. I really want to see him, uh,

go to the next level. The other thing about this team, and I know it hasn't been announced yet, but the final workout, I think that is going to be really good workout for them. For the, for those three. Yeah. So I think they can have a good chance to like move up a few spots with a maybe a winner a top three finish on the at the end of the competition dallin pepper james sprague jason

hopper amazing team but dallin came in last minute is dallin ready uh to put his body to this you know take his body to this place j James and Jason will be coming in fresh. Dallin will be coming off of the individual competition. And I mean, Dallin's is going to, I think he's going to be fight. He was fifth last year. I think he's going to be believing that he wants to fight for a podium spot. So his ability to rebound from that competition will probably influence how well this team can do.

John's got him third. They certainly could do that um i think james and jason are we're going to see very impressive versions of both of those guys in this competition it's just that to get into the top three there's you know we'll talk about in a second but there's some big dogs that you have to go through okay so dallin was already doing individual which makes my question moot uh what when decided to go team. So he was prepping for individual already? Yes, yes. Okay, okay, my bad. Poor question.

Any thoughts on that team, Mr. Young, Dallin, James, and Jason? Oh, I think they're going to make some noise. I think they – I mean, I have them as a podium finisher. I mean, I don't think they can beat the top two teams, but, um, I mean, I just think James and Jason, uh, will be able to carry Dallin if he's tired,

like the stuff that Dallin does. Well, they both do the same stuff. Well, John, let's have a, let's play a game. Who's going to do the handstand pushups.

Hopper. Who's going to do the pistols. Okay. They got one workout where it's like not gonna be yeah but that but that one workout but the problem is that that one workout is really good for a lot of the online qualifier teams and if 10 of those teams beat them on this they're immediately outside of the podium contention 10 teams will not beat them at that i think that 15 teams beat them on that workout i think they get eighth wow uh brian just said something pretty crazy is that math true brian is saying that if you fall out of the top

10 on any workout you're no longer in a podium contention that's how good this field is i think i mean that's representative of a typical field wouldn't you say oh yeah the problem with this thing i'm saying for this team i think all of the teams do have the chance to have a bad workout. In this team's case, the workout I think they're going to do worse on, they're going to do a lot worse on relative to the field because the field, and by the field I mean 11 through 43, is going to be better at that workout than the workouts that other teams will struggle with.

I mean, that's fair, but we've never let laura horvath having one bad event ever stopped her from being on a podium or anything like that and she's always got that coming and i think like the teams are very you can look at the games you can look at the games this year and see that that's not the case her worst workout was so much worse than mal's and that was the difference between second and third. Yeah, but not third and fifth. I'm saying, like, she's still going to be better. I don't have them second. There's a reason I have them third.

There's a reason I have them fifth. Okay. And it's that workout. Who's going to do the handstand push-ups for the King BK and friends, Tola Bjorkman, Carl Goodmanson, and Con Porter? BKG. I'm assuming you have them a lot lower because of Con's recent injury announcement that he made.

Yeah. And I'd submitted these before I knew about that. I think that if Con actually has a back injury, A, they might replace him on the team, or B, if they do compete with him, that ninth is more appropriate than fourth, given that. If they were healthy coming in, I think this team is definitely a threat for the podium.

But what you just said, what you just said with taking that into perspective, that would make the good dudes team fourth for you, and I have them third. And that's not, I mean, it's almost the same spot right um i think they'll negate the 42s workout on the 5k run alone 100 jr right but the but the teams that they're going to be battling with for the podium are not going to do as badly on the 5k run as they will do on the gymnastics workout uh what what's his injury what's con's injury he put a post up on instagram uh yesterday or the day before just saying that he had his back had been bothering him and limiting his training and he's been talking about retiring too right 10 minutes

talking about retiring too right uh i don't know i'm not sure about that answer me hey brian does tola have to run in that event on the 5k yeah everyone will everyone will have to do some running yeah well him running alone puts King BK and friends out of fourth. All righty. I do think that that team, Zeus and Dogs, Ricky, Tim, and Matt DeLugos, also will have some pretty amazing chemistry the same way Dallin, James, and Jason will. I think that those guys, I think Ricky and Tim and Matt will be really fired up and be able to push through some really dark spots. Tim Paulson is a very fiery.

Ricky is super mellow and Matt's right in the middle. And that's going to be a cool team to watch too. Those guys are going to get at it. Okay. Top three. Top four. Top three. This is where it matters who,

who competed in individual or not, because I think he would have the same first place team had they not been individual. Am I wrong or right in assuming that, Brian? I didn't understand that. What's John saying? John is saying that if there was no individual competition preceding it, he thinks I would pick the Canadian PB&J to win as he did, and and he's right that team i think on paper is the fittest if you're gonna you know if you just want to look

at these three teams alone i think it's fair to say that adler velner rich if he's healthy our top 10 in the world that cornway fukowski olsen mayor and probably chandler are next 10 in the world so you're looking at and then tyler christophel is probably the weakest of these of this entire group of athletes but he even though he hasn't made the games is probably one of the top 40 fittest in the world so you have an incredible you know grouping of athletes here i think that as three individuals velner fikowski and Adler are probably the best, but I think that Vellner and Fikowski are going to be selling their souls on, on a Friday to try to podium or win that competition. And that it's going to be very difficult for them both to rebound and have what it takes to go toe

to toe with two teams who are coming in completely fresh. Oh God God, if we can interview Vellner on Friday night, that would be amazing. He will be so articulate in his expression of how he feels in his body and what the next day is going to look like. Even though we both picked them second, I think that the safe pick here is the Mayor Olson-Smith to win.

I mean, they won it last year, and I know that this field is a lot better, but those guys are so good. They're so, they compliment each other so well. They have incredible chemistry. They're not focused on anything else. They're going to do a specific training program for a couple of days

leading into it. They're already down there. That's, I think that it's fair to say they're the favorites, even though neither one of us picked them. Who's going individual here out of this list? it just is it just velner uh of these kowski and adler not adler adler's fresh no one else on these top four in the fifth place or one down dallin pepper is and then but that's it here the only people going individual in this current, this page right here,

these, these, uh, top four are, uh, Patrick Valner and Fikowski. Yeah. Yeah.

Wow. Interesting. Okay. And then if the team is below that, Dallin Pepper is Roman Krennikoff is Ricky Gerard is the Invictus guys are not Nick Matthew and Yona Koski are. So, you know, it's about a third of the top eight teams that are doing it.

God, I would have liked to have seen you guys rank these athletes in order of just fittest if they did just a competition on their own. These 12 guys, that'd be cool. Who wins in a competition, Tola or Tyler Christofo? Tyler Christofo. Easy. I agree. it wouldn't be close okay so what i'm hearing from you guys is it's really hard to be confident about these three picks you guys are confident we don't know how good sam corn why is like this guy could be top 10 in the world also and he might be the and if rich isn't at 100 he might be the best person on their team in this

competition so tyler christopher has team experience like he is a very strong third person on this team there it's a much better team than they had last year for sure what was what was the team the best team it's the best team that rich has ever competed on at wadapalooza in terms of just men. Last year, what did Mayhem finish fifth? I think they were fifth last year. And I think it was Luke Parker and Angelo DiCicco. I think I've heard Rich say that Samwell is the best male team athlete he's ever competed with.

Well, just looking at, well well that's a big statement because and he can be in 2020 they won with scott panchik obviously he's won the games multiple times they won a wadapalooza with scott panchik there was no team competition that year they probably would have won he's won obviously with james hobart at the games but the other but uh yeah he's at wadapalooza his teammates in the past have been angelo and luke scott when there was teams of four dre strong when there was teams of four with women and then if you go back beyond that matt hewitt and james hobart back in 2016 where they tied for fourth so this is a strong team that he's coming in with in terms of especially just men and i

guess some people i guess he might have said that he doesn't think they're going to win, but I don't see any reason why they can't. I mean, I'm just looking at all the workouts and I'm like, they're going to be pretty solid across the board. And we've already talked about how several of these other top contending teams are clearly going to have one workout. That's going to set them back.

I think that they may not win any single event, but they might have the most consistent performances of anyone. you're not in the panchuk team because they'll get sixth place in every event no but you think about this these guys they can run they can swim they're none of them are super tall or super short they're good on you know burpees and snatches they're good on rowing and and wall balls like They're just good at everything. You wouldn't be surprised if any of these teams took the top three is what you're saying. Mayhem, the boys, and the Canadian PB&J, put them in any order

you want. It's fair. Yeah, I wouldn't agree with that. Yeah, I would agree with that too. I think he's selling Hopper's team short, but I would agree with that. If you just slot Hopper's team short, but I would agree with that. If you just slot Hopper's team up one, considering that Khan doesn't seem to be coming in healthy.

Yeah, that's the team that I would say has the biggest chance to up. The Hopper's team is the one I say has the biggest chance to upset the podium. But those, in my mind, those are the top three teams. Brian, where are you going at 9 a.m today i have a meeting a meeting for bar bend oh all right is it exactly at nine yeah okay uh any closing words uh john that you'd like to say about this i'm just excited to uh watch it watch it i really really am happy that they have team and individual on different days because it makes each competition

the center of attention. So it's much, much better for viewing, I think. Brian? I think that's well said. You won't be distracted by one or the other. You get two days to focus in on the individuals and really enjoy the entirety of that competition, and then we'll shift the focus to the teams. Um, there's going to be a lot going on out there. It's my main objective on the weekend being down there is to

hopefully do my best to help the broadcast, uh, portray all of the incredible performances that are going on, uh, individual and then team i am you know holding out an opinion about how good of an idea i think this is from wadapalooza but so far all the signs are really positive uh this is better than watching porn that's the nicest thing anyone's ever uh said to me and uh i think i could be huge kudos to wadapalooza for doing this format i'm i've never seen this before uh i think it's going to be great from the viewers experience it's going to let keeping the teams and the individuals separate like this is going to let us switch mindset it's going to let us really focus on

the individuals and then drop all those guys out of our brain and then really focus on the teams allowing both groups allowing the athletes to compete uh both is is amazing uh so the fans are rewarded heavily for that uh the fact that they let people come in last minute, if they have the pedigree and the background and the experience to be there, also wonderful. And finally, and most of all, thank you to Waterpalooza for giving us such great access. So I'm pumped.

I am more pumped for this than I have been for any game since I have done the behind the scenes. This is the most pumped I've been for any event, maybe. I guess Rogue is really nice, too, for the fact that they have such so few athletes. So that's always really fun, too, because you can really get a little myopic on them. But I'm pumped about this.

Well said. Caleb? No, Caleb doesn't get to say anything.