The Sevan Podcast - CrossFit Games Update Show Ep. 3

Episode Date: July 9, 2023

Welcome to this episode of the Sevan Podcast! 3 PLAYING BROTHERS - Kids Video Programming https://app.sugarwod.com/marketplace/3-playing-brothers/daily-practice BIRTHFIT Programs: Prenatal - https://marketplace.trainheroic.com/workout-plan/program/mathews-program-1621968262?attrib=207017-aff-sevan Postpartum - https://marketplace.trainheroic.com/workout-plan/program/mathews-program-1586459942?attrib=207017-aff-sevan Codes (20% off): Prenatal - SEVAN1 Postpartum - SEVAN2 ------------------------- Partners: https://cahormones.com/ - CODE "SEVAN" FOR FREE CONSULTATION https://www.paperstcoffee.com/ - THE COFFEE I DRINK! https://asrx.com/collections/the-real... - OUR TSHIRTS https://www.vndk8.com/ - OUR OTHER SHIRT https://usekilo.com - OUR WEBSITE PROVIDER 3 PLAYING BROTHERS - Kids Video Programming https://app.sugarwod.com/marketplace/3-playing-brothers/daily-practice Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

This is an advertisement from BetterHelp. Everyone knows therapy is great for solving problems. But turns out, therapy has some issues of its own. Finding the right therapist, fitting into their schedule, and, of course, the cost. BetterHelp can help solve these problems. It's online, convenient, built around your schedule, and surprisingly affordable, too. Connect with a credentialed therapist by phone, video, or online chat. Visit BetterHelp.com to learn more.

That's BetterHelp.com. Meeting with friends before the show? We can book your reservation. And when you get to the main event, skip to the good bit using the card member entrance. Let's go seize the night. That's the powerful backing of American Express. Visit amex.ca slash yamex. Benefits vary by card. Other conditions apply. Mr. Beaver, bam, we're live.

I don't know why I always send you the notes so late caleb and i don't even put the youtube links in there i'm so sorry like half the youtube links are missing so it kind of fucks you okay your thumbs up anyway all right like yeah you don't give a fuck like i got you you're still dealing with your shit uh welcome to the show uh mr spin the fastest news in the cross's space most accurate accurate, least talkative, and most enjoyable. What did they call him? The Ed Norton. He's the Ed Norton emoji. In the left-hand corner, we have Mr. J.R. Howell from CrossFit Crash and the founder and creator of the Crucible. And then there's like a team version of that too. And then John Young.

Okay. Staple. Just a staple. Just think of John as the staple. Hey, I got the J.Y. Barbell Club here, so I would like you to start saying that from now on when you introduce me. No one can even see that. What is that?

What is the J.Y. Oh, John Young Barbell. That's right. Right there. Okay. What is that? What is that? Oh, John Young Barbell. That's right. Right there. Okay. What is that? What is that? It is for anybody that wants to be better at weightlifting. I coach people online and in person. And you're strong?

I'm all right. Hold on one second. JR, is he any good? Yeah, he's strong. Yeah? He knows what he's doing? Yeah, he tested a workout a potential crucible workout for me no shit wow throw that on your resume and he said that i beat hopper by a minute that that is not that is not that's good let's go with it okay ladies and gentlemen uh premiering for you now um i bring to you the first uh peak ever the colton mertens documentary uh sponsored by uh swolverine

our uh our dear friend of the show uh colton mertens. It looks like Swolverine and him have partnered again. And this is going to be really exciting. Look at that shit. I mean, that is not what I thought it looked like. Before we hit play on this. Did anyone think it looked like that at the Colton Mertens pig farm? It looks sweet. Yeah.

It's exactly what I thought it looked like. Really? Yes. I expected more cornfields. She's suspected to be disgusting. I mean, that's cool shit. That's why, JR, why do I have the South? Wait, where is he from?

Iowa? Where is this? Why am I so? Yeah, he's, he's Iowa. I'm South Carolina, but that, that looks a lot like, I mean, around my house, like a lot of, yeah, a lot of good greenery. Yeah. I think that was just a disgusting pig farm.

And then he just sprinkled some swolverine powders on it and it just fucking made it all some swolverine creatine. And it made it look like that. Okay, let's play. Here we go. Hillsborough, Iowa. I think we really have to start with this. Who is Colton Burns? You know, who is he?

Like, what's his story? Where does it start? You know, let's go from there. Worst thing you can do is underestimate someone because the moment you think you have me, you don't. Why? Why? why why before i say where the heck is grunler i didn't invite him this week it's completely my fault he deserves to be here he's a badass but shit there's only real i gotta rotate him in i gotta rotate people in jr probably wishes grunler was here too and he was sleeping. It's 9.30 for him. Okay. Why? There was a series made.

Gabby Magawa, great athlete. Arguably significantly better than Colton Mertens. Arguably significantly has a better chance to win the games. She does a series. It just can't get any fucking views, right? There's other people out there putting out all this content. It can't get any views. Why?

What makes us want to see Colton Mertens? What the fuck is going on here? Why are we in Colton colton mertens fantasy land why do we like him jr well for me he's easy to pull forward because he's someone that people always will continuously stack the the the chips against right he's a he's an underdog for a lot of people who are watching. And he's somebody who doesn't have a typical job, at least up to this point. He says he's cut back a lot of hours on the farm, but he's like he's a working man, you know, and he spends every other hour of the day dedicated to his other craft, which is really cool. Mr. Spin, why? What's the fascination here with Mr mertens why am i in love with the mr merton story jr said it said it well i mean he when he when he was holding down a full-time job with doing working the farm and then you have you know uh so many of these workouts you don't think that

he's going to be able to hang with them and he does and then he hits the home runs on the workouts that do favor him. It's really cool to see. I mean, it's kind of like when Val Volberl was competing right as a teacher and she's doing all of that with a full-time job and still hanging with him as a mom. Like it's really cool to see, you know, it's one thing to work it out in the gym five, six hours a day, and that's all you do but for him i mean you just have to root for him uh before john answers the question let's get to some of the

comments here uh helping where is helping said no one no no we care where you are too uh mr help you're stuck tyler watkins where's he i mean there's only so much room uh uh man of the people says uh kenneth the lap about uh colton merton's uh mason mitchell uh game recognized game he says Man of the People, says Kenneth DeLapp about Colton Mertens. Mason Mitchell, game-recognized game. He says he's a man. Audrey, every girl wants to sit on his face. Wow. Okay.

Interesting. Humble and underdog. Okay. I like it. Oh, Swolverine chimes in, biased. They're paying for the documentary. Most athletes these days don't have full-time jobs or jobs that are labor-intensive. Fair enough. So you think that's why we like him? John Young, why do we like him? Why are people going to watch this? What's the fascination we have here on the Savant Podcast with Mr. Mertens? the he's the rudy of crossfit if you've ever seen the movie rudy i mean he's five foot nothing a hundred and nothing and he gets to go to madison and be one of the fittest guys in the world like i think um i think people look at colton especially people who want to compete and i think

like you know at first you see these these monsters who do crazy things and you're like i'll never be able to do that but then if you see colton mertens you're like if he's five foot four and can compete with these guys and not only compete but win events and home be a home run hitter of the games there's no reason that i can't if i put enough hard work and like i think um he's relatable like there's that is that. He is built to not be good at the CrossFit game. He's too small. He just is. And yet, here he is.

Too harsh of a statement, JR? He's built not to be good? I mean, that's the biggest dig you could take. Well, I think that he... I'd say the same about Fakaustukowski i think he's as much of an outlier right as as the biggest athlete is no come on come on come on you think he's as big of an outlier as fukowski yes yeah no uh i wouldn't say that no thank you mr spinn jesus christ these guys are two white beaters on and they think everything that they think is true now.

Maybe like an Asia Bartow. Who's the next tallest guy? Jelly. The Jelly Donut. No, no, no, no, no. After Mertens, who's next? Who's the next shortest guy? You can't say Matt Fraser.

He's not there. That's five foot six. Who is it? I don't know. I'm asking you. We don't know because there's no other. He's not there. Who is it? I don't know. I'm asking you. We don't know because there's no other person that's that short. Tetlo is right there with him, but he didn't make it.

Adjust your mic, Mr. Young, please. Is it better? I think it got a little bit better. Maybe pull your headset down just a little bit. Enlongate it just a little bit. Yeah, much better. Thank you. Hey, Brian, how tall is Uldis? He's pretty short, right?

He is. 5'7"? Yeah, 5'6". He's still not close. There's just a couple guys that are also around Fikowski's height that made it to the games this year. Hopper's 6'2". Fikowski's 6'2".

Vellner's 5'11". Roman's 6'. There's three inches to the next guy from Mertens James is 6'3 yeah thank you Audrey for the technical advice Isaac's Snuts

Isaac D. Snuts Isaac Isaac the nuts I haven't figured that one out yet. I think it's Phil Toon. Oh, Phil Toon. Thank you. What is that one? That's a joke one, right? Isaac DeNutz. Isaac DeNutz. Isaac DeNutz. Isaac DeNutz. Isaac DeNutz. What is that one? Thank you. Thank you, Audrey.

Here's the thing. Colton is 5'4". I think it's just as simple as Isaac Deez Nuts. But then that doesn't even make sense. There's like a joke that's supposed to say something. It's supposed to say something funny like I suck on nuts or something like that. No? I don't think so. Oh, okay.

Isaac Deez Nuts. Fuck it. All right. Two bucks. I wish I could say it right. Two, okay. Isaac De Snuts. Fuck it. All right. Two bucks. I wish I could say it right. Two bucks is a lot of money. Oh, wait, wait. I suck these nuts.

Yeah, that's what I mean. Thank you. Thank you. I suck these nuts. I suck the nuts. I suck the nuts. He's 5'4". You guys, after 5', I think I looked it up one time.

At 5'5", you're like in the 9% of the population is shorter than you. At 5'4"? Is that the world or America? That's a good question. I can't remember. But, I mean, dude, Colton does not see men smaller than him unless he's fucking like going to Guatemala. Racist. Lucky camera straps from Australia, $14.99. Cons99 consistent i wish i could give you something in return still pretty relevant that matt won five times in a row at five six when did we uh last

have a six foot plus winner we haven't we've never had one there's never been one uh i'm very much looking forward to the Wolverine movie. Congratulations, Colton. You're a fucking rock star. Thank you. I think the consensus is that you're every man's man. You're an underdog. You work hard. And as Tony Merton says,

Colton has the biggest heart. Oh, you think that's his dad? I don't know maybe mom tony can go both ways uh enormous tits say my say my and love say my and love say my say my name and love you know enormous tits okay uh graham holmberg may be the closest to 6' Yeah, probably 5'10 Yeah, and I mean after this year we still won't because Patrick Bellner is only 5'11 Savon, did you secure Colton's

coach's pass? I have not but I do think that there are some interesting things happening in my relationship with the games this year and if you're a sponsor as an irishman would say uh tings are brewing you should jump on board now and thank you uh california peptides uh i would um okay uh next on the list uh it looks like that there is a event Called the Dirt City Classic Did you say dirt?

Oh desert Desert City All that matters is who's programming The Desert City Classic is powered by A self-made training program Our very own Wednesday night show Taylor Self with J.R. Howell

And who joined them last week, Mr. Brian Friend Is doing doing the programming. What's up, J.R.? What is this? What's going on here? What's up? Yeah, it's a competition that reached out to Taylor wanting some help with the program design. So we kind of all collaborated together on individual, team, you know, all of it. Fair enough. What city when i think this is at asu i want to say arizona state university but it is like maybe at at on their campus holy shit right what's the data what's the date of that uh if you go to their profile i'm pretty sure it's listed there yeah uh you know who will be in town in arizona november 10th and 11th

you the founder of crossfit greg glassman oh that'd be cool to get him out there yeah i wonder if they know about that if they're if they're local people if they're not i'm outers uh they should definitely reach out to him so far i've been really really easy to work with so awesome followed by paper street coffee all right um brandon lacroix oh no brandon lacock uh now that dave is back will we see 70 different capacity this year at the games the live last year was awesome but in person is better in my opinion. Can I confirm or deny? Next up, we're cruising today. I love this.

We're cruising today. Next up, Coffee Wads and Pods interviewed Ben Bergeron. It sucks when I think I hit a grand slam and I realize I only hit a home run. And Pedro, the Savant podcast European correspondent, then takes another shot at Ben Bergeron and fuck, man, Grand Slam. Here we go.

Another thing on Savant's show, you mentioned that Harry was deeply integral to Comtrain starting and growing and becoming what it was. When he decided to leave, do you mourn that? No, Harry was one of my closest friends and he wanted to try something he was either going to go and become a firefighter he was going to go back to school so he was kind of trying to figure out what's next in his career he ended up just taking a fair

amount of time off before finding what was next one of my very closest friends no longer working for me of course there's this moment of like, not mourning, but loss. There's a space that probably won't ever be filled, but also super happy for the next evolution of what he wants to take in his own career and personal life. When he joined HVPO though, were you like, God, that was... Mixed emotions.

So A, that's kind of weird. mixed emotions. So a, that's kind of weird, but B, I hope that he can find a lot of satisfaction and I hope that he's taken the time to know that this is the right next move. Do you mean weird as in, Oh,

that's weird. I thought that you were at, that this wasn't the thing for you, but now you're back. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Another, another thing. thought that this wasn't a thing for you, but now you're back. Another

thing. Friendship. Friendship is something interesting, isn't it? JR, you built something with a friend, Harry and Ben ben were friends and i i i know i know it's not marriage

but then he goes up to hwpo and then not only does he go up there but amanda barnhart goes up there katrin goes up there who else went up there other other athletes quant went up there who were all former uh comp train athletes any thoughts anything you want to chime in uh jr uh like ben great job really um no i was parent of you or ben fuck man you fucked up and dropped the ball and lost your guys or what's your thoughts on this no i can actually relate this to something the conversations i've had with my coaches believe it or not i've told all of them hey listen there's a lot of people to go around there's a lot of people to do CrossFit if you

guys ever just decided that you wanted something of your own you wanted your own gym just come to me and tell me like straight up I've told him that and good luck. So like for me, if I were in Ben's shoes, I would have just wanted a friend or a coach just come to me and say, Hey, listen, I got this great opportunity to go work with these other people and I'm excited about taking it.

That would hurt, but it would be way easier to swallow. I think maybe than the situation that transpired here. What about Jason Hopper trained with you? And then he went to HWPO. Did that hurt? No, not at all.

He was, he was, he was, he was always with them, right? Like he, he was, yeah.

Jake and Matt were always his coaches. He was just, he had a crush on Matt the first day he saw him. He was just training at crash. Like I was like, I was just his home gym that he trained at but he was always their athlete as far as program design and all that stuff goes all right uh mr spin thoughts on um comp train um and uh and ben bergeron kind of doing this uh tour

and making himself vulnerable and kind of spilling the beans. I mean, I'm not surprised by that. Like, I mean, he's always been, I think fairly open or try to be open at times, you know, as things have happened, you know, it's all being a personal accountability and, and just how he talks about the mindset and all that stuff for him to kind of share that i mean i think a lot of people in the space wouldn't be that open with it um but like even i think he said on your show that he was um kind of went the wrong direction right like he kind of miscalculated where the sport was going and kind of got thrown a curveball.

And he's recalibrating. So it's good to hear that he's actually going to be open with us versus a lot of people I don't think would ever open themselves up and be that vulnerable to criticism. John, same question, but kind of to add on what's been with saying, well, fuck us. Who cares? What's it do for his brand? Do athletes are like, wow, Ben's really cool. I want to go up there. Like, I get it. This is, this is, or they fuck this guy's a pussy.

He dropped the ball and now he's a fucking sharing his dirty laundry. I don't think athletes are thinking anything of it because it's not his anymore. He's giving it to Cole. All right. I almost feel like he's giving cola a failing business um i i do think it's nice i do think it's i have a lot of respect for ben that he is very open like i'm i'm messed this up um it was flourishing and we tried to do this and we failed and now it's we're trying to fix it um but he's leaving so like he's it's he's being very open um but then he's just giving it to cole and i mean i

i hope all the best for cole but man i feel like it's gonna be hard to turn it to turn it around or at least get back to where it was. I don't think – I don't see that in the future. Judy Reed expressing my sentiments also. Sevan's show with Bergeron was so good. Thank you. I agree. He won back a ton of people. I think being so vulnerable and honest. Yep.

Kudos to Pedro for two follow-up questions for just really drilling down and uh and getting clarity clarity and uh depth on the situation um plus seven seven please if you were an elite athlete would you want to be coached by cole sager who's also currently still an elite athlete and said on the podcast, I'm going to coach you, but I'm still going to try to beat you. Why would that make you want to go to comp training? I've only spoken with Cole a handful of times, and these are my thoughts on Cole. Extremely kind, extremely pleasant, extremely professional.

And by professional means like I couldn't get, I couldn't, I never felt like I ever really connected with him, but I felt, but I really liked them. But there was, I always felt like that there was a veneer or an air of like professional to him, like, like over properness for me. And so I don't know, I can't speak to him. But, I mean, he's a class act. You know what I mean?

I mean, I think he's the kind of guy who fucking holds it. No woman ever walks in a door behind this dude. You know what I mean? He's been to the games 10 times. If you walk in the room, Cole stands up. He shakes your hands. He's nice to kids. You know what I mean?

He doesn't kick dogs. I mean, fuck. I got, like, so I don't know. I don't know. I can't answer the… Does any of those things make you a good coach no but i don't know you you i mean you seem to have you guys would know better than me i don't know but but but i guess i guess in just in terms of his values that he seems um a hard worker committed um i don't i don't doubt that he's not going to give his fullest.

Right. Right. I don't know. I just would rather get like Matt's not competing anymore. So it's a little different with him, but like, I don't know. You take like somebody like Nick Fowler and Roman.

I know, I know they're not together anymore, but I would rather get coached by Nick than Roman. I would rather get coached by Michelle with Honda than Belner.ner like it's it's i see what you're saying i think certain people make okay so your big hangout with cole is like hey you're divided you got kids at home you got your games athlete and you're gonna fucking coach me it's a different beast it's different it's different right what about what about uh froning he doesn't coach. All right. Fair enough. Okay.

Facundo is running that stuff, isn't he? They have a whole crew. They have a lineup of coaches. Yeah. Yeah. I'd rather get coached by Shane than Tia. You know what I mean? Even though Tia is the one that's doing it. And Shane's not an elite athlete at all.

But it's a different thing. I think a lot of people would like to be coached by Shane. You guys agree? Yeah, I think he's good. I did notice, I did find out and see that Sydney's been getting specific weightlifting training by a guy here in Nashville. Who is? I think it's like Nashville Weightlifting. Who's getting the training from her?

No, Sydney. Sydney Wells. Oh. Yeah. She has some videos like Nashville weightlifting. Who's getting the training from her? No, Sydney. Sydney Wells. Oh. Yeah. She has some videos on Nashville weightlifting. Jeremy, world, Michael, I don't know where this fits in, but Michael Jordan would have never wanted to be coached by Charles Barkley. I don't think Michael Jordan wanted to be coached by anybody.

Golf, Foxtrot, Yankee, I did not have an appetite for nothing burgers this evening. Don't worry, we're not serving any. So they're just serving gack and balls. Okay. Um, I want to talk. I want to talk about the doc. I'm not sure what that YouTube link is. here what what video what have i linked you to um is there a time code on that oh is this just the what what is this oh thank you okay uh thank you so of all the comments i saw in the documentary there was a documentary that was released a couple weeks ago an enormously missed opportunity by crossfit uh we've beat you know i don't think it ever went i don't know if it ever reached number one on the movies but every time cross that releases anything on itunes if it's promoted even at all halfway decently it'll reach number one on itunes and it will be a win for affiliates worldwide because there's 700 million apple tvs

that have been sold worldwide and when people click on that movie icon, they'll see the CrossFit movie. Whether they click it or not, what it does is it adds brand value. People want to be with winners. Even if you hate CrossFit, you'll even be like, fuck, those fuckers are at number one again. And it could stay on that homepage for 10 weeks if it's promoted properly. But it was not. promoted properly but it was not and uh then the movie came out and people were um saying a lot of there were a lot of positive things but people were saying some negative things and i want to address a couple of them people were saying that it was the same thing that it was every year well

uh for starters uh she was only given mariah moore was on this show and she was on talking elite fitness and she was only allowed um uh she was only given three weeks notice i think before she had to make this movie. She had an extremely limited budget, and I thought it was a fucking miracle. And I thought the shooting and editing and audio and everything was stunning and top-notch and beyond professional. On top of that, it's an hour and 40 minutes, and people are upset that there were things left out like Rebecca Fusli at the Capitol event. Now, I get it. It's not that – but please be careful with what you write.

Hey, this movie is stupid because it didn't include. It's an hour and 40 minutes. If you want to see that stuff, what they could have done, what they should have done is they should have put that in the iTunes Extra. they could have done what they should have done is they should have put that in the itunes extra um um hamilton road charlie doobie's company made some amazing fucking content called was it miles to madison and in that there's a whole episode where uh it's the capital event and they could have put that in the extras in itunes or someone could have told mariah hey let's make this a uh three one hour movies let's make this three one-hour movies. Let's make this a miniseries.

She probably didn't have that latitude. So just be careful with the criticism you guys put in here if you want to help forward things and get movies like this being made. All your negativity is going to get it killed, and we're going to fucking lose everything. For example, don't be the jackass who orders something from Amazon and gives it a one star because it arrives damaged. We don't give a fuck that it arrives damaged. We're not reading the reviews to find out how it arrived.

I think what I see happen, and Mariah said it when she was talking to you, was they got input from the athletes. It sounds like CrossFit had multiple layers giving input of pulling stuff out what they didn't want to see. And she was hamstrung from what she could produce. Yeah, that sucks too, right? It reduces the drama, the tension,

the stuff that could be controversial. Right. And I don't think athletes should be allowed to do that unless it's like personal. For instance, I bet you fallout or something or like yeah yeah yeah but like like so say i bet tia would have pulled uh from 2016 when she was looking on mopey and telling the camera person to not film her because she was in the leader's jersey in the 2016 documentary i bet she would have taken that wanted that taken out if she had the option and we would have never gotten to see that and the change of personalities that we see today

or how about the footage in the one year in the documentary that i captured that shows benny handing uh ricky a vial of something as they go into the final they would have definitely wanted that ricky didn't want that shit in there i mean even if it was nothing it's like Ricky didn't want that shit in there. I mean, even if it was nothing, it's like... Right. I think those things need to be as raw as possible. Okay. Anyone else?

JR, you want to say anything about the documentary? Well, I was actually going to say, I just started watching it today and I'm exactly halfway through it. So a unique perspective that I have about it, just only listening to what you guys have said after seeing the whole thing, knowing now that people requested certain things to be taken out and she was

given a really short amount of time. I guess I'm, I'm not surprised and am enjoying the fact that it really is just like a recap of the week who was leading after which event, who was still on the running and not like the random other person who strap broke on their jerry can when they went to pick it up, right? Like just something silly like that. Like little tidbits of people that maybe aren't as relevant to the leaderboard were definitely left out. And now I know at this point, I'm probably not going to get any of that. And that's okay,

because there is a lot of consistency and congruency from at least beginning to middle i kind of know what it is now and i know what to expect moving forward watching it from a fan standpoint i think it'll be more appreciated like two or three years from now when you just want to remember what happened you know i mean the story and what who was in the lead and all that stuff um without like looking on youtube and watching 15 events does that make sense yeah but i mean to pull what they had with mal and matt about not you know having to rein her in and how she just wants to keep going and they cut that into just just the best part i guarantee if that would have gone from instead of a minute to three minutes, like you have a better appreciation for what was there.

You mean extend that portion, give us even more insight into Mal and Fraser? Yeah, that part was intense. And like if she said something about Roman, and I don't know what he was saying about, it sounds like Russia or something like that. Like those small little things. I mean, it could have been just been Mal and Matt,

what Roman said, giving him a more look of whatever Tia had said and had pulled like just those three sections could have changed my personal view of what I was able to take away from that documentary. What about the part when, what did you think about the parts? I didn't mean to get this deep into the doc, but what did you think about the part

when Tia looks at Shane and says, I'm doing this for me? The final workout, she's basically talking about how she's not going to win the event, but she's going to fucking take a few deep breaths and look around. That was fucking intense.

It looked like there was something there to unpack also, like her and Shane had something, there was something there oh it was so different from how she started the documentary and her her attitude and persona to what you saw at the very end of the competition and all those interviews were throughout those interviews were done the day after right so she had 12 18 hours after that kind of show of emotion to then saying she's the most dominant and this tough attitude that nobody can ever beat her. But I don't think you've ever really seen

that emotional side of her. Like you've seen the quiet, I can't win side, but the emotive side you've seen the quiet, don't, you know, I can't win side, but the emotive side you've never seen on the competition floor or, you know, before that. I was agnostic on her going into the documentary. I didn't like her or dislike her. I just didn't. She's just kind of like a plain Jane to me. She's just a champ, kind of like a robot.

And then by the end of the documentary, I really liked her. Like it made me really want to see her compete again you know who i was surprised was super emotional like the whole time was matt fraser he yeah that was great look at matt too seven times in the documentary dude he looked like he he looked like he hadn't slept in a month he didn't even look like himself. Yeah, I enjoyed Fraser in the doc for sure. The peek at him. Lucky camera straps just throwing out the loot today. And thank you for my

mouse pad. It's been a while since I... Still smells like dead cow. I love that. It definitely could be longer or even a series. Would love to hear your thoughts on what made the old doc so special buttery bros plus mariah plus seven behind the scenes equals that secret sauce for sure there was another dude there too um to uh who's the only guy i ever

fired at crossfit before the mass slaughtering named ian wittenberg and he was a fucking beast that guy was fucking good he actually edited the doc this year with Mariah. He was so fucking good. So basically they had this crazy team. Mariah Moore, Heber, Marsden, Ian, and then they had Torrin Simpson, won a bunch of Emmys, worked with the Raiders and the 49ers. Their team was crazy. And then they – i don't think they

relied on my behind the scenes much they had access to all that footage and i think they use some of it now and again but um maybe just a year or two i think your behind the scenes added some extra context that the documentary didn't have to do right or you had that context so you could apply to the documentary it felt like occasionally they were trying to do a couple behind the scenes discussions that were mixed into the documentary yeah versus when you got to see what you captured behind the scenes and then you go watch the documentary you could draw upon things that you that they had talked about separately and added more color to what was

said in a in the documentary you're not going to get in a documentary a 10-minute exchange between a travis mayer and brooke wells you're just not they don't have they can't do that you can't just leave 10 minutes of just them stretching and playing with rubber bands and making us making fun of travis mayer's um instagram following but in the behind the scenes you can it's fucking seven parts that are an hour long each. It's like, fuck. That's their favorite things to watch are those small,

stupid things. Right. Right. All right. Uh, anyway, uh, go out and get the documentary. Great stuff.

Um, and, thank you. Uh, lucky. Thank you. Okay. Um,

a video came out by Patrick Vellner and Fikowski about the PFAA. And I have to tell you, for some reason, I have a – it's the Professional Fitness – anyone? Athletes Association. Oh, Professional Fitness Athletes Association? Yes. Okay. anyone association oh professional fitness athletes association yes okay and i watched this video twice believe it or not it's weird to say that embarrassed but the first time i was like really annoyed and the second time i was less annoyed um but basically they're an organization that's – they say their primary purpose in their current state, in their infancy – they admit they're in their infancy – is to – hold on. I have it here in my notes.

Here we go. Where is it? Where is it? Fairness and safety. Fairness and safety are – they're in their infancy, and their two biggest things are fairness and safety. And they're currently working on pull-up bars. They want to find a good pull-up bar height that works for everyone and makes sure risers are available and whatnot. But there's shit in there that just kind of fucking – let's play 240. Let's play like 20 seconds at 240.

PFAA has – they claim they've done something, and I just don't think they've done anything. Really what I think they are is they're kind of like the DEI council. I think that CrossFit gave them sort of their own little space just to kind of appease them. Do you know what I mean? But they're actually not going to have any effect. And the reason why they're not going to have any effect is because golf last year sold $10 billion in golf balls. That's not in golf carts. That's not in golf clubs. That's not in like – that's just balls.

Balls. $10 billion in balls. That's just balls, balls, $10 billion in balls. To put it in perspective, tennis in 2021 sold $34 billion in golf ball – sorry, in tennis ball machines. Imagine that, tennis ball machines. And they're trying to compare CrossFit to these types of sports sports and i just don't think we're anywhere near there okay let's play let's play a little bit of this hopefully they won't uh get angry i think this is uh royce dunn by the way in australia they cut back and forth between royce's presentation and patrick velner and fikowski's presentation okay here we

go action the players that the athletes there's no sport um to have their say and to have kind of their um their perspective taken into consideration which i think crossfit is famously known for for being a bit um bullheaded in that way pause our way of the highway i don't i don't like that i'm already defensive you're telling me the crossfit used to be a bit bullheaded it's our way or the highway it's like dude like like my wife's in the kitchen like making a fucking roast beef and it's like i need to stay out of the kitchen and just let her make it uh thoughts uh jr i did you think crossfit i don't head it or what i think as an athlete if you're speaking from past personal experiences that's okay okay okay those are your own so that's yeah okay so he thinks so so Royce thinks that

they've been a bit bullheaded in the past yeah that's what it sounds like and and how do you interpret a bullheaded spin what do you think that is getting not accepting feedback yeah I mean I think that's what they they would say um that their their concerns were not heard in the past my thought though is when you have you know a hundred different voices screaming at you how do you pick which ones you need to listen to like there wasn't ever a concise message that focused on the most important things. Every athlete probably had a different thing to say, and it may have felt like they weren't listening because yours wasn't being heard, but somebody else's may have been.

Yeah, there's a little bit of whininess, not from you, but that explanation is how I understand too, and there's a little bit of whininess there that's irritating me uh mr young thoughts on the pfa do they not is brent not like the the speaker though do they not have like one guy that brings up the he is he's the guy everybody wants yeah brent brent is the guy they take like he says somewhere in there that they're going to do a survey at the games and find out what types of things that athletes are interested in and they're going to bring that to crossfit and when he kind of presents it like that i'm like okay but you know what else they say in here they say play at 558 basically they're claiming that the athletes know what's needed and i would

argue that the athletes are the least relevant in what's needed. Okay, here we go. Action. You put your head down, you show up to the next one. And unfortunately, often the same mistakes repeat. We know what the sport needs more than a lot of other people. There's also, you know, we coordinate and speak with major organizations that organize competitions. But they're not on the floor a lot of the times, right? And you can program a workout. You can test a workout nine ways till sunday and unpredictable things happen because we're trying to game it

we're trying to gain an advantage and you know oftentimes the athletes i envision is better than even the organizers right so okay i i couldn't disagree more um i think that if growth is the goal the athlete's opinion uh matters the least mr young thoughts on that for what specifically what do i care if the athletes want runners what do i care about the pull-up height that they want if my goal is growth if my goal is growth like i feel like they have the least insightful input period i believe that um i believe if you brought your grandmother john her opinion would be more important than those guys or anyone sitting in the audience really do i'm not even i think that

their opinion matters the least i don't i don't disagree completely with what you're saying. I do think their opinion matters a little bit. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. I think it matters a little bit too. And for instance, like the grip thing, the grip thing. And I know we'll talk about that a little bit later, but like the, the rule book, they got sent with the grips, right? I think the athletes should be like this is ridiculous uh 35 out of 40 of us have signed this thing that says this is stupid take it out and crossfit should respect that and take it out i want to think about that spin what do you think about that fuck john young

just fucked me up a little bit to a fucking hand grenade and then rolled my window up i want to think about that spin what do you think about that fuck john young just fucked me up a little bit to a fucking hand grenade and then rolled my window up i agree with what john said it's i think they can they need to have a voice i don't think it's crossfit should do everything that the athletes say but if there's a consensus that something needs to change or something is you you know, like, like the grip situation, like if they're all saying this is crazy, then CrossFit should probably listen to them, but they should probably do that before they go out and share the standards.

Like it should be published. And then the PFAA has to react to it and say no let's go backtrack like it's unfair that you're using this as an example because you're just right off the bat that was just a they should just anyway thoughts jr on this on what uh john said uh athletes uh should get to decide vote and be like hey we we want grips and length shouldn't matter or let's get rid of grips i mean if i was dave right there i'd just get rid of grips. I mean, if I was Dave right there, I'd just get rid of grips. I'd have been like, Hey, sorry about the mistake. No grips allowed. No, I actually, I was just going to backtrack to your initial question. Okay. And comment like you kind of run their camp that they're all just dance monkeys and like,

they just need to be performing and it doesn't matter who they are. They're all expendable, which I don't agree with at all. I think for growth, you need the superstars. And if you want the same people to stick around year after year after year, something like this needs to be a part of the sport. Fair enough. All right. And what do you think they should do? Do you think they should give me an example of something that you think they should be doing? You like what they're doing then? Fairness and safety? You like those two issues? Yeah. I mean, I think those are, those are two really, really, really important things. I think going into a competition, knowing that my lane and my equipment and my distance from object one to two to three is the same as everyone else's, that kind of stuff is really important when you're competing. And then knowing that you're not going to be put in harm's way intentionally, right, in your career. So I think those two things are definitely at the top of the list.

I really don't mind that it's head by two people that are still actively competing. I actually think that's a plus because they are sitting in briefings. They're a part of communication with things changing during competitions, all that kind of stuff. So they can use that stuff to say, Hey, this happened here. I think in the future, this is probably not the best plan. This is the feedback we got from athletes in the warmup area. This is the feedback we got from their coaches after the competition, all that kind of stuff.

I think having someone in the fight while it's relevant is very important. I agree completely with that. I think it would be beneficial to them to also bring in some former athletes who are not tied to the sport anymore, that don't have, that aren't coaching. Oh God, I want to throw up, Brian. No, just... I'm just thinking of the the pfaa right like get some other perspective of people

that have been there that aren't don't have anything you know like don't have any skin in the game right now like maybe i mean heppner still coaches i think some people i don't know um mean hepner still coaches i think some people i don't know um but i don't know i mean just to get a different perspective if you're outside the sport you've competed you understand what they're saying maybe you have a better perspective now that you're out of the sport so do you think josh would have some strong thoughts about a lot of the issues and stuff like making sure like like making sure that yeah like making like if brent was like making, like if Brent was like, Hey, I can always grab the pull-up bar standing flat footed and I can't even kip. Do you think Josh would be like, yeah, that's messed up.

We should probably get that raised. I don't know, but I do agree with that. I do agree. Like, like it's fucking asinine. What happened to Scott Pancheck that the ropes were on the ground. It was asinine that, that Laura and, um, and Gabby McGaw was sold their souls and the fucking the ground it was asinine that that laura and um and gabby magawa sold their souls and the fucking wrong weight was on the bar it's asinine that matt delugos has to worry about hitting his feet and breaking his fucking back doing kipping pull-ups yes i i think those things

are asinine like josh just seems though like also like someone that if if he was a part of this group and maybe disagreed with the opinions of others he would also be sure of himself to speak up and say, nah, I think you guys are just whining about that. I don't think that's a big deal at all. Yeah. Like comfortable, comfortable going against the grain. Maybe, maybe you guys have won my heart a little bit. Okay. A PFAA Fikowski and Velner and Roy Dunst, Royce Dunn. Jeez Louise. i worked so hard not to say that

uh i i would give you guys this little bit of advice uh this is what i would give the pfa and feedback in the video one uh befriend hiller uh he is the most powerful voice in the space when it comes to uh probably if uh changing what you guys get get to do what you don't get to do i think he plays a significant role in that. Embrace Hiller. Lean into him. Number two, in the video where Roy Dunn finishes – Royce Dunn. Fuck.

Why is that? Is that hard for anyone else? Royce Dunn finishes talking. It's a good presentation that Royce Dunn finishes talking. It's a good presentation that Royce Dunn gives, and it just shows the people, all the athletes stand up and look at their phones and walk away. If you want your closing shot, it should be the athletes shaking Patrick's hands and Fikowski's hands and hugging Royce Dunn

and not giving a fuck. I'm telling you, those little things will really matter because it really looks like no one gives a shit except i'm telling you those little things will really matter because it really looks like no one gives a shit except the presenters if you watch this video and and i was picking up on that yeah i saw that too um mike albin i was booted from seven's text message thread not a youtube chat for having a differing opinion that being said no one here booted me oh geez get to know yourself and your roots better in 2024 with ancestry dna want to know where your

family comes from in northern france maybe you'd like to see how your genes influence certain traits like diet fitness and allergies there's so much of you and your heritage to discover. Visit Ancestry.ca and get started with an Ancestry DNA kit today. I googled. Where's someone getting these numbers? I googled. I googled. I googled. From your mom mason all right i'm so far behind in the chat booted he was booted i don't know was he booted god that was fucking that was pretty funny you ever seen a fight in a chat i i come to my phone sometimes and there are 84 text messages and I'm just like, what has happened now?

I couldn't believe it. I was live in the show and I just saw like how I thought I saw help and leave. And then I was like, oh, I saw someone booted up. OK. I think you were booted on accident greg okay uh that that it was it was weird i don't know what i don't know what to do but i don't know what to do about that i kind of was like i hope no one ever boots me okay um oh one more thing at 9 49 i do want to say this i want to do say sorry caleb can you bring up the um um the video at 9 49 patrick velner says ready hey look uh caleb never believes me watch he'll go before 9 49 he never believes me he's been damaged from

that frisbee show we did i fucked them all all up. Okay, here we go. The idea of what we're doing and who we are and how this has progressed. We kind of started in 2020 when there was a bit of that blackout around the 2020 games. COVID hit. Glassman was booted. There was all kinds of stuff going on. Okay. First of all, it wasn't COVID that hit. It was the reaction people had to COVID, the morons on the planet.

And second of all, Greg Glassman was not booted. But that's – it's like just be accurate with that. Greg Glassman was not booted. He sold – what did you call them? Dancing monkeys, JR? I viewed them as dancing monkeys. He sold the dancing monkeys. And got a house on the lake.

Barry McCockner, $2. Hello, John Young. How are you? Hello, Barry. Teddy Williams, the professional and personal, that's what I meant, personal videographer and propagandist for the great Colton Mertens. Brooke Lakey, I think that's the dude that's catch and bangs, was on the

NHL Players Union for 14 years during his career and was one of the main leaders during the last lockout. It seemed like it wasted opportunity not getting him more involved. Oh, you mean with the... Yeah, you might be right, but sometimes it's like

you don't want to bring a mallet somewhere where you just need like a tiny little rubber mallet you know what i mean you don't want to bring like a fucking um sledgehammer where you just need a little tiny um finishing nail hammer you know what i mean you could really piss some people off. Yeah. Barry McOchner, thank you for no more disc golf as well. You're welcome. I don't know if it's gone forever. Jeremy World, I'll throw in my hat to replace Halpin in that chat. Sounds like it needs some diversity anyways.

I don't think we have any black guys. I'll check. Okay. Here's the thing. I think that, I think that that group's only going to get smaller. I'm just kind of, it's like going to be like,

just everyone's going to get kicked out until there's just two dudes left. Okay. Is there anything you guys want to say about the, Oh, let me, let me do this real quick. We're on a roll. Let's look at that drug video.

This is from the barbell spin. Um, Brian spins, uh, Instagram account. It looks like someone popped for drugs. I don't – it's fine. It's like no big deal. Just a team person, right?

Yeah. They finished 12th, I think, on North America West. So they were out of contention anyway. But, yeah, they tested two. They only test two athletes of the teams. Um, and so, uh, what I was told is Dylan and, uh, this athlete, Alyssa were, were the two tested on the team. So, um, another, uh, GW five Oh one, five, one, six.

Uh, wow. Spin. So I know he, Spin. He's a killer. I know. He trained me well. It's the second one with that being a failed test this year. We've only gotten two, I think, from semifinals so far.

A way less than last year. This would have been the second week, right? This was week two, yes. So if it's only two out of two weeks, that's much better than last year. Who was the other one?

Any individuals pop yet? No, it was the team in Africa that had won, that Mayhem team. Oh, no old guys have popped? There was a master's athlete that woman that that tested positive back during the open for well she didn't test positive she was a no-show oh oh okay but oh that's right that was an interesting one too that one was weird right she wasn't even in the testing pool well she was but she wasn't. Right.

I mean, you're in it because you did the open, but somebody, I think, had contacted CrossFit anonymously, and they went out to test her. Cancel the lab. Why are the Canadians in charge of the PFAA? Because organizations like that play the victim, and that's part of our Friends in the North primary role on planet Earth, to play the victim.

That would be my guess. Anyone else want to take a shot at that? John Young, how is that GW1516? Does that shit work pretty good? Yeah, my run-ins are proving amazingly. Let me tell you. Let me tell you. 16. Is that shit pretty good? Work pretty good? Yeah, my run-ins are proving amazingly. Let me tell you. Extra sloppy. I spent $150 on disc golf stuff today. Ask Brian.

JR, have you played any disc golf now that Brian's living in your hood? I have not. I haven't seen him since he's been here. He's about an hour and a half away still. Enormous tits. How much of my 401k do I have to donate for no flat earther? Holy shit.

Really? Come on. Don't be so closed-minded. Flat earther show is going to be great. Watch the doc. Watch the doc and tell me. Watch the doc. Okay.

Here we go. Back to the show um uh let's let's talk uh before we go to some training think tank video that i would i would like to show uh you guys um let's talk oh let me do one more thing here sorry uh pfaa done i want to show you something about Laura Horvath. Drug video. Can we go to Krypton's YouTube page? I didn't give you a link. Sorry, Caleb. And let's go to 110.

She has a brief comment here about who her coach is. Speaking of coaches, her coach is not Cole Sager. Laura Horvath? Yeah. Is it Ben Smith, her coach? Well, let's see. Have you ever heard her talk about that before? Here we go.

Let's go to – yeah, there we go. Perfect. Okay, here we go. CrossFit Krypton, the great Ben Smith, former CrossFit Games champion. Here we go. First couple is going to be Roman Bench. We're going to do that one on this rig. So the bench is going to be set up on this rig.

We'll have the second one. It's going to be Fiker. All I want you guys to do is do some good pulling. Then we'll keep the trenches off. Isn't it at 110 did i fuck that up no not at 110 oh it's not at 110 oh son of a what 10 10 uh ben smith uh let me see go to their home page let me see sorry training camp day uh go training camp day one with oh she's back sorry she's back sorry she's back try it 110 there's back. Sorry. She's back. Try it 110 there Dude, that's a ben. That's a horrible angle for you. Don't stand like that on camera, by the way

Jesus christ Let's see. Here we go action if this isn't Oh Oh, this is great. Okay. Let me go back to their home page again my goodness i'm so sorry at least brian shouldn't feel bad this is exactly how i treated the um golf show let me see um well shit that was a great clip i wonder if my fat finger hit it and uh i just put it if it's 210 or 310 or 1010 anyway laura horvath says uh ben is a coach but i'm ben's my coach but i'm in

charge and she said it's not the typical coach uh the relationship between a coach and an athlete she also says she likes this this is my favorite part she likes virginia and that she thinks she's adapted to it and when she originally came there if someone would have said to her uh referred to her as honey jr can relate to this you know being from the south hey honey thank you honey she would have given him the stink eye but now she's kind of adapted and she's okay with it which makes me think she's ready to come back on the show. I don't know how you couldn't draw the line between those two things. Thank you. JR has spoken.

Laura, you're welcome to come to the show. Do you guys have any thoughts on Laura Horvat? Like we always talk about coaching this. You need a coach. You need to belong to a team. Sarah Sigmund's daughter was on yesterday and she said she's had five different coaches. Laura's just doing her thing.'m kicking ass the opposite the people who tend to stick with one person or are by themselves tend to be the most successful

Froning Tia Matt well I mean I'm even thinking about people competing now. Medeiros has been with Adam, and that's it. Belner has always been just him. I mean, with Latondra, but just him training. Fikowski. What about Ben Smith and Graham Holmberg back in the day? They were by themselves, I'm pretty sure. I mean, 2015 people had coaches. Annie Thor's daughter, even if she had a coach, still her own thing? I mean 2015 people had coaches but Annie

Thor's daughter I mean even if she had a coach still her own thing always been at CrossFit Reykjavik Ben was Chris's coach right when he was competing Ben Bergeron was Chris Spieler's coach yeah that was probably the first coach to athlete ever in the crossfit like like big no we're known

hey you know i said that on this show and like people reached out to me and they're like no doug chapman was coaching so and so and i got all these people reaching out to me austin bg being was teach uh coaching jason kalipa and i was like, yo, yo, yo. Doug was coaching Julie. Fouché. Yeah, okay. Mike Halpin, Ariel Lowen is her own coach. This year, yeah. And last year, right?

No, she had somebody that was giving her stuff, but she would always do different things. This is her first year programming for herself yeah okay let's go to the hand grips um anyone want to talk about the hand grips uh there was a come if we can go to dylan pepper's instagram account basically there were they said you cannot who wants to talk who wants to describe the situation jr you want to describe the situation what happened what caused all the hullabaloo yeah i can try what what basically the discrepancy is

is that the check mark yes picture and the x no picture um are really just the picture the picture on the right is basically the picture on the left when you put your grips on top of a pull-up bar and that's the that's what people are so up in arms about. Just because the grip doesn't come past the middle finger when you're holding them out straight, when you throw them over a pull-up bar, it still looks like that. Meaning the grips on the left and right are probably just the fucking same grips.

Nothing's different. They both say bear Complex, too. Yeah, they're very similar. So, wow, they didn't even try to fake it and cut the top ones or anything. No. So. And they needed to be like, if that's what they want, they need to show a good example of them on the bar the way they have that other picture you can't have two different hand placements and say this this one's good this one's not well or they just show two of the same picture so they they show a

pair of orange bear complex grips that don't come past the finger. And then next to it, they show a picture of ones that do say yes and no. Yeah. I mean, is everyone following that? Basically, if you're listening at home and you can't see it, there's a length that they want to limit the length of the grips and the pictures,

which is fine if they, if they want to do that, but the pictures make it so that what they're saying makes no sense one of the pictures actually shows the grip going five inches past the fingers and the other one shows it short of the fingers and it's just confusing as fuck

and Dallin shows that and Dallin shows that he has the same pair of grips on the video to the right he'll show that he's wearing has the same pair of grips on the video to the right. He'll show that he's wearing basically the same grips look like the good. So that one's good. And then the same grips, this one's bad,

but they're the exact same thing. Can we pull out a little bit, Caleb, and look at that a little wider? Yeah. And I think maybe Victor from Victory Grips made a video about what would happen if you cut your grips to that specific length. Then you're basically ripping your hands.

Does the champ use grips? Does Justin Medeiros use grips? Everybody uses grips. Cole Sager does not use grips. That's one guy that doesn't. Do you know anybody else that doesn't? I would change my answer. 100 Yeah I would train with Cole then I would change my answer 100% I would train with him

throw the fucking grips out please throw the grips out JR get rid of the grips altogether I've heard people hypothesize that they think Boz will make them do a workout with no grips

this year oh just spring it on with no grips this year. Oh, just springing on them. No grips. Good. Yeah. And like the way my mind works when I see this picture is not, why can't you use this? Why can't you use this? It's what's the reason. So my mind goes to, okay, something's going to be at the games where that kind of grip advantage is going to really really really cause um performance that maybe really isn't consistent with anything other than the kind of grip they had so like i my mind goes to and i don't want to get into prediction

stuff but if there's a thick pull-up bar, if they have to do bar muscle-ups on a yoke bar, like similar to the log bar muscle-ups at Rogue, or if there was a pull-up bar that rotated, if you had a grip that could wrap around it that much, you could create enough torque to where that grip limiting fatigue wouldn't be a factor. could create enough tort to where that grip limiting fatigue wouldn't be a factor and if you don't have those grips similarly to if you don't have a beaded jump rope made for double under crossovers when they get announced at the games you're at a big disadvantage that's kind of not just i'll just give them a pair of grips and say everybody has to use these grips well you would think they have a a grip partner but that's what i'm saying just everybody got there and sized them

for grips this is what you're working with and then that defeats anything that rule book wants to say it's like games is grips right then outside of trying to think of why the reason is like if i were any of the athletes I would be buying grips with holes, and I would just be learning how to use the ones with finger holes that no one buys anymore. Why? What's the difference? First of all, let me ask you, what are – And put your fingers in them, you're saying?

Right, because this rule would be moot. But didn't they say that if you have the – Yeah, you have to actually use the finger holes if you have them. That's what he's saying. Yeah, that's what I'm saying. I would buy them and learn how to start using them. You're right. I mean, it's just going to sway people to just using the finger holes again that's just how everybody's going to wear them but i think they they clarified though that

that the the correct picture was what they're going to judge like if they are walking onto the floor they're going to you know check to make sure they're not you know wearing when you're actually doing it and it's over the bar well i i mean i would assume that it's just as you're walking out or they do a check in the corral um if you have have the right length um and i don't i don't know if i like giving them the same all the same like whether it's bare complex or whatever because if you've been using victory grips or what you know any of the other ones and then you're forced to use something else that's gonna be a disadvantage um they had you they had to wear the same shoes for a lot of years and they got rid of it so right hey you um you're gonna know what the grip if they had a grip sponsor you would just know which ones they are

and you could just buy them so you become prepared what are the grips grips for? They're to stop tearing, but do they also work? Do they actually improve your grip? Like they sell those special towels, you put them on jars and it lets you grip it and take the lid off. Is it like that? Yeah, you basically just hang from your wrists and not use as much grip strength. I bet you I've been given 50 pairs of grips over the years

and I've thrown them all away or given them to someone i i i think get rid of them do you guys have a vote on that am i completely outvoted three to three to one on that just get rid of grips i don't think you should get rid of them i think if they want to make a standard then i agree with jr everybody should just put their fingers in the holes and then that's just what we're doing from now on um if either that or there should be no standard just do what you want to do they're freaking grips um but i think you should have them for i mean just not ripping spin grips or no grips yeah i think they should have the grips just because of i mean we've seen back in the day these athletes have their hands shredded when they do high volume gymnastics um so as long as it's an even playing field which i don't think anybody was saying that there was an issue or a problem

with the length of grips so to jr's, I think there's something else that's coming down that they thought about. They just poorly executed how it was delivered. JR, grips or no grips? Keep them? Throw them away? I still say keep them. And to me, I just think about it's no different really to me than saying, hey, you can have a certain millimeter knee sleeve

and above a certain number is a no-go. Well, you can have a certain millimeter knee sleeve and above a certain number is a no-go well you can have grips any kind of grips you want unless they have a dowel and then they're a no-go like that's fine with me okay um and and i and i will say this too i don't care when they change the rules to me it's crossfit they can change the rules fucking like jr was uh um hypothesizing uh five minutes for the workout, no grips people for this one. I'm fine with that. I think what we all do agree on though is just execution was just

a fumble, right? Yeah, I agree with that. I think they can change the rules whenever they want to, but they need to be clear. Okay. Let's talk about cuts. Friday there's cuts and Saturdayurday there's cuts they cut on friday how many workouts will the will there be after the first uh cuts six ish two days worth seven maybe eight at most i don't know the first day the first day is either like

two events or like five it's like if it's a really really long event there's not a ton of other events um and then there's not then there's like a lot of events so and then and then the second cups are after how many events we don't know any of that so let's assume if there if there's events, it'll be after 10 events. Yeah, sure. Everything I've heard, I'll let you guys go first, and then I'll pile in here. JR, thoughts about the cuts? I don't like them, and I don't really want to get too much into the human aspect of it, of these people train all year.

This is what they dedicate their lives to, which are all true, right? They have sponsors that show they have bonuses based on making the games. They're only going to get to go and take a certain amount of tests. I don't really want to get into that too much. What I do want to get into is how, when you cut at all,

especially if you have two cuts, then the order of events, Matt, really, really, is how when you cut at all, especially if you have two cuts, then the order of events really, really, really matters. Extremely important. If I'm someone that's watching as a casual fan that's maybe becoming a fan of CrossFit or if I'm someone that just knows all the athletes and you're really geeky about it, let's just say that like on Sunday,

they do an event. They bring back the rope climb sled dummy sled. Do you remember that? The football sled that they used? Vaguely. That year? You bring that back and you load it up to a certain weight and you say, hey, they're going to do 100 yards for time.

That's the workout. So they're going to push this tackling dummy, the whole length of North park field for time. And they're going to race. And you cut Jake Douglas the day before everyone wants to watch Jake Douglas do that. Everyone, everyone wants to watch someone that could maybe win the workout, be able to show that they can win the workout. And not only from a performance standpoint of putting on a show and showing everyone what it's going to, you know, what it's supposed to look like or what's possible. If you have a hole in something and you make it to Sunday, it is not exposed the way it should be exposed on Wednesday when there's 40 people. So if you are a terrible swimmer and you would have gotten 39th

or 40th in a workout, that's what you deserve to get. Not wait until Sunday and swim when there's only 20 people. So are you suggesting, Jared, that we can't know whether the cuts are good or bad yet until it's something we're going to have to judge afterwards? I don't think there's any scenario that you're going to be able to look at the order of the events and say, we, it's something we're going to have to judge afterwards. I don't think there's any scenario that you're going to be able to look at the order of the events and say, yep, all those cuts were done at the exact right time. Okay.

It, it puts a, it puts a primacy on the order of the events. And that should not be the case outside of just the natural race of it all. A full range. I'm surprised to hear you say that unless i'm not understanding go ahead john everything everything in the fitness and fitness needs to be tested at least once then before anybody is cut and i mean i don't know

what about that jr like there needs to be multiple gymnastics multiple weightlifting and multiple monostructural events and that can't happen if you're cutting on friday it needs to be it needs to be balanced before anybody can be cut and traditionally the crossfit games there's always a bunch of specialist events up front and then it's back loaded with crossfit events typically um and you just like the jake douglas example is great i think of merton say merton's just cut and then there's like two events he could have won on sunday because that can happen and um and as we know it's it's not only it's not it's not about if ricky beats justin or if roman beats

jason it's about how many people can come in between them. And when you have a full field, you have way more chances of someone like a Logan Collins finishing Fibonacci from one or heat too. Like you miss out on all those people taking away all those points. You can't have a repeat of 2019. With 2019, they didn't do anything heavy and they

ran three out of the six tests and then they cut to 10 people and then they lifted like it was atrocious like you cannot have a repeat of that there were too many by the way there were too many cooks in the kitchen that year i will tell you that without getting into uh that could be a whole nother show there were too many i'm not blaming them for what happened you just can't have that happen again do you like that let me go ahead let's spin go and then i'll tell you i'll tell you my thoughts on it yeah i went back and looked at last year and had they cut down to 30 after friday and then down to 20 on sunday like from 21st to 30th right entering on sunday morning to alpaca like willie george would have had a second place finish in alpaca and he would have got ninth place on the back nine

and karen freyova would have had third place on Alpaca or had third place on Alpaca and ninth on Jackie pro. And there were another, I think 20 some odd, like top 20 finishes of those athletes that would have been cut on Sunday. So they would have affected the leaderboard. And so if you had cut the 20 you just don't have willie george doesn't get second he doesn't get in between people and it would have changed slightly and both of those athletes moved from outside the top 20 going into sunday and they finished inside the top 20 so they did move up um you know because of those those workouts suited their skills better

and i'm just not seeing what the severe implications of that are the one thing that i'm the one thing that um let me let me go here first i think the cuts are fucking brilliant and I think having two cuts is absolutely brilliant and here's why it turns the entire CrossFit Games into the sandbag event basically from the spectators point of view there is now some drama and tension

three times like serious drama and tension there's basically three grand finales for me as i watch it right okay okay when they make the first cut i'm like it's it's it's like it's podium their podium finishes for me and we get three of them we get the first cut we get the second cut and then we get the last day and because of that i really really like it it may i'm i'm uncomfortable and there's more at stake it's basically uh uh this it's battle to the death. Right. It adds more importance to every single event in every single day. I don't think 10 is a lot to cut, but I haven't done the math like Brian has.

And I don't know if I agree with JR, but the emotional appeals don't interest me at all. The only thing – a couple things have fucked me up. Brian Friend said on Talking Elite Fitness that one of the reasons he gave that he didn't like the cuts was the fact that it could affect people's sponsorships. I think maybe you said that too, JR. That does concern me just a little bit, right? I do want to set the athletes up to make money. And it does suck that if – I don't care so much that – what's the guy's name? Jake Douglas?

It would suck if Jake Douglas lost out on a sponsor because he couldn't fucking hit it out of the park on his event so that that does at least get me thinking but i i'm a huge fan of the cuts and none of the emotional appeals uh really matter to me were you gonna say something john so your argument is there's three finales right i'm saying it takes the air out of the last and most grand finale because there's not i see that i see what you're saying i see what you're saying there could be a massive shift i i see what you're saying because all of a sudden now uh 17 athletes can get are viable to get in between first and second place and give us a huge swing i see what you're saying i see what you're saying you don't you think it's that significant you think it's only 20 athletes okay because i think it's even i think it's that significant? You think it's with only 20 athletes? Okay. I think it's even more likely with a full field because you have those specialists.

When you get down to 20, there aren't as many of those because the people that aren't specialists are usually the fittest. The ones that made it through. And it makes mistakes even more costly like if somebody makes a mistake on the third event third to last event or second to last event or the last event any no rep they have or just blew up somewhere all of a sudden 15 people passed you and not just six like it makes all so many different scenarios able to happen so you take air out of the last crescendo instead of having three little mini ones i'd rather have a big major one that a whole bunch of stuff could happen suzy you see you want to make it so i never invite john young on the show again and there he

is using the word crescendo fucking suza he hates you young i'm joking uh he's always excited when you're on i made that up just so i could watch suza laugh uh um clydesdale media that was good crescendo from a guy and a wife beater fucking this show that's why this is the number one show in the crossfit game space clydesdale media um spin would laura have made the podium last year if there was the same because that's exactly what I was thinking the entire time. Because we know she was getting her ass handed to her in the first half, which you'll see in the documentary, and then she came back like a boss. She was inside the cut line both times. So I did go back and look at that because she was close.

Yeah, take that, John and JR. She was fine. When I first heard it, I was like, well, I knew she was further back. But in both scenarios, she was like, well, I knew she was further back, but, um, in both scenarios, she was inside. I mean, we see that a lot. We see, we see some of the best in the sport close hard. And when it comes down to Saturday, they just start their climb. And then by Sunday, they're in the top 10. It happens every year with like notable names that you never even remember. I would say if you reverse the events from this past year hayley may not have made the final top 20 cut no because she's taking last

place and two of them right yeah right so you always have i mean third the first events always has always been something long right hayley got first if you had reversed it does she is she top 20 going into Sunday I I don't know but it's a lot closer than what she was there was a there was a two things there was a comment here from Mel uh Mel I don't don't take this as an attack at all by the way but it just is what it is uh let the athlete who earned a spot finish this weekend that's the test how is a rookie to know earned a spot finish this weekend. That's the test. How is a rookie to know what a full games is like unless they compete the weekend?

These types of arguments just bounce off of me. I don't care. I don't have empathy for any of that. If you want the sport to grow and the fans care, then should you care? Yeah, if the fans care, yeah. But that's an emotional appeal. When it's all said and done,

we're all going to be just talking about the last day. We're not going to be like, oh, Sahar Kai from Turkey got cut. No, but we could talk about Jake Douglas. If he doesn't make it to the top 30, and on Saturday night there's, you know. Like if he sinks in the swim and the first event just drowns

he's going to be a terrible swimmer so he gets last place in the swim there's one event that doesn't go his way and then his fitness is the 22nd fittest guy he won't make that cut and then the very next thing is going to be a max freaking five rep

snatched overhead squat that he would have won and it we don't get to see it um let's pick on jr here for a minute he may have an easy out here jr is there a paradox in what you're saying or that your two thoughts are in conflict on one hand you're saying the order of events matter but you're also saying uh don't do cuts or are those are those in conflict with each other i'm saying when you cut the order of events matters okay okay so either way you don't like it doesn't matter well it still matters the order i mean it matters from like a recovery standpoint what are you doing so far in the week yeah all that which you're in right oh this wow wow

oh god greg you're good uh the p-value for the grips is 0.0001 uh otherwise known as no fine god you're good god i love these people uh greg glassman also agrees with uh jr howell okay how about we make it how about we we do a trade we get rid of grips but with no cuts. Deal. I'm keeping the grips. I'm sorry. The thing with what John Young is saying too is with his argument, if you buy his argument, you can never cut. Like you might be able to say – with the other arguments, you can be like, okay, let's wait till the last day. Let's wait till the last event. But what John is saying is you,

you need all the athletes so that there's this tension that there could be a huge shift. The guy in first place can now lose a full a hundred points or something. There's more people who could get in between him and the, in the second place guy. God, I don't know if that works like that. Well, not a full 100 points, but 40. He's more liable to lose 40.

Maybe not, though. Maybe your thinking is flawed there. Because if you still separate the points between 100 down to one with only 20 athletes, it's still you're saying there'd be less athletes that could get in between, but that's still, that doesn't take away the tension. It depends on the event. No, because if you take the top 20, those are the 25 fittest people, right? They're the best CrossFitters, right? If there's six people who are extremely good at like rope climbs or something.

Okay. I see what you're saying. You're going to get rid of the outliers all six of those people get in between and then say somebody makes a mistake and then the five people that would have already beaten that person with that mistake has been there now that's 11 spots does that make sense yeah i do i i hear you uh mike mike uh literis uh no cuts keep grip grips cut grips uh sabir and kelly uh is that weird that they share this needs to be a whole show these two share a youtube page can you imagine sharing a phone number with your wife jr like you guys just have one cell phone with just like one number on it like it rang and it rang in both your phones.

That's like old school. You know any couples like that? They share a YouTube account. They got both their names on there. Sabir, erase Kelly's name. I want to see what happens to you. Like if you have to sleep outside tomorrow. JR is so underrated in this space.

I recall Hiller's video on him. He deserves more accolades. What do you want to do? Want to give him a handy? Deserve. I don't like that. Deserves. You don't like that either, do you? He deserves. He deserves.

Sometimes I don't like it. Okay. Any topics you guys want to bring up as we get close to the end of the show? Did you see the guy in Brazil on the first place team team he's not getting his visa he's been denied three times um really good young athlete um on uh templo sa crossfit

yep uh so he uh he actually was first place in the 16 to 17 year old division in 2020 which obviously he did not get to compete that year and now his visa has been denied three times uh after qualifying for the games he could just come up through the southern border if he wants. It would be easier. Yeah. Wow, that sucks. Is that the only one like that? It's the only visa issue I've heard of so far. I would love to know what the reason is.

Yeah, that's what I was exactly thinking. Does that make me racist? Is he connected to the cartel or some shit? Jeez Louise. So, I mean, fortunately for the team, they do have a, uh, an alternate, so they will be able to compete.

Um, but I mean, this guy was one of the best on the team. Um, the chat should, uh, how we do it. The chat should vote every 20 minutes to cut one person off the show.

Oh, poor Jr. He wants to be cut and he wouldn't be cut. Uh, enormous tits. He's too poor. You mean like he couldn't pay someone? You know, the thing is, I don't know what it's like coming into the United States, but for us Americans, if we drive over the border and you have a DUI,

and if you drive up to Canada and you have a DUI, they'll push you right back. You have a history of having a DUI. If you drive up to Canada and you have a DUI, they'll push you right back. You have a history of having a DUI. Look at Sabir. Wow, Sabir's just handing out BJs. John Young and Fake Brian are up there, too. Up there. You guys are up there. I thought it was the real Brian. I thought are up there too. Up there. You guys are up there. Like up.

I thought it was the real Brian. I thought my name had an H. But we don't get what we want, Brian. Oh, shit. We forgot to run the phone number tonight. All right. Any other topics, guys? That I can think of.

Great show. Thank you very much, Mr. Beaver. Thank you, Mr. Souza. Thank you, JR. Thank you. John Young from johnyoungbarbellclub.com. And Mr. Spin, who you all know as the ultimate news source for all things CrossFit, at the barbell spin. We will see you guys tomorrow morning at 7 a.m.

We will have Blade the police officer on tomorrow, reviewing some videos, talking about police fitness, having fun. And don't worry, the Flat Earth show is coming. Bye-bye.