The Sevan Podcast - #303 CrossFit Games - 2022 Preseason Rankings with Brian Friend

Episode Date: February 17, 2022

Here to talk about the 2022 CrossFit Games Preseason Power Rankings with CrossFit analyst Brian Friend. Brian has gone back over all the data and competition results for the CrossFit Games athletes that we know for sure are competing this year, and compiled a power ranking based on the results, predictions, and head-to-head results from live competitions. This list is not conclusive and will be updated throughout the season. The goal is to provide fans with more information about the Sport and who to keep an eye on to be at the top this year. Brian's article: https://morningchalkup.com/2022/02/15/preseason-rankings-top-10-men-and-women-heading-into-2022/ https://www.paperstcoffee.com/shop https://www.barbelljobs.com/ "The Sevan Podcast" T-Shirts https://asrx.com/collections/the-real-sevan-podcast-collection Follow us on Instagram https://www.instagram.com/therealsevanpodcast/ Support the show 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 ... Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

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ah let me did i send uh brian friend a link i believe i did guys uh we are going to talk about brian friend's picks uh today today that was released in the morning. Chalk Up choosing who he thinks going into the 2022 season are the big dogs. I think he called it his power list. I want to tell you that these two lists are separated by sex, male and female. Sex is determined when you look down at your crotch. Wow, look at that mustache. When you look down at your crotch,

and if you have a penis, you're a boy, and if you have a vagina, you're a girl. And that's how these lists are going to be categorized. Now, I have not seen the penises of any of these athletes or the vaginas, but I'm going based on presuppositions. I know I'm not a big fan of presuppositions, but in this event, I'd like to come clean

and tell you that is what I'm doing. Are we having Ed Calderon again? It does look like it. What's up, buddy? Are you in a fucking witness? Brian, are you in a witness protection program? Hold on. Okay.

What? What did you do? Why did you say hold on? You had to put a little wax in your mustache wax no i just wanted to change the audio settings um it sounds like uh jason kalipa will be coming on in 30. caleb will be running the back end today caleb bye bye okay hi hey it's been a while i'm excited for your list. Oh, okay. I read the Morning Chalkup article. Good article. Fun. Fun stuff.

The two standouts to me just – well, let me get to them. Caleb, do we – can we put that – the article up so people who want to read the article? At some point, I think we're going to check out some of the comments that people made critical and supportive, constructively critical, regarding Brian's list. It's an emotional thing, huh, Brian? What's that? For people to see that list, people in the community, coaches, family, friends. Yeah, probably, yeah. friends. Yeah, probably. Yeah.

They're like, what? How can Justin be at the top? Have you not seen Dallin Peppers press? Yeah, that's my that's my guy. That's the guy that's going to ruin. I think he's going to ruin someone's games this year. Yeah, down's amazing. I think that he easily could have ruin someone's games this year yeah uh down's amazing i think that he you know easily could have been at the games last year and um likely would have made the top 20 if

he'd advanced to the semi-final stage and i think that that's certainly in the realm of possibility this year for him and there are these athletes out there and this is going to sound really weird and i know it's it's a shortcut but if they get good if they fix something if they and they're the ones that have the most potential for growth and that's why i say down pepper if something if he were to make a 10 jump i know he looks like a man but he's a fucking boy and a man's body if that dude makes a 10 jump it's fucking game on. He catapults to the fucking top. Same with Lazar Djukic. He fixes one or two things and Lazar will – I mean I know you already have him in a good spot on the list, but there's these people there that you're just like, oh shit, you're so young and you're already so good. Yeah, I mean I think one of the hardest things that I ran into creating this was we're right at kind of the crossroads intersection.

I think this will probably continue to be the case going forward for the most part where, you know, the young there's a young contingency of really talented athletes on both the men's and women's side that are making a push towards the top. And yet, you know, some of the the the old guards, so to speak are still very, very good and hard to beat. And so it's, you know, it's, it's hard to say how much longer guys like Belner and Fikowski and BKG can stay in the top five of the sport, or if guys like Kim Aeros and Lazar Jukic and Dallin Pepper and a bunch of others can make a push in and force them out for good. Yeah. And you have to wonder, with the programming being done by Adrian Bosman this year instead of Dave Castro, how that will affect the results.

Well, I think... You're not going to bite? You're not going to bite? No, there certainly is a big question mark surrounding the programming this year with Dave not doing it for the first time ever. question mark surrounding the, you know, the programming this year with Dave not doing it for the first time ever. I, you know, want to believe that it'll still be a really good test. I think that every, you know, Chase and Bill have gone through every event that Dave's programmed as part of the CrossFit Games season, whether it be the Open, each year, the Regionals, or the Games,

and there's a lot of good, but there's certainly critiques every year as well and um you know i don't think dave would shy away from that i think he would just say yeah you know we're always trying to get better and hopefully whoever's doing it this year has the same mentality uh you said chase and bill um uh chase ingram and bill grundler they have a podcast called get with the programming get with the programming and they they have gone through every workout? Yeah, it's awesome. Wow. Well, they do it.

So they'll say they'll do the open for 2011, and they'll talk through each of the workouts. They share some stories of their experiences with them. They talk about what the workout entailed from a time domain movement perspective. Is it a couplet, triplet, chipper, et cetera? And then at the end of the open for that year they'll say okay how did how was the program was this a good test and they're very um specific so they acknowledge that the open is testing something different than the games is testing or than regionals is testing but they've done it for every open every regionals and every games and several offseason competitions um caleb

sorry you might be faster than me can you pull that up their um their podcast get with the program hey just real quick i don't want to get stuck on it but um is this something they started back in forever ago and they just do it once a year you're saying that recently they went through all of them in the past couple years yeah they i think they started with the games and then they might have done i can't remember if they had the opener regionals first, but they've, they've done them all. Yeah. All right.

Cool. And I, and you know, if you're someone who likes programming, likes to be analytical of programming, does programming for competitions in any capacity, it's a great resource because they point you first of all to the, I think it's in the level two CrossFit manuscript where it talks about, you know, how do program, you know, a balanced test and what are the, some of the where it talks about, you know, how do program, you know, a balanced test and what are the, some of the things you should consider, you know? Um, so if

that's something that's interesting to you and you weren't aware of it, great resource to check out for that. And, um, that's, uh, those are two former, uh, games athletes. It's not like Brian and I, Brian is a student of the game and I'm just leveraging you fuckers for follows. Okay. So shall we do the men or the women first? Up to you. I say we do – did you see the guy I had on this morning? No.

He's been eating raw meat for 100 days. And? I ate a half pound of hamburger beef this morning on the show. It was easy. It was like nothing. My freak out level was probably an eight. And it was like, as it went in, I had no gag reflex or anything. It was nuts.

Okay. Saving the other half for tonight? No. Probably I'm going to get in trouble for saying this. So I came home after taking the kids out to the beach, and my wife had it in a bowl mixed with avocado, salt, and I think some lemon juice or something. And she was eating it. I'm like, damn. I don't see why you'd get in trouble for that.

I don't know. She might not want people to know that she's fucking a bandwagon jumper like me. I'm going to have that guy back on in 100 days he had when i consider yourself or your wife a bandwagon jumper i think that she's probably someone who you know very educated and values experience so she wanted maybe wanted to try it wow it's dignified of you all right um i haven't ever met your wife but i i know i know that she's the best of the family over there my mom's pretty cool too but yeah my wife's top i just met between you and her yeah yes uh okay let's do let's do this let's do the men is that who you said the men no but i was kind of hoping you'd say the men so that's great let's do the. Let's do the men. Is that who you said, the men? No, but I was kind of hoping you'd say the men, so that's great.

Okay, let's do the men. Yeah, I like to save the best for last. Of these, do you want to start or do you want me just to dig in? I think you just lead and I'm prepared to answer any question. Okay. Of these, I think the most difficult to put in there – wow, man. Oh, God. Which one is the most difficult to put in there? I mean, how do you put Janikowski in there? I mean, I know he's great. Don't get me wrong.

He's great, but he's so unpredictable, isn't he? Isn't there no consistency? Sure. wrong he's great but he's so unpredictable isn't he isn't there no consistency sure uh well uh the main i mean i would say the main question marks i mean he's europe's cole sager isn't he no i don't know that was good that was good not a bad comparison yonikoski is um you know he's kind of a unique guy because he's, he's still pretty young. He's not very much older, maybe a year older than Lazar Jukic,

but he has seven years of games experiencing dating back to 2014. He's just been doing this a really long time. Obviously the biggest problem for Yonikoski this year is if he can recover from his shoulder surgery that he had, I think in September that precluded him from participating in any of the off-season competitions. So there's a great deal that we don't know about him. And I even acknowledge in the article, you know, if you think that it was, you know, unjust to put him up there that high because of the fact that he's recovering from shoulder surgery, I'm not

going to disagree with you. I just like so many times, not just in CrossFit in the past, you know, five to 10 years, really a host of athletes across many sports have recovered from injuries in a shorter time domain than we ever thought was possible. And Yonikoski's had plenty of injuries himself over the course of his career. And he always seems to bounce back pretty well. I think it was to his advantage that he didn't do any off season competitions this year. And hopefully he's able to have a good recovery without any setbacks. But obviously that might not happen. And part of the thing I want to say off the bat is this is a preseason power ranking.

This is not a predictions for the games for 2022. So this is going into the open. These are the 10 guys that I think and the 10 women that I think are, you know, the people that you're going to need to beat in order if you want to win the CrossFit Games. But after the quarterfinals, we'll reevaluate and I'll probably have a different list. And that happens in every sport, right? You know, every year, every week of the NFL, there's a new power ranking or for MLB, NBA, NHL. And it's just reevaluating with more information.

So with the information I have right now, I think Yonakosi can recover from this. And if he does, he seems to be a lock for the top 10 at the games. Would it be fair to say that you think that if the games happened tomorrow, this would be the top 10 guys? No. No, that's not. You can't even say that. No, because Yonakosi wouldn't be ready. Ah, okay. Re say that no because yannickosi wouldn't be ready

ah okay recovering from his injury brooke wells wouldn't be ready there'd be no chance and it might come that by april you know following the quarterfinals or june following the semifinals that we see that they didn't recover in time and they didn't make it and we miss out on seeing them at the games this year like that's obviously a possibility but um i have reason to believe that they'll both will recover and will be able to compete and probably their season will look something like annie thor's daughters from last year where it starts with uh so so open just kind of getting your feet wet same thing with quarterfinals hopefully they're good enough by the semifinals but they're ultimately you know not really back to full competition form until the games uh the three guys that are obviously just the glaring guys missing from

the list are noah travis and chandler is that fair uh i would say that the one guy who's obviously notable missing from the list is noah no i mean that's you know. And I was actually kind of surprised I didn't get as much. There were other things that drew people's attention more than Noah's omission from this list, but that was probably the hardest male for me to leave off. And there was probably two women that was really difficult for me to leave off. know the thing is noah didn't do any individual off-season competitions this year he had a 10th place kind of really lackluster nothing that impressive or standoutish performance at the games um i think it was his worst games performance in quite some time yes since 2016 obviously what did he place at the games in 20 he was 10th he was 10th

and so if you're just gonna take you know the last year's top 10 and put games in 20 he was 10th he was 10th and so if you were just gonna take you know the last year's top 10 and put them in there he'd be there however we have you know obviously two guys on this list that did not compete at the games last year um so two people had to be bumped out um is that the top 10 from the games last year but two people have been pushed out by roman and ricky is that what you're saying there are eight of the top 10 in this on this list yeah wow okay wow not necessarily in the exact order that they finished but they're on this list wow so it is pretty hard to argue with this list that's a that's a pretty safe thing uh that's pretty that makes it pretty safe I want to say go back to yana cost you one real quick um is there anyone i'm not sure even sure how to frame this is there anyone who you would say is more likely to win an

event at the crossfit games if you had to bet that one guy was going to win one event and to choose the event isn't yana koski that guy like of all these guys he's guaranteed to win or or does gi fall in that category too um i think that if you asked the athletes they would acknowledge that on the swimming event it's it's yonakoski's to lose for sure i mean he's the team of swimming events right yeah and even lazar jugic is a phenomenal swimmer he wasn't close to to yona on that event but there was a huge paddleboard component. If you're going to bet on one person in one event, Yonah on the swim event is a good bet. But I think if you ask the athletes, and I think Tommy and Patrick and I talked about this on the morning chalk up, there are just certain events. Patrick Clark. you know there are just certain events yeah okay and tommy marquez i think that there are just uh certain events that once they roll out everyone's like yeah we're not touching roman on

that and specifically that's something that would be you know especially like a monostructural rowing event or something well now he has a problem he does yeah he got ricky he got the ricky problem uh on well yeah so we saw you saw when it comes to running or kind of event, Ricky is phenomenal. But when it comes to pure machine work, I know Jason Hopper has a nickname, The Machine. So it'll be hopefully fun to see him go against Roman on some of these workouts. I still think Roman's the guy to beat on machine workouts. Are any of these athletes on your top 10 waning 10 waning in their skillset or any of them past their prime? Hmm. That's a really difficult question. Um, I would say the only candidates for

potentially being past their prime are probably Valner Fikowski and BKG just because of longevity. They've been doing it and age. However, they they they kind of seem to just be getting better like the quality of the field is getting better and they were all still right there last year so i'm tempted to say no and and it's in right and i think that's fair because it's really an unfair question i'm kind of setting them up for failure because they've been around so long that of course it's those guys of course patrick has nowhere to go but down fukowski has nowhere to go but down bkg i mean they're they're i just agree with that no okay because i think that both velner and fukowski um still still have this season the potential to win the games and that

would obviously be okay okay okay so i missed sorry i agree with you i you. I'm not hitting it right. They have nowhere to go but down. They have more room below them than they do above them, I guess. By a wide margin. By a wide margin is what I'm saying, yeah. The odds are, if you were betting, that those would be the waning guys. So it's kind of by a long shot. Like we know Guy's not waning. Like 100%. Well, you know, Guy's an interesting one.

And basically at the end of the day, I was trying to decide between Guy and Noah for the 10th spot. And I thought that at the end of the games last year, I kind of thought that that 7th place finish that Guy had might end up being his best ever finish at the games. But he's super young, he's super strong, and he's got this incredible skill set that you really can't teach. And I think the best thing he has going for him is the environment that he's chosen to put himself in. You know, we don't have to spend very much time talking about the caliber of athletes

that people who spend time hanging out at Mayhem has produced over the years. people who spend time hanging out at mayhem has produced over the years so you know if um if he can like maintain that capacity to win events in specific things and then in you know consistently improve across the board on some of the other stuff which i i really really would be shocked if he doesn't show tremendous improvement in terms of his aerobic development this season. You know, he, he,

it's like, it's not out of the realm of possibility to see a guy like that when the games eventually. So I'm not too sure what the trajectory of Guy's career will be from here, but I, I kind of thought that his upside outweighed Noah's. And so I ended up putting him 10. Whose problems are,

um, whose problems are harder to fix? Who, um, geez, Ricky's or Lazar's or, or, or,

or, or Yannikoski's. I skipped right over Saxon. I don't think Saxon has any problems. He just has to move the needle on everything up a little bit. Right? Yeah. Really a small amount.

Yeah. But these other guys have holes in their game, right? Relative to the pack, of course. Right, yeah. Everything's got to be relative. Yeah, any one of them on their own against. I mean, Janikowski's had a long time to fix his shit. Yeah, and I think that, you know, I think that part of the problem for a guy like him,

it yeah and i think that you know i think that part of the problem for a guy like him and there are several other guys like this is you know it's a really difficult sport to know how to navigate and he's like i said he started doing you know he first showed up at the games in 2014 where obviously there's a lot more known now there's a lot more invested now with terms of coaches and you know body workers and whatever that can help managers make decisions about how to manage a career. But for a long time, like these guys want to compete and they, and they're used to training, not feeling at a hundred percent because of how difficult their training is. So a lot of, I think that Yon is one of these guys who's competed injured a lot, not just in the games, but in off season competitions. And that the problem with that

is you basically, you just get like stuck in a plateau and it's hard to make that next jump up. And I think the counter example of that is Brent Fikowski, who's been cerebral enough and patient enough to take full seasons off to only compete once a year in a competition. He doesn't have to compete at this part of the game season. And that's why we've seen him elevate and elevate later and later in his career did he have any holes did he have would did he i mean by holes i mean did he have any imbalances like we see gee show up and he's just smashing the short time domains and the heavy lifts or was it came in a little more balanced well uh came in like at the start of his career yeah no i mean fukasi's always been battling um the just the length of his career. Yeah. No, I mean, Fikowski's always been battling just the length of his limbs, really.

So the gymnastics is super hard for him. But I really think that he's probably like the most efficient gymnastics mover in the sport. And that's what allows him to stay competitive at that height and weight. But it's still not enough to make up the, you know, seven inches or eight inches taller he is than Noah Olsen. Wow. Fikowski's 6'2"?

I think he's 6'2 or 3", and I think Noah's like 5'7". Yeah, that would make him, let's say he's 6'3", just for the fun, that would make him 11 inches taller than Mr. Mertens. Okay. It's like, it's like, it's like almost a whole penis. Okay. It's like almost a whole penis. Okay. What was your biggest criticism on this from the peanut gallery?

On the men's side? Yeah, on the men's side. Let me ask you this, though, before we start. Were there any comments that you're like, oh, shit, yeah, that guy's – they're on to something. They sniffed something out. it's funny you ask that i was i was spent a lot of time to kind of i read all the comments today at least until maybe an hour ago and what does that one say oh yes travis yeah i actually text travis after that and i said you don't like my rankings and he goes i never like your rankings it's a good dude travis you a good dude Travis you're a good dude

you're a good dude and that's good and that's fine I heard from a couple of the other athletes and said told me you know you're making a lot of people angry and I said angry or motivated and he goes motivated for me yeah Roman said he doesn't know what he's talking about and actually

the most probably the most comments from the men's side I saw were about Roman and Ricky not being high enough. To be honest, it's a little bit crazy to put Roman and Ricky on the list, in my opinion. But then again, look what Annie did last year. I don't think it's crazy to put them on the list at all. They're so unknown. Like you know Travis is going to bring it. You know Noah is going to bring it.

We're still not sure what's going to happen. I mean we think we know, right? Yeah. Does anyone ever not translate? Before I say that, we don't know. Does anyone ever just destroy – like have you ever seen someone just go through and destroy everything and then not do top 10 at the games? Like, who's the biggest, who fell most flat at the games ever in the history of the games that you're like, what the fuck? Is there someone that stands out?

Look, there's a pretty high correlate between winning or place, especially winning your regional or semifinal and then doing very well at the games. But even just last year, we saw Jason Hopper dominate a semifinal full of really good athletes, including Travis and Justin Medeiros and Scott Panchik, and then finish 18th or 19th at the games. Shit the bed at the games. And Travis won the quarterfinals last year. And Travis won the quarterfinals. I think he took fourth in his semifinal and then finished 12th at the games. Yeah. So, you know, it's certainly possible that there's guys that can do really well at a Wadapalooza and struggle in the game setting. Like that's not out of the realm of possibility, but more likely they're, you know, they just won't get to the games. Like you saw Dakota Rager and Drew Wayman finishing the top five at Wadapalalooza one year, and they've never made the games as an individual. And we've never seen Roman do 13 to 16 events.

Yeah, and that's the thing. And honestly, I was pretty tempted to flip Roman with BKG and move him into the four spot, which I heard from plenty of people today who thought that that might have been appropriate. But, you know, there is a question mark around robin it's just simply that we have not seen him compete live at the games and the games uh whether you you know want to care to admit it or not is a different beast than all those other competitions it is the pinnacle event it's generally the most events in a course of one competition it's everyone in the world coming together and basically peaking for the same thing at the same time and going after the same goal.

And I don't really have anything based on what I've seen from him that will make me suggest that he's going to have a bad performance at the games. But the four guys ahead of him have proven to be incredibly consistent and proficient at the games year after year. I like that card, by the way, the way Morning Chalk Up did that. Oh, yeah, Katie Gannon did that. She did a great job. Yeah, it's cool. It's really cool. I keep thinking, I go, where's Justin? Where's Justin? And I'm like, what the fuck do you mean, where's Justin? He's staring right at you.

Who else, Brian, which comment in here, sorry, I keep derailing you and running you off in different directions. Which comment on here you were saying we were, I was asking which comment, um, made you go, maybe they're right. Any of them in here? there or puts their opinion and it's a little bit different i give it some thought and i actually identified one uh this is kind of a vulnerable thing to do i kind of identified one bias in my rankings which is that when the 2019 result was favorable for an athlete i mentioned it and when it was a poor result i omitted it wait. Wait, I'm not sure I understand that. Meaning like you celebrated your successes. For example, one of the – I think I mentioned it here. Maybe I didn't even mention it. But I might talk about how Saxon Panchuk did well in 2019.

But and so it's part of like a credential that could give him status on this list. But I omit talking about how Brent Fikowski did poorly in 2019 because it detracts from his case for being thorough overall. But that's because, you know, I've spent a lot of time talking about the different formats from 2019 and 2020. And, you know, there were some, some people either DM'd me or commented about, it's so weird that Vellner had such good years, 16, 17, 18, and then was so bad in 1920. And now he's back. And it's like, he wasn't so bad in 1920. The format was bad and he was injured. That's all. Are they insinuating drug use with that? No, they're just saying that it's strange that he would go,

uh, whatever he was fourth, second, fourth, and then have a, uh, whatever ninth and 16th and ninth. And then all of a sudden be second again.

Like what happened? Nothing happened. Yeah. But there's, it's just wrong. They're in there. If that's what you see, if you just go to his games profile and you're like fourth,

second, fourth, 16th, ninth, second, what happened in 2019 and 2020? And you don't know what happened. if that's what you see if you just go to his games profile you're like fourth second fourth 16th ninth second what happened in 2019 and 2020 and you don't know what happened right it looks weird right right and and what did happen was there was a cut one year and then in another year was a pandemic year and um the appropriate build-up to the games was was not there not possible right and so there was a lack of consistency in how the athletes were chosen the appropriate buildup to the games was, was not there. Not possible. Right. And so there was a lack of consistency in how the athletes were chosen.

Relative to relative to other years. Yeah. Yeah. Roman gaps, the field and the smaller events that the same top people have done or similar events can easily be close to top guys like Madaris, but with more home run power. I'm not sure.

I don't understand that. You want to explain that to me? And thank you for the 10 bucks. And I think, I mean, I mean, no, you know, Romans is a very scary competitor, I think, for the, you know, the podium, the real, like the guys that are really podium threats at the games because he can win events and everyone knows that.

And you saw what happened with Guy last year, wins three events and winds up seventh overall. Winning three events of the games goes a really long way, but it's really hard to do. I think I wrote in this article that Fikowski won four events in 2016. Since then, he's won three total. So it's hard to string together that many event wins in a year, but when you can do it, it's almost, if you're going to win three events at the games, you're almost definitely going to finish top five like you've got you know it's hard not to uh will you go back sorry caleb will you take us back to that list of people i want to make sure i didn't there's not anyone uh i didn't touch on.

Have you talked to any of these people, by the way, recently in the last week or two that influenced your opinion? Like where you spoke on the phone with them or you spoke on the phone with their coaches and you were like, OK, like someone like Guy or like someone like Saxon, like, do you know what they're up to? I do know what they're up to for the most part, but I didn't talk to him. No. Just from just from word of word of mouth. Yeah. And, you know, and, uh, just friends and colleagues and stuff in the space. Um, and there's, I mean, there's actually some pretty interesting information about some people on this list and some changes that they've made this off season, but overall,

it doesn't really affect this type of a thing. Um, well, it will affect it on the women's side. doesn't really affect this type of a thing. Well, it will affect it on the women's side. There's two women in particular that it's like, I'm very curious how much insight you have into them. I kind of can't believe that they're on the list. Oh, yeah, yeah. There's a couple of women that are off the list that most people had a hard time with too.

Are there any other comments, anything else you want to point out before we move on to the females? I think the men's was less controversial overall than the women's. A lot of people wanted to see Roman and Ricky higher. I feel really good about their rankings there based on the smaller data sets that we have against this level of competition. But, you know,

they certainly will have to prove this year um that this is actually where they belong in this type of top 10 conversation and then i mean it was you know even it was even hard i i listed five or six notable omissions from the list and even that was really difficult to do um i'd love to see who the next 10 are specifically is travis where's travis on this list and then narrowly missed the list list for the men I included in, this is just an alphabetical order. Alexander Caron, who just got second at Guadalupalooza. Alex Vino, who was eighth last year at the games.

Cole Sager, Jeff Adler, Noah Olson, Sam Cornway and Travis Mayer. So those are like kind of the next guys right outside. But even besides that, you know. And you said no is probably 11th right yeah i would say that and then um you know you still have uh like the jason hopper like it's not out of the realm of possibility for hopper to improve tremendously throughout the course of this year under um you know the hwpo programming and tutelage from uh fraser and be a top 10 threat but right now I couldn't

see ranking him any higher than any of those guys the 10 or the other ones 1, 2, 3, 4, 5, 6, 7 that I mentioned as the next ones out and now you start thinking about a guy like Dallin Pepper and a guy like maybe Phil Toon that are not included in that top even 17 and say

like wow it's like those guys are incredible but it's really hard. Like it's really hard to break into the top 10, the top 15, the top 20 at the games. And you say, what about Chandler Smith? I mean, Chandler didn't make the top 20 at the games last year. And I've already mentioned 20 guys and Chandler's not one of them. Is he one of the 20s fittest on earth? Maybe. But what I'm saying is it's getting harder and harder to make it into that group. And there's these guys that have had, you know, said about yannikovsky and chandler smith is probably approaching that time too that like hey you've had a long time to tweak shit like chandler smith how many years

has he been doing this now 2016 was that year that he broke into the regionals uh and and raced with ben smith on that deadlift workout. Okay. So, I mean, not nearly. And how long has Travis Mayer been going at it? Longer than that. Yeah. Like a decade.

And the other thing about Chandler Smith is, and, you know, we don't know. Like, he'll have, it looks like he's committed to staying with the comp train crew up there in New England. They've got a very different makeup than they've had in the past. You know, Amanda's up there. They brought in a couple of new women. mccallishan moved out there and is training with them wow and uh maybe you know a full year there in a consistent environment where he's you know the army stuff is behind him the traveling all the time is behind him the training with a variety of different people is behind him it is possible that this could be a year that he

has more consistency less kind of chaos in his life and can actually maybe make a push for his best games performance um and i saw i was at ben bergeron's um instagram today and i saw that they're now training with masks off so that should probably help chandler's training too that doesn't have to like cover his nose in his mouth so that's good um. Um, do you think, do you think Colton Mertens will make it to the games to the games? I think it's going to be tough. I mean,

I think that even, even though he's probably getting better, um, the North American field is going to be really difficult. And if the Canadian men do get distributed and don't all have to compete with themselves, that, uh,

you know, that there'll definitely, I think on average for men in North America, it's like 75% that made it the year before make it back, which means 25% don't. So I wouldn't be surprised if he missed out this year. When do we know, when do we find out when the semifinal workouts are those two the hq is supposedly going to program i mean i don't know i have no idea my guess would be just prior yeah a week or two before the first week okay um what do you think about the i know i know this little off subject but

these are things that i've been learning this week. There are two fantastic semifinals in the same venue in Knoxville, Tennessee. Hour and a half south, I believe, of Nashville by car. Has that ever happened before? Two semifinals in the same town? Same venue? Two regionals? I don't think so. I mean, it's a great spot.

Part of me is like, well, that's weird. But really mean it's a great spot part of me is like well that's weird well but really it's a it's a it's an epic spot right it's right there and it's a it's in a good spot in the country um um have you been to either of those one of those was the mac right no wait what were the what are those two that are there yeah the first week will be the syndicate crown syndicate crown this one and then you're good c there? Yeah, the first week will be the Syndicate Crown. Syndicate Crown, this one. Oh, you're good, Caleb. You're good. The second one will be the MAC. Yeah, and I went to the MAC in 2019, I think. But it was in Maryland, totally different location and venue,

but same team that's putting it together. And they're very organized, very experienced, and very capable of running these two events in back-to-back weeks. So you like this? Yeah. I mean, I spoke about this on some other show, I think, that it was going to be difficult for... I think it was with you,

actually. It was going to be difficult for CrossFit to find someone who could put on this caliber of competition, find a venue and host it and get a broadcast that's respectable enough to distribute to the world in a small amount of time. And so reaching out to someone who's already doing it already knows how to do it and has proven that they can do it and has all those relationships with the broadcast team, with the judges team, with a city that they can talk about what it looks like to host that, make hotel accommodations. There's a ton and ton of ton of different areas that are required to plan an event like that. So going with an experienced team makes sense. And it's Wilson, right?

Wilson Pak? Pak. Pak. Wilson Pak. That was the guy you roomed with. We saw him shirtless in one of our live live shows crossing behind you where was that was that waterpalooza yeah also roomed with him at the games this year i don't think i saw him topless there i don't think so all right okay well that's interesting if you live in

if you live in knoxville or nashville if you're in tennessee you're stoked you can go to both those events or if like fuck if you don't have kids or you fucking have the a free life you can just go over there and hang out for 10 days and hit both those events hopper hopper will be at that one of those events right what are some of the big names that go to that one or we don't know we have no idea we don't know really anything about how the athletes will be seated going into semi-finals for north amer or Europe. And that is also making the assumption that he makes it. Anything can happen. Sure.

I mean, we really do. I mean, if he does the open quarterfinals, he'll make it to semifinals. But we know that the open programming is Dave's. We don't know who the quarterfinals programming is. Correct. Okay. All right. Let's Okay. All right. Let's check out the girls.

Anything you should just say them in order? You should have done that before for the people listening. Oh, like the people at home who don't watch the show? Mm-hmm. Yeah, I could do that. You want to go back to the men real quick? Number one, Justin Medeiros. Number two, Patrick Vellner.

Number three, Brent Fikowski. Number four, Bjorgvin Karl Gudmundsson number five Roman Krennikoff number six Janikowski number seven Saxon Pancik number eight Lazar Jukic number nine Ricky Garad and number

ten Guilherme Majeros thank you a lot coming from you that was the most impressive athlete pronunciation minus ricky's last name that you've ever had oh how what would you say garrett i just think you tried too hard on yeah i did that's trying to fucking show that i'm my latinx roots uh

uh great this is gonna be fun number one tia claire to me tia claire to me is that her name tia claire that tia claire tia claire to me but no or yet i wonder if she's gonna change it is it is tia claire to me or is her i think it's her legal name now okay tia claire to me or laura horvat hayley adams number four gabriella magawa No. Okay. Tia Claire, Toomey Orr, Laura Horvat, Hayley Adams. Number four, Gabriella Magawa. Number five, Kara Saunders. Number six, Mallory O'Brien. Number seven, Bethany Shadburn.

Number eight, Katrin Davidsdoter. Number nine, Amanda Barnhart. Number ten, Brooke Wells. What are Katrin and Brooke doing on this list? Unacceptable. Is it unacceptable? I don't know. You must know something.

You must know something. I mean, Katrin's in a tail. I mean, did you watch the Rogue Invitational? She always does terrible at Rogue. Oh, okay. Her Rogue Invitational performance is 2021. This past year, she was 15th. 2020, she was 13th out of 17.

And, yeah. And the first year of Rogue, which was a live competition, she did well. She was fourth that year. How did she do at the games last year? 10th. I'm going to predict that Katrin Davids-Doder doesn't even complete the games this year. I'm going to predict that something – that she doesn't finish the game this year. It's that year.

It's the – what happened to Katie Motter. That was the first – I think that was one of the first times I saw that. Katie Motter did the hill sprint in two – There's nothing. There's nothing outside of just a gut feeling that warrants that prediction. Yeah. No, it's more than a gut feeling. It's more just a gut feeling that warrants that prediction. Yeah. No, it's more than a gut feeling. It's more than a gut feeling.

There's something weird about her going back to Iceland. I don't think there's anything weird about it at all. I think that it's amazing for her. I think she spent seven years away from her family and friends and country. Yes, I agree. I agree with both those. And that she's going back home. And now the only thing, unless you're referring to the fact that maybe she's trying to start a family or get pregnant, and that might be the weird thing.

Maybe. I don't know. No, no, that's not weird. But is that what you're saying? Is she doing that? I don't think so. I think she's very focused on competing. I think she's very happy where she is.

I think she's peaceful. I think she's happy with her love life right now. love life right now. I think that she will outperform herself from last year, despite the fact that the women's field will be more difficult this year than it was last year. Well, I think the odds

are really stacked against her. I think she's in the waning of her career. I think something has happened to her headspace. I do not know what it is. She did not look like herself at rogue i'll give you the fact that she hasn't done uh well there um what did you say she took 10th at the games last year yeah and you know it's just like very similar to noah olsen right and here's

well it's a little weird because you got her moved up two spots but yet the game the field is going to be deeper this year so maybe you should have pushed her down two spots i think you meant to have her in 12th did you double check that before you sent that over i'm doing my math correctly um uh let me ask you this too before we dig in um if if annie was competing would you where would she be on this list probably third wow okay and she would just push everyone down below her. Yeah. And Hayley Adams is like what we talked about at the beginning of the show.

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Craving chips? The app will suggest some on sale. To get started, just open the app. It's as easy as that. See the PC Optimum app for details. And Hayley Adams has that that what if factor like like if she like if she moves the needle on just one or two things yes i mean we can start at the top there are a lot lots and lots of questions and comments about the women's list for sure today um hardly anyone had anything to say about tia or laura i think that um um, kind of understood that, that they're that good, not to say that they're, you know, Laura could be beaten in competition for sure. But, um, I think

that she's, I think that's a lot of people feel like those are the top two right now. Who do you think has more room to improve? Who has more potential to improve Tia or Laura? Probably Laura, just still a little younger. And, you know, I don't know that she'll ever be able to fix that specific kind of handstand pushup that she struggles with. But there isn't something like that that Tia really needs to improve. So probably Laura. And before we start, Brooke Wells, what makes you, what we saw last year at the games looks um i mean to me i'm no doctor but to come back from that in a year seems um i don't know impossible

what is she saying have you talked to her does anyone know does anyone talk to her look she's back to snatching now and she's, you know, posted about it a couple of times that it's scary and it's unknown for her for sure. But, um, I think she's got access to pretty much everything she needs or wants in terms of, you know, recovery and doctors and stuff like that. I think she's been, it seems, you know, from what I know that she's been really responsible in the, um, you know, rehab and getting back into the gym work that's required to recover from something like that uh you know and and very some i already i think i already said you know very similar to yana koski like it might be a slow start to the season for her

but um this was like a kind of a uh out of respect kind of a pick in the 10th spot because I don't think that it got me. So was Katrin. So was Katrin. No, no, no. In the case of Brooke Wells, if she hadn't gotten injured last year at the game, she might have made the podium.

She probably would have been the fittest woman in the United States. And even if she would have matched her performance from the previous year where she took fifth in the COVID year of 2020, that would have been her best game's performance, in my opinion. And so she was on track to do that. Again, she's someone that has a ton of years of competing and is not that old. She's still in her mid-20s. And I don't know. I think that that elbow had been bothering her for a while.

And I don't know. I think that that elbow had been bothering her for a while. And if she can get back to being healthy this year, she's definitely top 10. And when you say bothering her for a while, I think you mentioned that when we were talking, I don't know, a year and a half ago, that you saw her do something on muscle-ups, right? Pushing out at the top or something. She slipped off a ring or something happened. Is that where the original tweak happened? Well, we don't know for sure but they were like i think if you went back and studied you could see

the the breadcrumbs um could you go back to the mail list one more time sorry sorry sorry sorry gotta ask you this uh tomorrow i'm having tomorrow morning i'm having a guest on um and i'm wondering where he would be on this list um he's a team competitor by the name of Rich Froning Jr. Where would Rich be on this list? If Rich declared that he was competing as an individual this year, the lowest I would have him ranked would be… Make sure your front door is locked. You fuckers are going to be at your front door in two seconds

the lowest i'd have a rank is probably third wow um could you put him at one could you push madaris out i think the highest i'd rank him right now would be oh man i don't i don't want to do that to justin um justin's earned the number one spot i think but understood well let's let bruce wayne do it but it's awesome i mean look hey and let me tell you something else man matt's gonna hate me for this if i told you matt was coming back you probably wouldn't rank him as high right he matt seems like he's like we don't even know what kind of shape matt's in right well it's very different i mean yeah we yeah, we've seen Rich competing. We know that he's not trying and he's still finishing. He was sixth last year in the Open. He doesn't care about that. He's just doing the workouts, whatever. Jiggy, 20 burpees, buddy. 20 burpees for putting for him and a couple Hail Marys, maybe 20.

is working out, but he's not training. But again, if Fraser said, yeah, I'm coming back, I don't think he would say that unless he knew that he could compete to win. And so then the whole conversation would be different. Yeah.

All right. So Froning would be number two or three. Yep. Okay. I was distracted. Sorry. I looked down two or three. Yep. Okay. I was distracted. Sorry. I looked down at my notes.

Okay. Back to the women. It's a fun question. I appreciate that. Caleb, we should probably clip that and buy life insurance for Mr. Friend. Okay. So we were talking about basically brokewell's and you said something that was very interesting someone popped off in the comments too that it was a respect

a respect who's number 11 who got disrespected on behalf of brook i wouldn't say it was i wouldn't say it's disrespect but there were a lot a lot of people who were very upset that Emma McQuaid was not in the top 10 on this list. That's the Irish lady who won Wadapalooza, correct? Yes. And I could not help but just laugh every time I saw this comment, not because she's not deserving of being in the top 10, but because I've been a proponent of hers for four or five years now when no one's been talking about her. And now suddenly she wins Wadapalooza and everyone wants to pump her up into the top 10. And there might be some people who made those comments

that are from Ireland or the UK or Europe and have known about her for a long time. But the more likely scenario is that even if she'd finished second to Bethany Shadburn at Guadalupalooza, which easily could have happened, there was one judging discrepancy that ended up being the difference between them. No one would have been making those comments today. What place did Bethany take at?

She did. Okay. Cost her $65,000. Wow. What, what, what was that judging? The questionable judging. What, what, what movement was it on? Do you remember? I think it was in the Dalai event. It's either a handstand walker or a sandbag carry.

I think it was a sandbag carry. She got called back for still stepping on the line when dropping her bag or something like that. Oh my God. How many points did Emma McQuaid beat her by? I'm pretty confident if that rep had counted that Bethany would have won Wadapalooza. Damn.

Look at Caleb's going through and showing all the – so there is a lot of love for Emma McQuaid, a lot. And I love Emma McQuaid, and I've been a fan of hers for a long time. And, you know, it is possible that people know about her before she won, I think, 20.1 in the Open that one year at the ground overhead and burpee workout. She's incredibly talented. She's been doing this a long time. She's a longtime training partner with Sam Briggs. She's phenomenal. The women's this, the women, I'll say in general, the women's field was harder for me to do than the men's field. And it was tough for me to, to keep her out. And it was tough for me to keep Daniel Brandon

out of the top 10, but, um, I'm confident with the list I put out in the end. Can you make that, that um the comments bigger again caleb someone said how can you have carl saunders's fifth when you read something like that how are you like do you just go that person's an idiot like how you have you would have to go into your you would have to be a mind reader to know what they're saying like are they saying she should be 12th are they saying she should be first like what like you should just be kicked off of instagram for that yeah i thought that what are you supposed to like how do you take that you ask your ouija board i thought there might be more comments about

kara in general uh being um on the on this in that position on this list i would assume that most people who are skeptical of that would think she should be lower. But last year was literally the worst circumstance possible for her. She was not really wanting to leave her kid. She ended up doing it. She came to the US. She had a pretty decent training leading up to the games. Then she got sick and she was unable to compete.

We watched her the first day and it was like, that is not Cara Saunders. And you've seen Cara since 2012 or 13 when she first showed up at the games. And you knew immediately that that was not the Cara that you're used to seeing. But when it is a healthy Cara Saunders at the games, she's phenomenal. She's one of the best 10, at least women who's ever done it. And, you know, she was close to winning it twice she had a couple setbacks over the course of her career some injury some heat stroke some pregnancy but it seems like she's motivated with her training she's uh doing mayhem programming now she's changed up her her

um coaching a little bit and i think she's i think that she's excited and motivated for the season and if she is i think she's a you know think fifth place is a good place in the power rankings, but she certainly is a threat even for the podium potentially. I was going to say, has anyone ever gotten closer to Tia than, well, I guess Katrin. Not since Tia won in 2017, no. And that was the year that she beat her by two or four points. Yeah, that's crazy. That's crazy.

That's crazy. Um, what do we know? Have you talked to Kara Saunders? Is she, is she going hard? I guess she doesn't. Maybe we should,

maybe we should invite her on. Yeah, we should check in with her. It's been a while. I think she's training hard. I think she's having fun and enjoying life. I think that's important for her. And I think she's going to,

um, she'll probably do really well in the open. She usually does. And, um, I would think that's important for her. I think she's going to probably do really well in the Open. She usually does. I would think that assuming that everyone who's supposed to compete in Oceania has to compete out there, she'll probably take second in the semifinal to Tia and

be a legit contender in Madison. Caleb, can you pull off those names? Oh, thank you. It's Caleb, can you pull off those names? That's, um, oh, thank you. Oh,

it's getting a hemorrhoid. Um, I do want to talk about Sarah Sigmund's daughter. I want to talk about Gabriella Magawa here real quick. Um, I'm not, I'm nowhere claiming to be a student of the game, like Brian,

not even close. But if I were to say there were athletes who were getting noticeably better in the short time I've been watching their career, it's that girl. If it keeps up like this for three more years or two more years, we're looking at a CrossFit Games champion. Is that true? Am I seeing that anecdotally that this girl is just like every – for instance, and I hate to say that brings Sarah Sigmund's daughter, but, but we weren't, we weren't super excited about what we saw from her at Wadapalooza.

Right. It makes us nervous again, throws her into the deep unknown. Sure. Right. But Gabrielle Magawa, every time we see her take the field, we're like, oh shit, she better than the last time. Yeah. She said a phenomenal season. she better than the last time yeah she's had a phenomenal season and um people who you know have been watching for a while will have the same feeling as you is that she's getting better and

better and the caliber that she's at right now if she's able to continue improving i think it's difficult to say that she'll be a future games champion but she certainly has that potential the reason why that's difficult to say is one, we don't know how long Tia is going to compete. And it's difficult to see anyone beating her in the next two or three years if she wants to keep competing. But if let's say she does step aside in a similar fashion to Matt Fraser, there's going to be a big group of women that are suddenly going to be legitimate threats to win the games. And a lot of them are on this list. And a lot of them are really young, just like Gabby. So yes, she has that potential, but so do a five or six others that are right around

her age and not, and very much in the same caliber of athlete right now. I don't know shit about competition, but from what I hear too, Gabby also has something up on everyone else. There is no doubt in my mind that people who've competed against laura horvat think that she's fucking unbeatable they there's a group of women out there i'm sure who see her just like they see tia like holy shit gabby has a huge advantage over those girls because she knows laura's human because she's that that's um uh that's her her boyfriend's sister. So she knows Laura's human.

So she can mentally get her head wrapped around beating a Laura Horvat. But like even those of us who watch TV at home, Laura Horvat does not – it's a different horse. You know what I mean? These ponies out there against the Clydesdale. I mean Laura is just a different creature. And they've gone head-to-head at several different competitions. So she has experience competing against her so far. Laura's continued to get the better of her more often than not.

I think that Rogue Invitational was the first time that Gabby finished ahead of her, 20 points ahead of her, got on the podium and kept Laura off. How did that happen? How did she beat her? Laura got 19th place on event six and what was that event is that the the is that the last event was the chipper event oh I can't remember oh I have it right here uh it was uh in there's a lot of gymnastics in the middle 30 30 strict handstand push-ups and 15 ring muscle-ups twice okay and in the games and and laura has a fantastic engine too right oh yeah man and she seems mentally so tough and angry

okay um uh so gabrielle magawa is strong. Haley Adams. I just, I, tomorrow at 6 30 PM central time, the mayhem empire on their YouTube station will be releasing a, a recap of their 2022, 2021 game season, all their athletes, individual team.

It was directed by Scottott van sleut and i'm sorry vander sleut oh vander sleut scott vander sleut very very talented and they'll be coming out is he is he good athlete too i'm not sure i mean i think he's probably fit like all the media guys over there also train but he's really really good at the at what he does yeah i just heard that there was another guy another camera guy over there trying trained but he's really really good at the at what he does yeah i just heard that there was another guy another camera guy over there trying to make a oh ben davidson okay um he's and he will be competing this year oh okay so this in in this um yeah this comes out tomorrow um these guys are coming on the show uh tomorrow morning by the way for those you want to uh see the beautiful rich froning uh soon in 12 hours uh in that documentary you get to see hayley and

the it's the it's there i mean it's really just i mean i mean you get to see her and tasia's relationship that's really cool but the standout is after watching the documentaries that there were those two events there's the clean ladder run am i saying that right clean ladder run and they were back to back one a lighter clean ladder and then one a heavier clean ladder and that and basically that's what stopped hayley from i mean i mean at rector right what what were her finishes on those two events uh 30 25th and 33rd 25th and if you think like you got to put it in perspective so before those events she'd finished fifth fifth third 11th and third and she takes those two

finishes then she has a second eighth third so she's doing really well and she had a pretty kind of a lackluster finish she had 14th 16th 12th 10th and fourth um but there was there were a couple other you know heavy uh implements that slowed her down in some of the workouts. Because keep in mind, in the back half there, there were only 20 athletes competing. So she was finishing in the bottom half of the field towards the end of the weekend. But I don't think that it has... Basically, the really heavy stuff at the Games is her worst event finishes. What did she finish at the Games this year?

5th. And how many points behind fourth? Can you see? Yeah, she was 69 points behind Kristen Holta. Okay. So even if she got fifth in those two events, she probably only moves up a place or two. She has work still to do.

Well, the people ahead of her, Kristen Holta and Annie Thorstotter, are not competing as individuals this year. So that leaves her third. And, you know, it was – I went back and forth between her and Gabby for the three and four spot for a while. I think that, you know, you're asking about, like, who has more potential or room for improvement. I still think that Haley has a lot of room for improvement.

And she's finished fourth fifth and six the last three years of the games and i and i think her room for improvement is greater than any of the other women around her it's a tougher road to hoe though isn't it a strength for for hayley yeah then uh gabriella gabriella is kind of like scott saxon panchik she just has to move everything just like one percent and it's a fucking it's game on for everyone where hayley really has like i don't want to say this in a in a any kind of like don't misinterpret this but if you're someone who's like a little bit more stocky built and you need to lean out it's easier than if you're someone who's slender built and you need to bulk up oh so gabby had a little bit more of like that child, like pudginess or whatever.

And she's toned that down and honed that in. And now she's very, very dangerous and continuing to improve her gymnastics because of that. Haley has to put on the mass and her body doesn't want to, she's just got the body type that doesn't want that. But when I saw her in Miami, she looked like she'd put on a little bit of mass. Her legs looked bigger to me than they looked even at the games.

And that's, you know, as part of the reason why i think that you know she still has that next level to go to where she can uh challenge for and push for the podium i wonder if everyone over at the at the mayhem empire takes the same shit like everyone's like they eat this protein they take this creatine they take that you know what i? I wonder if it's like that at HWPO. I wonder if all those camps, all those dudes, like, I mean, I, I guess that's a little naive to think because you have Guy,

obviously wherever he, he's coming from South America, he's coming from Brazil and, you know, he's, he's probably, I mean, honestly,

it's probably, you know, it's a, it's a matter of, of sponsorships. Right. And so would you rather have everyone in your same camp under the same umbrella or do you want to have you know the room for for people well shit

i don't think you have to take the shit that sponsors you you just have to pretend like you do oh yeah good point like sarah sarah sigman's daughter doesn't really drive a Volkswagen. She got a Ferrari. No, she really drives a Volkswagen. Okay, can we see the list again, Caleb, of the ladies, the powerhouses? Who's number 11 and 12? Who got left off this list? We already talked about that. Emma McQuaid and Daniel Brandon were probably the next two.

Okay. The others that I listed in the list that just barely missed were Emma Carey, Jamie Simmons, Karen Freyova, and Sarah Sigmundsdottir. Really? Emma Carey, huh? Doesn't she have some monster holes? I mean, I want her to be on the list. Don't get me wrong. I like seeing the young girls on there. Well, she had a little bit of a setback with a back injury in the offseason, but she made this choice not to compete at Guadalupe because of that.

I think that was a good choice. I know that she's starting to feel better and better. I think that that training environment that she's in right now down in um in naples florida with all the young guys so phil toon down pepper james sprague ethan tate and matt torres coaching them uh is a good environment for her and i really in particular think it's good for her because all those guys are good and they're all good at different things and she has opportunity to train against dylan pepper who's really good at this style of workout and j good and they're all good at different things. And she has opportunity to train against Dallin Pepper, who's really good at this style of workout.

And James Sprague is good at this style workout. And Phil Stoon is good at this style workout. And none of those are women in her division that she's competitive with. Are there any other women down there? No. She's the only one with a bunch of guys and those guys are all really good, but they're all good in different ways. And so she gets to go against someone who's good with a heavy barbell, go against someone who's good on

high skill gymnastics, go against someone who's good on the endurance events. And, and if Matt wants to, the coach wants to set that up for her, she gets that. Like, uh, it's, you know, the ideal situation is like a T and a mat, right? Where you're going head to head against the other person that's on the equal caliber of you. But you may be even a better than that is if you have a three headed monster, you get to train against specialists or people who excel in three different fields. So I think it could be a really positive environment for her. And when I was down there and talk, talking to her after Wadapalooza, she seemed like she was in a good head space. Very, I mean, I was really impressed with her. she came across very different to me

in person conversation than she does when she does interviews after events at competitions I'm excited for Emma but I couldn't move her into the top 10 I couldn't justify it when I sat down and looked at everything and we know how these championship caliber women are

we've heard they want to beat the dudes they don't really care who they're competing against tia wants to beat matt the like at these camps the i'm sure she's just trying to beat these guys like fuck the scale thing like she's like they they the bag is probably like 150 i think the story is it was 150 pound bag workout for men and 100 pound bag workout for women oh josh bridges told the story and and then he went to go work out with t in the garage and he looks over and she's taking the 150 pound bag workout for men and a hundred pound bag workout for women. Oh, Josh Bridges told the story. And then he went to go work out with tea in the garage and he looks over and she's taken the 150 pound bag and he's left out the a hundred pound bag. So then he's like, fuck.

And he has to go over and get the 200 pound bag. And then she just destroys them in the workout. It's like, Oh damn. Yeah. And, uh, and I've told the story before about when I first met, um, Brian, I don't mean to interrupt you, but someone said you look really hot. And so I'm thinking to myself, I'm not seeing Brian as hot. But then I thought, oh, but I always thought as a kid Tom Selleck was hot. And you kind of have a little Tom Selleck going. I'm thinking maybe this one.

I'll take it. This one over here. That one? Is that? I typed in young tom selick yeah it's uh oh maybe this is nice it's nice that's a little longer than what you got going oh my goodness oh my goodness look that way a little bit brian or turn your head a little bit, Brian, or turn your head a little bit. Other way, other way. Holy shit, yeah. Man, those eyebrows too.

Wow. Okay, all right. So I'm starting to see you as more attractive each time you're on. That's good. All right, sorry, Caleb. I didn't mean to cock slap your image, Caleb. Sorry. There we go.

Okay. That's a necessary and important segment. I'm always coming on someone. you happens to be brian yes um uh thank you that was an important segment okay so so so emma carry back to emma carry so we do well like all these lists we're bummed she's not on there but but but she's she's in our brain she's like clawing at the bottom like hey don't forget about me and you know what i'm doing i'm working in the forget about me. And you know what I'm doing. I'm working in the lab with Matt Torres. You know what I'm doing. Look at I'm showing off my knowledge.

Matt Torres. Got to get that guy on the show. What's going on, Sousa? We getting Torres or what? He's Sousa's fuck because I'm like, dude, no more CrossFit guests. I'm done with CrossFit. And then I just sent him a whole list of CrossFit shit. Except for let's just finish up here.

And then I just sent him a whole list of CrossFit shit. Except for let's just finish up here. Oh, he loves it. Stevon starts eating meat. Now he's intrigued by Brian. I was always intrigued by him. Amanda Barnhart, I don't know shit about her. I always just think of her as just a strong girl.

And when she comes on the screen, my brain just turns off. This is a good example this is a good example of what i what i said earlier in terms of my potential bias responding 2019 i write about her she's finished by the way ninth seventh and seventh the last three years at the games obviously those three years were very different in their you know the way they happened but the same with hayley ad like, and the same with, you know, we've talked about this in the past with the catch and David's daughter. And obviously with Tia and a mat, like it doesn't matter what the format is. They find their way to make it through.

They find a way to make it happen. And Amanda Barnhart in the last three years has found a way to get into the top 10 year after year. And in particular, I said that doing so in 2019, where, and I've written and documented this before the way that the scoring and the cuts were aligned that year, it was really difficult for bigger athletes, taller, heavier athletes to make it into the top 10. And the average height and weight of the top 10 was skewed by a statistically significant margin smaller. And she still managed

to get up there. So she's proven that even though she you know does come across at first glance or even in in concept as someone who's good at certain things uh she's good enough and well-rounded enough to make a perennial appearances in the top 10 and i also would say the same i said about chandler smith more consistent long-term time at comp train settling in there this year it could be a really good year for her. How long has Amanda been in the game? I think she first showed up in the games in 2018. So she's made it four straight years. And how old is she? Amanda, she's got to be in her mid to late twenties. Let's see. Here's the problem with Amanda. 29. Here's the problem

with Amanda. This is all I, like when I think of her, this is all I like when I think of her this is all I see this is my brand can't hold she what did you say she's she's 17 she's 37 29 29 yeah like how can you hold it this she's not even human yeah but you but look at her feet too look at her look at that that that's good right from a coaching perspective she's completely open what's this position called I don't know it's something she's doing. She's doing a burpee or something. I mean, yeah, this is a good position. Triple extension. So she's you think of her as someone who's going to win events and bomb other events, right? That's your perception of her is.

No, I guess I think of her more maybe as a gi, a gi, the female gi, you know, maybe I would think, you know, short. So a home run hitter. She can do really maybe I would think. That's what we would say. So a home run hitter, she can do really well on certain events, and there's other events that are going to be. Her worst event finish last year was 21st. She had two 21st place finishes. But you know who usually has a resume like that at the games? BKG.

He's got many years where he's got one finish worse than 20th or worse than, you know, half the field. And that's what I'm saying. Amanda's more well-rounded than she appears, one finish worse than 20th or worse than, you know, half the field. And, uh, that's what I'm saying. Amanda's more well-rounded than, than she appears. And she's, uh, very consistent and proven that she can do it at the game.

So I think that she deserves a spot in the top 10. Yeah. She is a, um, uh, who's the oldest in your list of these top 10. Cara. Oh,

then probably Catherine and, and Amanda. Cara. Oh. Then probably Katrin and Amanda. Okay. Oh, my goodness. This is nuts. Okay. Just one more. Oh, no. Amanda's 29.

Yeah, she's a year older than Katrin. Yeah. This is nuts. Look at this. God. Are you kidding me? What? It's games athletes.

Prime, that's what I'm saying. This is peak primed Barnhart. Okay. Haha, how Sevan is always clueless about most of these athletes. But his pronunciation was on point today. Yeah, that. How are you so clueless about me, Miss Fitness? Okay.

Let's go back to the list again uh cara saunders is the biggest uh no no no no no i think i think that i think there's this is a weird list because of these these things cara catron and brooke i'm gonna add car to that list too there's three really big unknowns why can't't Sarah be in this list? I'm just shocked that you haven't asked about Bethany Shatner. She's good. A lot of people have asked about her, and it seemed like a lot of people thought that this was way too high to place her, and I thought that that was kind of strange.

No, I could even see her even higher. What did she take at the games last year? Fourth? Fifth? No, she was unable to start the games because of COVID. Oh, right. Sorry. What did she take at the games last year? Fourth? Fifth? No, she was unable to start the games because of COVID. Oh, right. Sorry. What did she take at Guadalupalooza? Second.

Tama McQuaid already talked about that on that judging dispute. Okay. Yeah. So I think, you know, this is – Do you think it's fair that people are tripping on how high she is? I think it's, you know, I think it's great that people are wondering why. But I think that it's, you know, but I think that this is such an amazing thing. Annika Greer wins the Saturday Night Lights event at Wadapalooza, the signature event, the Celebrate 10 event.

Lots of ring muscle-ups, handstand push-ups, and overhead squats at heavy load and then light load for a lot of reps. Winning that event has catapulted her into the conversation, the limelight, the sponsorship opportunities, and everything. There's another young woman there named Olivia Sulek, who finished a few spots behind her, did very, very well, and almost won two events. She got second on two events. I wrote about her in my Young Guns piece to watch for this season,

but she didn't win an event. And because she didn't win an event. And in particular, because the events that she did well on weren't the featured events. It was the Miami bar complex. She got second coming out of the first heat and she missed a push jerk that would have won her the event. But even if she'd won that event,

it wouldn't have had the same effect of winning the Saturday night event that Anika won. I want to stay with this. I think this is important. Yeah, please. I'm looking at pictures of her. She looks like she's 12. Then she got second place on the Dalai event.

But the Dalai event was delayed because of rain for four, five, six hours. And then they ran it at the same times as the men's heat. And really no one had any idea what was going on. And so there was no opportunity to highlight her performance in that event. Her second, second place finish of the weekend. She's only 18 years old. uh and that's just what happens so now you see emma mcquade wins wadapalooza everyone's on the emma mcquade bandwagon bethany shadburn gets second and it literally might come down to an inch a step or a judging decision however you decide to view that

of which one would have got first and second but if bethany had gotten first and emma had gotten second overall in the competition i don't think anyone would have been questioning her at seventh. And I don't think anyone would have been saying, come on, you have to put McQuaid in the top 10. She has a nice accent too. But I tied it. What I try to do is to take those things out of the equation. So I know how good Emma McQuaid is. And I knew, and we projected her to be on the podium at Wadapalooza and she was, and we know how good Bethany Shadburn can be. And we knew we expected her to win and she didn't, she got second,

but it didn't change my perspective of her. And I don't suddenly think Emma McQuaid is way better than Bethany Shadburn because she beat her by, you know, a small margin at an event. Yeah. But she didn't even make it go back to the list. She didn't even make the list.

Emma McQuaid. Yeah. Oh, she's right there knocking on the door. Well, I hear you. And for people that want to see Daniel Brandon on the list, why? Why do you want to see her on the list? She was 11th at the game. She was 11th at Rogue.

She hasn't finished in the top 10 of a major competition recently. She's obviously incredibly talented. It has tremendous potential. But you have to be able to put it together and do it. There's people that look better on paper and can't do the performances. BKG shouldn't be top five. I don't know if she looks better on paper unless it's like photo paper. She looks great on photo paper. Yeah, but you heard when we talked to a Kotler, he's like, she's one of the two women in the sport that doesn't have a weakness. And if we're going to go with that, then why isn't she finishing second at the games?

My mom said, my mom said that Daniel Brandon doesn't look wobbly. She's like, she's so strong. She's not wobbly like the other girls. I'm like wobbly. So Daniel Brandon's a great example. Her ceiling might be super high.

Yeah. She hasn't executed at that level yet. And so why, how can you expect me to place her you know we're higher than she's ever been or ever done well dude you got fucking brooke wells on there who we saw fucking arm do something that a human arm shouldn't do you have a catcher in david's doter on there who's who who i i she's waning hey did i want to go back to no olsen real quick and make a comparison here to catcher's doter and no olsen it did no olsen have his worst

finish ever last year at the games no he didn't what did he finish last year at the games 10th okay and what did catron finish last year at the games by the way noah's worst finish is 16th and that was in 2016 and since then his worst finish is 10th okay okay that's fair thank you for clarifying that okay so so i think it's fair to say that if you're a betting man, Noah's career is waning. Possibly. He's only 30. People who think that Noah should be on this list, I'm not going to disagree with them. I totally understand where that's coming from. And it's certainly possible that he could make a run into the top five again this year.

He is good enough to do that. top five again this year he is good enough to do that but dude that team is too uh travis mayer and noah olsen are old men in the crossfit world they're not any older than a lot than than fukowski and uh velner are also old men grandfathers and and i'm suggesting that katrin's waning also where she's 28 29 i think katrin's coming down and danielle brandon's coming up and people see that and so it may maybe maybe they haven't crossed paths yet maybe you're right but i think that's another people where people's vision gets blurred well at least mine because if you see someone getting better you might think that they're better than the person who's waning and and and i i really want brooke wells to make a comeback but man that that um that seems like

quite the head fuck what happened to her. Yeah. And there certainly will be a mental component of that. And I'm not like, I'm not, I mean, maybe we pass we get past the quarterfinals and I'll be like, you know what? No, there's no chance that, that Brooke's making it back this year and we'll just move her off the list and move someone else in. Like, that's what you do. Once the season starts, you make reevaluations.

But I think that she's one of the 10 fittest in the world when she's healthy and if she can get healthy by the games i think she'll make the top 10 of the games uh just so you know andrew we're conflating some shit here and i just want to be clear with you i know you're joking but i want to come to the defense of brian here real quick when we started the podcast he wasn't saying this is how he thought people were going to finish the games this year he said this list is fluid andrew like like your um gender and uh he it will change after uh open it will change after quarterfinal not open after the quarterfinals it will change after semifinals but basically this is just who he thinks going in look um looks the greatest and obviously or has maybe the most potential because i even asked how can brooke

be on there if we don't know if she's healthy and brian's making some some some leaps of faith here some judgments here that even if we don't see the best of her at the open we know if she can get up to 99 of who she was and make it to the games then this this would be that list but he was very clear in saying these aren't his games predictions even even if they happen tomorrow. I hope that helped a little bit. I was, I was getting a little scored. No, if the games were happening tomorrow,

my predictions would be very different than this list. And these aren't your predictions for who are going to win the games this year, because you, you admittedly don't have enough information. So I don't know what the fuck these lists are about. This is just to, to,

so you guys have something to do on Tuesday night, Wednesday night. No, I mean, look in almost every sport there's a there's always a power rankings right there's these are the top teams coming into the season these are the top individuals heading into the season whatever the sport is and uh and then as the season goes on you know those things shuffle and shift and move around and yeah there's conversation because ultimately we want to you know we're trying to see at the end of the season, who's going to win this year. And so right now, this is the list. If you want to make the games, if you want to make the top 10 at the games,

like this is the pecking order. Shouldn't knock these people off, knock these people off to have a chance to do it or measure yourself against them. And, and finally on the list at number six is the great Mallory O'Brien. And when she takes the field, she is getting a lot of attention that she has earned because her performance is. Fuck otherworldly for her age. I mean, there is a she has she has something.

She has something. She has grit and she has the no-quit attitude, and fuck her. Her body looks like it's unstoppable. Should she be six? Man, she's so young. If Tia is proven, Mallory O'Brien is unproven at no fault of her own but she's about to be proven she's about to fucking be proven let's talk about Mallory O'Brien please 7th place at the games last year and you know is she the 7th fittest woman

I don't know there were a lot of women who didn't get to compete we know Carrie Pierce, Bethany Shabron, Cara Saunders Sarah Sigmezotter, Jamie Simmons, Danny Spiegel were all missing from the games by the end of the games weekend. Some of them never even started the season. How old is Mallory? Sorry, Brian.

She's 18 now. 17 or 18 now. Okay. Probably 18. That's 18. Anyway, doesn't matter. Those people weren't there. She can't control whether they're there or not.

She did her thing, and she did her thing really well. She had two event performances that were kind of bad. One of them was on the 550 meter run, which is I'm not concerned about that being your worst event at the games. And the other was on the bike with the event with the echo bike and snatches. And then we come to Rogue. And I was specifically said before Rogue. I want to see how she does on the echo bike because she strikes me as the type of person who if she leaves the games and she

looks back and she goes that echo bike is never going to be the death of me again and then she's just going to hammer that oh by the way she's training with matt fraser now who's the king of that mentality so i thought okay she's going to do better on the echo bike at rogue and if you just look at her event finish and the echo burner which which was similar style workout, she was 12th. However, she's only six seconds behind Tia Claire Toomey who took seventh on that event at Rogue. So I think that she actually, even though her event finish was not great, her performance was better. And if she's already this good, I think she's happy in the training environment she's in now. I expect that she'll be getting better this year.

I was super skeptical about her last year. I saw her open finishes. I saw her quarterfinals finish. I was like, okay, hold your horses, everyone. Let's see how she does in live competition against grown women at a semifinal event. Well, she went there and she did phenomenal. And then I said, okay, that's great. But at that semifinal, there wasn't, you know,

some of the perennial top 10 athletes from the games at that semifinal. Ariel Lowen won it. Emma Carey was there. And actually the best person historically at the games was Christy Aramau O'Connell. And she didn't even make the game. She had to go through the last chance. So that was like, we'll see how she does at the games when the best of the best of the world are there. And we know that in the case of the women, a lot of them come internationally.

But she did great there too. So if you asked me a year ago if Mal O'Brien would be one of the 10 fittest women in my mind heading into 2022, I'd say no chance. But after what I saw this year, there's no chance I can leave her off the list. She's incredible. Yeah. She's incredible. When she finishes events and the way she walks off and, and her poise and her swagger, it's nuts. She's she's she got, she got that Laura Horvath shit going that Tia Toomey shit that she's, she looks like she really believes in herself by the way one quick thing uh jiggy uh sebon if catch and doter goes top

five this year would you wear her shirt i would never disrespect her like that she doesn't want to see me in her shirt but i appreciate the uh question maybe i could do something else with her shirt like give it to charity or donate it to someone me and me I can't disrespect her like that. Okay, go on. Okay, one thing. Mal O'Brien. Her mindset is tough and it's difficult and you can't teach it. And that's what I noticed about Haley Adams

when I first met her. And that's what I've noticed about Mal and Emma Carey this year is they just have that. I mean, I don't even really know how to describe it, but you know, a lot of, we don't got it because we don't have it. That's right. Yeah. Yeah. Is, is, is adamant. I feel about waking up and going straight to the coffee machine. That's how they feel about working out. That's all I got. Yeah. It's, uh, there's, I think that there are definitely, you know,

there's a lot, I think right now there are a lot of people that are trying to make more scientific analysis of the athletes and by doing so being more accurate and predicting how they might do. But there's definitely some intangibles in the sport that you can't quantify on paper or in testing. You can just see it. If you watch them compete live, you can just see the way they look at the field or look at other competitors or attack a barbell or the way that they're breathing. And even though there's no, you know, I'm not going to be able to write about every one of these people and what I've seen from them in person as a competitor in this sport, it is something that I think about when I'm, you know, making these lists. It's hard to quantify hashtag biased healthy biased um who who who were there any comments let me ask you the same question i asked about the males are there any comments in

here that made you rethink the females you were like oh that's a uh and it is definitely emma emma mcquade heavy, I think there, you know. And that's the what have you done for me lately syndrome too. I mean, she just did win Wadapalooza, like you've said. No, I'd, you know, I'd asked my, I tried to, I wrote this list. I tried to ask myself the question, like, what would be, what would be surprising to people? What would people criticize about this list? And then I, you know, I use that as a part of my research. And I was like, okay, if someone asked me why this person and not this

person, why this person ahead of this person, could I, could I give some kind of justification? It doesn't mean that I don't think the counter argument is valid. I mean, it's a sport, it's competition. Like just because I have Haley third and Gabby fourth, doesn't mean Gabby's not going to be outperform Haley this year. It could easily happen, and I wouldn't be surprised. But based on what I know and based on what I've seen and based on everything that I considered, and this is where I ended up, did I need to include Brooke in 10th? Maybe not. That's probably the one thing I was like, maybe, but I don't feel badly about the fact that I did. but I don't feel badly about the fact that I did.

And don't think for a second that there couldn't be a virus testing that makes it. So all of these girls can't go. Don't think like, don't think for a second, we've seen crazier shit happen today. I went by a bus stop and there were 20 kids who are 12 years old asked. There was a good 30 yards from the beach. You keep asking about these comments.

There was a good comment. I don't know if it was on a morning chalk up or on my own post, but life of Josie, who does a lot of content creation in the space, particularly in Europe, asked me about Jacqueline Dahlstrom. Is that it? Yeah.

And we had a little exchange with the guys from the program about this. Before you go any further, what place did she take at the games last year? Check. I think she was 19th, 18th or 19th. Okay. So we have a little bit,

a little base of understanding. 17, 17. How good she is. Okay, Jacqueline. Okay. Yeah, Jacqueline, very, you know, very talented.

She had a great semifinals in the online. I think she was second or third in her semifinal. He might have even said there in his, yeah, he says it there in his second

at German Throwdown. She was third at the Mergid CrossFit Championships. She was was fourth in dubai yeah she's been great and so i asked him what uh you know which of the women in the top 10 and he basically said how could you omit her and i said well which of the women in the top 10 has he beat in live competition and these were they i think that they were assuming i was saying she'd never beaten anywhere on that listing live competition when in fact she has and they found pointed it out that she beat hayley at the reich of a crossfit championship three or four years ago now ah three or four years ago right and so i come back here and i said correct yes she did beat

her then and what's hayley's trajectory been then surely you're not going to say that jacklin should be ranked ahead of hayley hayley was 18 then. Then she's 21 now. And she's had four, three consecutive top six finishes at the CrossFit games where Jack and Dalston just came off. Yeah. I didn't like that person's response to, to someone said, can you scroll down a little bit?

Uh, no, up a little bit. Sorry. I didn't like this. This isn't necessary. Um, uh,

if you're going to come back, at least fact check. We don't, there's no fact. No, no, no, no. Be good. No, and this, I don't know who runs Instagram for the program, but I'm a huge supporter of what they're doing. I think that John Singleton and that whole team is very, very good. And that's the people. Yeah.

And English is a second language to them. Okay, I'll give you a pass. But it's, you know, but, but it actually, um, here,

this last thing that I said is the way everything on social media that you see fact-checked is fucking wrong. So there's that everything. It was a nice, it was, it was nice. So I wasn't upset about it at all because it was like, we were able to have this exchange and this is an example.

Like this is the type of thing that I, I have been looking at for the last couple of weeks in creating this list. And to see there's several women that aren't even on the narrowly missed list who I looked into and researched and thought about, should they be in the top 10? Should they, if they're not in the top 10, do I, should I at least mention them here on the narrowly missed it? And, you know, anyone who's follows the work that I do in the sport knows that there's a hundred athletes out that haven't been mentioned on this list that I would love to highlight and talk about and have everyone know about. But this is the best of the best. And when you said after the men's, like eight of the 10 were the eight of the 10 from the last year.

And it's kind of a safe prediction. And it's probably similar for the women here. Yeah, it's really hard to crack this group. Tell me how old Jacqueline is again. Sorry. She's a little older. I think she's 30. She is.

Man, she looks young. And how much does she weigh? Is she small? Is she on the smaller side? Is she Mallory O'Brien size? Yeah, she's pretty small. She's actually incredible at like high volume gymnastics workouts she's like world class i could win events at the games if the right workout shows up

and she's a uh a craig ritchie athlete a hustle hustle is sponsoring or not yeah that's awesome yeah that's cool good honor all right uh proud is an understatement after seven years oh no sorry this is something else all right um yeah i i she i i've definitely heard her name she just doesn't pop on my radar a lot it's hard to it's hard to it's hard to see especially if she's 30 look everyone in their 30 oh and oh, and she trains with Gabriela? Did you see that already? Yeah, and I trained with them before the games this year in Kristoff. That's right. I remember that.

Is that the team out there? They're in Mallorca, yeah. Wow. Yeah, they're good, and they're getting better. I think Gabby and Jackan will both have really good years again this year. Sounds like an incredible life doesn't it yeah they they basic i mean they were traveling around a little bit but when we've talked about this before when the uh when the uh first lockdown kind of came in they moved to majorca they got a place there they started training there and i was like this like watch out for these people because this environment seems optimal and there's a lot of people that are in suboptimal environments during that time.

Is Kristoff trying to make the games? I think so. He barely missed out on the semifinals last year. I think he's the kind of guy that'll be harder for him to get to the semifinals. But if he manages to get there, he has top-ten potential at a European semifinal. I think of him more as just kind of living this gigolo lifestyle. It's like just hanging with just hot girls who work out and loading plates and shit.

He works really hard, and he's very fit, very good. I think he's – if he can manage to get through the quarterfinals in Europe and get to a semifinal, he'll be fun to watch there because he might not make the games, but he can be in the top ten. And this videographer, this is the Armenian guy, Life of Josie? I think so. Can I see that account? God, he's everywhere.

All right. Oh, yeah, yeah, and he's everywhere. All right. Oh, yeah, yeah, and he's Craig Ritchie's dude too. Sorry, brother, put you in a hard spot. Sorry, Josie, put you in a hard spot. Okay. Anything else you want to say? Great list. Thank you to Morning Chaga for letting us feed off your article.

Great content. Thank you, Brian, for doing that and bringing it over here and letting us pick your brain. What is next for you article-wise? What do you do next? I have an article coming out tomorrow. It's called, Is the Open a Good Predictor for the Games? Oh, I like that.

And then Tommy and Patrick and Clark and I are doing an article, Who Can Win the Open? And then Tommy and Patrick and Clark and I are doing an article, who can win the open, which is pretty hard because there's a lot of people and you don't necessarily know, but we're going to give our best there. And then I have another article coming out next week prior to the open that's going to be teams, T-E-A-M-S, to watch in 2022. And I've spent a long time and a lot of effort tracking down some of the teams from last year and then some new teams from this year um that have all the teams announced themselves no no no okay but uh you know it'll kind of have to you could do some

detective work and know if they're not training together now they're not a team right yeah and it's uh yeah they should be training together already because the deadline for that has already passed by a month oh will sent me a text today and it said hey you should tell brian to put john young as a co-author so he can like separate uh spread the heat around a little bit i didn't think did you did it stress you out at all the comments today you were getting? No, I would, I mean, I was confident that there would be, you know, opinions to be had and questions to be asked, but that's, that's kind of why I put it out there because it gets,

it creates conversation and it gets people excited about it. And the more people that are interested, I think the better that it is. Okay. And, and before you release that list, um, did you pass it through the, uh, DEI council? Did it, did it get approval from the, uh, the body? You see my mustache here, Savan? I do what I want. Yeah, you do. Oh, let's talk about that really quick. When did you, did you shave that right before you came on the show?

A few hours ago. And did you mean to shave off your beard? Cause sometimes I'm just like trimming it and I'm like, I'm like, Oh fuck. Guess I'm shaving the whole beard off. Did you mean to shave the whole beard off? Yes. Did you think about it? Like today, was it annoying you?

How do you come? Or was it just like, yeah, the shower, your shavers there and you just do it? I mean, I've had a lot of different haircuts and facial configurations over the years. And I just kind of kind of just knowing the time is right type of thing. You know, you know, you do the same. Yeah, I just but I don't get it's usually like I'm just walking in front of the mirror. I'm like, oh, fuck, I'm just shaving this off. And then and then if I kept that mustache,

that would have never been the plan. I would have been like shaving. And then I didn't plan to leave the mustache. It just happened that way. You're like, Oh fuck it. I actually did it. I did it.

I actually did it just for you. That's awesome. So it'll be gone tomorrow. No, I think I'll keep it for a couple of days, but I knew I didn't know we were doing this, and I thought you'd appreciate it. I really do appreciate it. Alright, ma'am. Thank you.

Look forward to the articles. Oh, yes, finally. Thank you. Caleb, I would have forgotten. I have a website coming out. The Sebon Podcast website. That's the picture you came up with? I know. I know. I feel the same way's i'll say it's not a bad picture but there's some really really good pictures of you out there it's a it's a i mean

what what am i thinking right there i look like i just got caught stealing you're like fuck they're taking this picture i have a wedgie i want to pick right now anyway it's a really cool website. Go down to, oh yeah, of course, there has to be a merch page. Go down to the partners. I want to show you the people who made it. Yes, it's Kilo. Wait, is that who made it? Yeah.

No. Who made it? Click on one of those. Darn it, I wish I knew who made it. They're such great people. They were so awesome. Oh, those links don't work? All right, Caleb. Fuck it. I fucked it up. Anyway, whoever made it, I got to give them... Oh, yeah. This might be them.

Do you know who said that works? Shit. I can't remember. Those guys over there are so freaking cool, though. They're great to work with. I'm excited about the website. All right, Brian, thank you. Thank you. They're great to work with. I'm excited about the website. All right, Brian, thank you. Thank you.

It was fun. And love.