The Sevan Podcast - #81 - Who is the best male CrossFitter of all time?

Episode Date: July 20, 2021

The Sevan Podcast EP 81 - THE BEST MALE CROSSFITTERS OF ALL TIME @JAMESHOBART @BRIANFRIENDCROSSFIT @SEVANMATOSSIAN The Sevan Podcast is sponsored by http://www.barbelljobs.com Follow us on Instagram https://www.instagram.com/therealsevanpodcast/ Sevan's Stuff: https://www.instagram.com/sevanmatossian/?hl=en https://app.sugarwod.com/marketplace/3-playing-brothers 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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is brandon luckett uh very cool too very nice really nice guy yeah brandon luckett's too cool he can never meet on the podcast again he's done he's never thrown a rock in a moving car he's never shit in a bag and lit it on fire on someone's porch he hasn't done anything fun he can never he's too good of a guy to be on this podcast uh we are live guys and we are live hey uh ryan can you send us a link to the um youtube page and that way we can kind of look at the comments even though i'm going to try not to for this show guys sorry we're 14 minutes late we had a little miscommunication on the team. Hobart thought this was our cross-dressing episode, so he had to go back and take off all his makeup and his wig, but we got him.

TDC hat, booster test guaranteed, scientifically proven to boost your testosterone by 10 points. Oh, damn, only 10. And that is about true as everything you hear on CNN. Ladies and gentlemen, so today we've come to you on Sunday morning live with little outside influence from McDonald's, Nike, Little outside influence from McDonald's, Nike, or what Brian has in a bubble put together with no bias, no financial responsibility to anybody. And he's put together a list of the 10 best male and 10 best female CrossFitters of all time.

And what do we mean by best? You figure that out. You figure that out. It has nothing to do with their hair. It has nothing to do with their outfits. You go ahead and define best for yourself, but don't do anything stupid. When you go on the internet and you ask you the 10 best CrossFitters of all time, the first list that pops up has Rory and Dave on there. Rory and Dave are not on this list. I have not seen the list, but I guarantee you they are not, or this will be the last show James and I ever do with Brian. And we will be replacing him with Tommy Marquez. So is that fair,

James? Sorry. I don't mean to be speaking for you. No, I like it. That's very fair. I'm in. I wouldn't kick you out,

Brian. You know me, I got your back, man. I wouldn't. Perfect way to start. Did I just freeze? Best episode in the history of the

seven podcast did i on good job james um so we are going to start uh normally a list like this would start at number 10 we're going to start with the men and we're going to start at number one and the reason for this is that the more titillating choices, the more unknown choices are definitely down at the bottom of the list, right? Because we know who the top two are. Yeah. I think, uh, whether we're talking about the men or the women, it's a little bit less dramatic at the top. I mean, we can have, we have to have some conversation about why, but there's i thought it was getting more difficult the deeper i got into the 10 and so i felt that that might be a a more appropriate order to go in and like i said james and i haven't seen this list um only brian has seen this list and the

producer of the show i have no idea what's going on We just lost Hobart and I don't see the YouTube link for the live chat yet. All right. Savan, I linked it to you in Riverside and I also emailed it to you. Oh, okay. Sorry. I only use chat. I only use a text messaging. There we go. Okay, let's do this. We have one person watching. This is awesome. Hold on.

Okay, Brian, go ahead. Are we going to wait for James? I think we have to wait for James. Hey, can you guys hear me? Because I know he wants to ask some questions before we start. Hey, can you guys hear me? Because I know he wants to ask some questions before we start. Hey, can you guys hear me? Hobart, where are you? And the questions that he wants to ask are relevant. They're definitely relevant in order to understand what we're doing.

I don't think Ryan is on his normal computer today because normally he would have texted us that link. So what I am guessing is that he... No, James, we cannot hear you nor can we see you. It's a good idea. Man, oh man, 718. This is not good. Man, oh, man.

7.18. This is not good. I'm drinking Good Dudes coffee today. I'm wearing my GEZ shirt that has no logo on the front and only a logo on the back. And there is Hobart. Hobart, can you hear us? Yes, 100%. Okay, here we go, James. I'm ready.

Are you familiar with the sport of CrossFit? I'm ready. I'm ready. Brian, you actually made the top 35, right? But today we're just going to review the top 10. Yeah, I think we'll talk about the top 10. Maybe we'll do an honorary mention for a couple guys at the end that are like the next five. I just have one question before we start.

I have one question before we start. Did James Hobart make the top 35? Oh, well, that's a good question because it helps to identify what exactly we're looking at here. So, no, James Hobart did not make the top 35. Devastating. One of the reasons is because I'm not considering anything that any of these athletes did in the team or master's realm of their competitive career. that any of these athletes did in the team or master's realm of their competitive career. Okay, so what you're saying is you have an incomplete methodology for testing the greatest CrossFitters of all time.

I don't know. I'm going to unfortunately come to Brian's defense here. I don't think if you're on a team, that just shows that you really shouldn't be in the running anyway. But how many times did James show up to the games as an individual? I think three. Three. Yeah. And did he ever finish in the top ten? No.

All right. So it's not – I mean, you'll see when we start, and even as you go down the list towards 30, these guys have some pretty good resumes. So it's definitely not a knock on James for that. He chose to have, you know, half of his competitive career as part of a team. And for this criteria, I'm just, I'm not considering that. I mean, and that goes for, you know, some of these guys also have some team experience and I'm not considering it. I'm making this list.

So, okay. So Vaughn once told me that team is where all washed up CrossFit individuals go. Fair. Just want to put that out there for everyone on team. Well, I would have to say that there are a couple athletes who have had… Wait a second. Ryan, it says that on YouTube that this is unlisted. And maybe that's why we only have two people watching. Could that be what's going on?

Yes. Yeah. Maybe that needs to be public, and then we make it unlisted one way. It's public. I just changed it. That's weird. It's public now. Oh, okay.

It takes – okay, great. Let's see if we can get it up to five viewers. Okay, because I think those two are me and Ryan. And Hobart, if you want to open the YouTube window and watch the chat, you can. He sent us the link in the chat on Riverside. Yeah, I'm going to. Okay. All right, Brian.

Sorry, go ahead. Wow. Okay. All right, Brian. Sorry. Go ahead. Well, I think I was going to say that there are a couple of guys who are girls that have started their career on the team side and then transitioned or parlayed that into some individual success down the road. So I think it can go both ways. But do you think that by leaving out team competition as part of your criteria that it's affected your list at all? No, I do not. No, I'm not. Okay. James, are there any other questions you want to ask before we start?

No, I want to specifically hear about your criteria, but I think that might sort itself out. I think it'll – yeah, we'll be able to have conversations about that, I think, as we go through the list. And – I think it'll, yeah, we'll be, we'll be able to have conversations about that. I think as we go through the list and, uh, seven, let's change it up. Let's start with number 10. Okay. Let's go. Men top 10. Let's start at number 10. All right.

I think Ryan should probably have it queued up there. Um, so number 10 on the list is Josh Bridges. Ooh. Wow. Pa. Wow. Paid the man. Oh, look at this. He's giving us all the preview. Josh Bridges comes in at number 10.

He competed six times at the Games as an individual. He finished second once. It was his only podium finish. And he has kind of an interesting balance to his competition years because the first couple years he was there, he was very good. He was second. Then he had to take a year off, I think. Then he came back and was seventh and fourth. I think he missed another year and then he was 13th. And then his last two years, he was 30th and 31st. So, you know, noticeably worse relative to those first four finishes. And when looking at Josh relative to some of the

guys below and above him on this list, the thing that really stands out for him is, um, the number of event wins he has. He's third all time in event wins with eight, and he's won some of the most famous, um, workouts in the history of the sport and has some of the best celebrations in the history of sport and won some of those events against some other guys on this list. Um, he's, you know, when it comes to a, a size perspective, he's, you know, he's always been an outlier on the floor. He's just been smaller than most of the other guys, but it hasn't prevented him from doing, um, exceptionally well in the years that he was ready to go. And I think that if he'd had the, you know, if he had had one or two more years that one year he was serving, he was on a tour of duty. And then one year he just barely missed it

at regionals that there could be potential for him to be even higher on this list. But I think, um, 10 is, you know, is where he falls and I feel pretty good about him there. Two things on that. Maybe being bigger would make him better, but the irony of him serving is if he would have never served, he probably would have never become a CrossFit athlete because he used CrossFit in 2005 as a way to train specifically to become a Navy SEAL. And Josh is very, very open about the huge role that CrossFit played in him being a SEAL. And I think Dave has said that when Dave Castro was Josh's BUDS instructor and said Josh showed up there fitter than anyone else,

which is a testament to the training and Josh's hard work. I am so happy to see Josh on this list. You don't even know, for the most biased reasons ever. I love Josh, and if there were one figurine that someone should make of a CrossFit athlete, it should be Josh Bridges. And I would purchase that. I just like that you included celebrations into your, into your factor. Well, I mean, he's, he's, he's, uh, you know, he's very well known for those. And I think it is notable that he's won that many events at the Games. Sevan and I were talking the other day that it's difficult to win one event at the Games. I mean, Miko Salo has one career event win at the CrossFit Games, for example.

Josh has eight. And like I said, only two people have more than him. Obviously, it's Rich and Matt. So pretty impressive. Holy shit. Wow. That's amazing. But the number that they've won jumps drastically, right?

I won't – We'll get to them later on. What is – Brian, just out of curiosity, do you know who has the fourth most amount of wins at the CrossFit Games below Josh? And if so, are they in the top ten list? There's a three-way tie for fourth on that list, and two of those three guys are in the top ten. Okay. Interesting. Wow, wow, wow.

Okay. Number nine. Well, one of those guys is actually coming up here at number nine. It's a much more recent CrossFitter, and it's Brent Fikowski. And Brent's an interesting case study here. And really, James, this is where we can start to talk about what some of the criteria is. In assessing and compiling this list, I think the most challenging thing was the fact that the last two years, 2019 and 2020 years, were so different from everything that we'd known before. And so we can just look at Brent's performances at the games. He first made the games in 2016.

He was fourth. The next year he was second. The next year he was fourth. Then we had the huge overhaul of the system and the way that people were able to qualify and what actually happened when you were at the games in terms of scoring and cuts. And then the next year was COVID and the online version of the games. And in those two years, he did make it both years. He ends up finishing 23rd and 15th. Now, the weird thing about that is in the midst of those things, there were a lot of outside competitions. He finished, he competed at three competitions during the two sanctional

years where he finished first, second, and first. So when we look at the totality of his kind of competition resume from 2016 through the present moment, the massive outliers are the poor performances in the 2019 and 2020 games. And so we're going to talk about some other guys on the list that had really good performances during that time. The question is how heavily do you weight those relative to the fact that he's been in the top four his other three years at the games and one and first or second, all three times he's competed outside of the CrossFit Games season in sanctional events. He also has six career event wins at the games. And basically what I'm saying about Brent Fikowski is if he comes back this season in places inside the top four, he's probably going to jump up two to four spots on this list. in places inside the top four, he's probably going to jump up two to four spots on this list.

And, um, of all the athletes just off the top of my head, he would be probably the best underwear model. Like if he were to parlay this into a modeling career, I'm just like this picture that we have of him is amazing. But if he was in some Calvin Klein underwear on a billboard over the Santa Monica freeway, sales would go up. Is this where Tia beat him in that, that workout? It might this, I think she, her and Christie are sneaking up right behind him here for the run swim run. Technically he did cross the finish line before them, but I think based on the chip timers, they might've had a faster time than him.

Cause I think the girls had to start like five yards behind the men. Yeah. And, and yeah, in Brent's defense defense maybe if he would have if he would have thought that they were going to beat him like if it was you know if it wasn't on chip timers and it was just like the foot race maybe brent would have won that's a that's a tough one um someone saying brian has serious wi-fi issues don't worry about that because we will make a clean copy for youtube that will go up this evening. Thank you, Hans. Thank you, Red.

What do you think is keeping him out of the top from not getting on the podium? At the Games? Yeah. Well, he did make it one year. He finished second in 2017. And I think he's got a good chance to make it on the podium this year. But, you know, like I said, this is a pretty defining year for him at the Games. He's already 30 years old. It's not to say that people can't have success at that age but it would if he's able to podium this year at the games I think even if he finishes in the top five then it's pretty solid in my mind that we can basically omit his finishes from 2019 and 2020 as not being representative of his

fitness relative to the other top guys in the sport. And then we can say what I think is the case, which is, um, you know, those two years were just too different for us to consider them at the same level as, uh, as any of the other years where all the athletes got to do a majority of the test. Um, let me, let me fire the question back at you Hobart. And what do you think is a bigger handicap? Number 10, who Brian is Josh Bridges being a smaller athlete, or is the bigger handicap Brent Fikowski being 6 feet tall or whatever he is, 220 pounds? Not so much the height.

I think it's just the weight difference. I think, honestly, being a little bit bigger is better. So smaller is a bigger handicap, I think, at this point in CrossFit. I think you're right. So you're saying Brent should cut his body fat from 5% to 2%? No, no, no, no, no. I mean, I think the weight helps him. I think the weight helps him.

Okay. But it's still a – and maybe theoretically just based on the numbers in an ideal world, he would be two inches shorter and 20 pounds lighter, right? Yeah. Right. Okay. All right. Number eight.

Number eight on the list is another guy who's still competing in the sport. It's Noah Olson. This year will be his eighth year competing in the sport. It's Noah Olson. This year will be his eighth year competing at the Games. In the seven previous years that he's competed, he's had one podium finish that was second place in 2019. And his two best finishes at the Game were the last two years, where he took fourth and second. And we just talked about how those last two years are, it's a little bit difficult to know what to do with them relative to anything else. Specifically, if you're comparing him to a guy like Brent Fikowski and you look at the

years that Fikowski had his best finishes, he beat Noah all three of those years. You know, Noah was two spaces behind him in both 2018 and 2017. It was about 10 spots behind him in 2016. Noah has been to the games a couple more times than Brent. So he has that going for him. He does not compare to Brent really in terms of the event wins.

He's only got two event wins. They were both in the last two years, handstand hold in stage one of the games, and Mary, which obviously had that epic performance against Matt Fraser. He was able to win that. But it's hard to argue with six top eight finishes. or he was able to win that. But it's hard to argue with six top eight finishes. Sorry, five top eight finishes in the seven years he's competed,

and he only had one finish outside of – no, I had that right. Six top eight finishes in seven years, and his worst finish was 15th. So it's consistency over time here that kind of edges him up ahead of Brent for me, and it's just barely. I mean, if, if Brent beats Noah this year at the games, I would at least flip them on this list. But for the time being, even though the last few years were kind of, you know, different, Noah navigated those seasons much better than Brent did. And, and, you know, capitalize on the opportunities that were there. Those things are out of the athletes control. And so we can can't completely discount them when we're looking at what they were able to do.

That's part of their competitive history. Noah was great each of the last two years. And so he comes in at eight, right above Brent. But I think for both of them, this year is really big in terms of how that might settle out going forward. When you say he's been in eight games, has he been in, um, does that include this year? Yeah. Eight is including this year. And so of the seven previous years, he's been inside the top eight, six of those seven times. And, and is this the

15th year of the CrossFit games? Yeah. It's remarkable to think that Noah Olson has been in more than half the games in the history of the CrossFit games. That's pretty fricking impressive. It is. Yeah. And he's had a really cool, like growth in his career. Like,

I don't know. I think Noah's some, I like, I like Noah's career a lot. And I know that's not like a criteria, but I think eighth is a good start for him. I'd like to see him do better this year than he did, did last year. Um, what would a win do? What if he wins the CrossFit games this year, Brian? Yeah. If he wins the games this year, well, let's, um,

I mean, then he, he could definitely, he'll definitely move up. I mean, the championship holds a lot of weight and you'll see some of the guys that are, that are just ahead of him currently that I think it would be pretty fair to move him ahead of if he were to win this year i like it how we can see ryan's browser i wish there was like one of the tabs said porn hub or something like he accidentally left something on or okay uh okay go on number seven what if it was that but then the search was your name savann all right oh wait go back this is a good one number seven so number seven is bjorn carl gudmundsson and i actually kind of have uh bkg noel olsen and

brent fukowski all kind of grouped together here. It was difficult for me to kind of parse out which one to place ahead of the other one for the time being. Similarly to Noah, this is going to be BKG's eighth year at the Games. Damn. And he had a worse start to his career. He finished 26th in his first year, but since then his finishes at the Game have been third, eighth, fifth, fifth, third, and eighth. his finishes at the game have been third, eighth, fifth, fifth, third, and eighth. And that eighth was last year in the 2020 stage one, the most recent third, where he, along with a couple other guys, just barely missed the top five by a few points. And we know that, like we've been saying, that these last two years are a little bit different. So obviously taking third in 2019,

like that was Noah's only podium. BKG had podium previously in 2015 against a full field of competition, against a full field of competition, against a full breadth of depth of the CrossFit Games test. So that basically in and of itself is how I bumped him to head here. But I also feel like I was trying to stay pretty narrow on the Games competition, but because the last two years didn't give us the full insight, I also did consider some of their sanctional performances, and he was just better than Noah in the sanctionals. He was second to Fraser in Dubai. He won Iceland. He was fourth in Dubai the next year behind Vellner, Fikowski, and Roman Krennikov.

And then he was second at Rogue to Patrick Vellner. So he's got a really good resume off the CrossFit Games field too in those sanctional competitions, whereas Noah had four third-place finishes and an eighth the five times he competed. So those are basically the two things I use to jump BKG ahead of Olsen and Fikowski here. But again, he's right in the conversation with both of these guys. I feel like this is a huge year for this section of the leaderboard and of the rankings. And each of them has the opportunity to kind of either further separate themselves from the other guys or to be passed by him if, if they do well. And he, he does not go ahead, James. I was just going to say, like, I think he's another one of

these guys too, like in the criteria doesn't fit, but he's just like such a bad-ass warrior. And he had crazy growth in the sport too. Like I remember when I competed against him in 2014, and then he came back a year later and he was like a superhuman and he. Like I remember when I competed against him in 2014 and then he came back a year later and he was like a superhuman and he just, I don't know, consistently gets better. I think he has an awesome attitude. Like he makes no excuses for bad performances and just shuts up and does a lot of work, trains by himself a lot. Like I think that stuff, I know you can't quantify it, but I think that stuff is super cool.

But I'd like, I'm curious to see who's sixth now. Before we go there, did Fikowski compete against both Rich and Matt? Because what's interesting about Josh, BKG, and Noah is they also had to deal with both of these savages. Correct. Yeah, no, Fikowski didn't make the games until 2016. He actually missed it by, I think, one spot two consecutive years from the regionals prior to that. So he never had the chance to compete against Rich in an individual competition.

Okay. I don't approve of that lollipop in his mouth, by the way. That was Ryan's. All these pictures are Ryan's selection. There's no proof that there's actually a hard piece of candy on the other end of that, but I'm going to make that assumption. Number six. All right, six is another guy who's been around for a long time, and he's still competing. He's making his return to individual competition this year, and it's Scott Panchik. So this will mark his – you forgot about him?

No, no. I mean, that's a good... I think number six for Pancek, that's a good fit. It's a good fit. Yeah. So Scott's got a... He's one of the most interesting guys to talk about in CrossFit. He's the...

I think, yeah, he's the only person inside the top 10 that has never finished on the podium at the games. But he has three fourth-place finishes, a fifth, and three sixth-place finishes, and his worst finish in eight appearances is 11th. And that is pretty remarkable to say. We've already talked about each of these guys. BKG had a 26 his first year. Noah had a 15th in his worst year.

Fikowski's had 23rd and 15th the last two years. Josh had a couple bad years. Pancik has never really. 11th is not that bad at the games, especially if you've been there eight times, and that's your worst finish, with all the others being fourth through sixth. Like BKG, he only has one career event win at the games, so it's another thing where he's kind of lacking against some of these guys. He won Fran in 2012, which was a third of three consecutive workouts at the end of the games. There was a small field of competitors there. And Rich had already won both Isabel and Elizabeth prior to that, I think. But just can't argue with consistency

over time when it comes to Scott. I think he has the second most CrossFit Games appearances of any male competitor ever. And his average his average finish is at the Games is five point seven five, which I think comes in at fourth best all time. Wow. And to win probably the most iconic workout in the history of CrossFit at the Games is pretty cool. Thoughts about Scott, James? No, I super saw, I mean, I don't like it's, it's hard, right? Cause Pancheck is that guy, like you said, 5.7 average at the games. And it's like, he's just solid and awesome. I don't have anything super insightful to say.

He just shows up and does work. I want him to get back. I want him to get on the podium this year. That'd be really cool. Yeah. And I guess, I mean, I, once again, if he were to, if he does add a podium finish to his resume here, especially this late in his career, um, that would be very impressive. Obviously it would help bolster all of his stats as well relative to these guys. So now we've got the last four guys that are already, they're all competing this year. And I think that because we're coming off those two kind of weird years

and we're hopefully getting back to a more traditional one, this is a critical year for all of these guys in terms of cementing their legacy. And I think he's the first guy on the list who owns a gym, right? Number six, BKG, Noah, Brent, and Josh do not own an affiliate. And I think Scott does. There we go. Real quick question. BKG, Noah, Brent, and Josh do not own an affiliate, and I think Scott does. There we go. Real quick question.

This is a little off subject here, but did Austin Maliolo make the top 35? This is me just throwing rocks at James. He did. That's a hard rock. Jesus. All right. Would James have made the top 70? I don't know. Maybe. All right. Would James have made the top 70? I don't know. Maybe.

All right. I think so because I don't think there's 70 guys that have at least three games appearances. So that probably alone would have been enough. Okay. Number five. Number five is, yet again, a guy who's still competing this year, and it's Patrick Vellner. Vellner, I think more so. What?

This just shows that maybe your list actually has some validity. I was touting it as probably, not probably, as the official list. I mean, this is it. This is, but I was concerned because of rumors that you're a fanboy that it would emotionally affect your list. But the fact that you have Vellner so low, and I know he's your butt buddy, is amazing. So low, he's fifth, man. I know. But in Brian's world, he put Vellner as number one.

He loves Vellner. Well, I think that Vellner falls fate to the same thing as Fikowski here. He comes on the scene in 2016. He's one of the guys who did have a year of team experience prior to that. He gets to the games as an individual in 2016. He takes third and kind of did it very quietly. He didn't have any standout performances, didn't have any bad performances, winds up narrowly edging Brent for for the podium that year he comes back he gets third 2017 robbed of the podium by the ricky gerrard situation so he didn't get to stand up there with with brent that year but ultimately took third comes back has his best

finish the following year second place behind fraser and then comes 2019 where you know he took a risk in event one and then he gets penalty in event six and then those two things in and of himself keep him out of the top 10 that year he finished his 16th and then last year stage one of the games he had a pulled groin he finished ninth one spot behind bkg and still like within 10 points of making the top five for his sake it was actually better he didn't make the top five because he needed to rehab that groin but the fact that his four rep max front squat six months later was more than his one rep max front squat at the games that year and that event single-handedly kept him out. We know he would have been in the top five that year if he was healthy and we can safely assume that he would

have done a lot better than 16th in 2019 if able to finish the test. Because when you look at his sanctional performances in 2019 and 2020, check this out. First at Wadapalooza, second at Rogue to Fraser, second in Dubai to Fikowski, first at Wadapalooza, first at Rogue. Those are the five biggest competitions of the sanctional season. He won three of them and was second to Fraser in one of them and two points behind Fikowski. I think it was two points at Dubai. It was really close. It came down to the last event. There's no one in the field at the games this year who's beaten him in a live competition since 2016, except for Fikowski. And I mean, all of these cases that I'm making and the fact that yes, he is a friend of mine,

and he's been very generous to me. I could easily have put him as high as third on this list. If he places even inside the top three this year at the games, I probably will move him up that high. But I think just like Brent, he needs to prove that even after these two years where their placements are probably not indicative of the relative fitness, that he can come back and without Fraser in the field this year say, no, I'm the guy to beat. And if he does that, I probably would put him all the way up to third. How often do you guys text each other?

I don't text athletes very often. He didn't answer the question, James. But he just said you guys are friends. Someone just wrote, Brian, you got to stop stealing Wi-Fi from the local Burger King. Don't worry Matt we will produce a clean copy on YouTube this will not be the final version so if you want to go back and hear my jokes

you can and they'll make sense I will say this about Vellner and this has none of the scientific intellect that Brian brings to it but he has a very well balanced composition as a human being of brain, intellect, and brawn. He has a very good attitude. He's clearly very smart. By good

attitude, I mean attitude when you're at the games. He's very calm. It's lighthearted. He also can turn it on and be intense. He's clearly smart when you communicate with him. He's very calm. It's lighthearted. He also can turn it on and be intense. He's clearly smart when you communicate with him. He's well thought out, and he's strong as shit. So he probably has one of the best packages, I'd say. Whoa. Just a couple of other things about him. This will be his sixth year competing as an individual, which will tie him with Bridges and also Fikowski's sixth year.

He's got a second and two-thirds. His average finish at the Games, even with the last two years, is 6.6. And he's won two events with an asterisk, could potentially be three events at the Games. The events he won are kind of interesting. He won Chaos, which was that unknown event in 2018. He won the Sprint Obstacle Course in 2017, which was a very athletically demanding event. And then he was second to Ricky Garrard in the hay bale burpee workout Madison triplet or tri plus, whichever one that one was that year in 2017 as well. So he's got the potential to do well in events, but he doesn't have the same number of event wins as some of the other guys on this list, specifically ahead of him. So another thing that's maybe just holding him

back a little bit. Uh, and just so you know, ladies, he's, he's not on the market, even though I gave him all those high rankings and all categories, I'm pretty sure he's taken. You said he had a great package. Yeah, he is a great package. Oh, he is. He is a great package. He is. Yeah. He may have a great package. I honestly, package. Honestly, I'm curious, but I don't. I have no data. No data. Brian, number four. FanDuel Casino's exclusive live dealer studio has your chance at the number one feeling, winning,

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Benefits vary by card. Terms apply. So, oh yeah, number four. So now we're getting into the realm of some of the past champions here. And we have Jason Kalipa, the California Bear. So he was obviously the champion in 2008. He also had a second place finish quite a bit later on in his career and a third place finish. Those were in 2013 and 2014.

So he's proved a little bit of longevity there. The other years that he competed at the games, he was fifth, 16th, 7th, and 5th. So he has one, two, three, four, five, six places inside the top seven, five inside the top five, three on the podium with kind of an outlier of a 16th, 7th, and 5th. So he has 6 places inside the top 7, 5 inside the top 5, 3 on the podium with kind of an outlier of a 16th place in his worst season. He's one of the guys that comes in tied for 4th in the all-time events, wins at the games with 6. That's tying him with Brent Fikowski and Chris Spieler. Chris Spieler is the only guy up there that is not inside the top 10 on my overall rankings.

And Jason's one of those guys that, um, he transformed himself as his career went on and made himself relevant in some of the longer endurance events, despite being a pretty big guy in the field. Um, he, you know, in some capacities he's, he's a dominant force, but in other ways, he was just this guy that was always there. He was always in the mix on events and in the competition, and he stayed strong throughout the course of the weekend, usually moving up a little bit as the weekend wore on. I think when people think back to 2014, they always think,

oh, that was Matt's first year, that was Rich's last year, and you just don't realize that Kalipa was right there against a really good field finishing third. I mean, he beat that year Bridges, Panchik, Hackenbrook, Ben Smith, Noah Olsen were the next five guys. And he was ahead of all of them. So Jason Kalipa, to me, is still a legend of the sport. He still deserves a spot up here in the top five. And he just happens to come in fourth. He's been to the game seven times, three times on the podium, and nothing worse than 16th.

I'd also like to say, maybe you said this and I wasn't listening, but is he the only guy as a rookie outside of the first year of the CrossFit Games to come in as a rookie and win the CrossFit Games? It happened the first three years for the men. Miko Sale also did it. Okay. Okay. Okay. I know who number three is. I'd love to take a guess before you reveal it. Do you have a guess, Hobart? I don't think Kalipa beats out Vellner, but I really like Jason. Oh, shit. What his involvement was in the sport.

But number three, I don't know, Ben Smith. Why don't you think – yeah, I'm thinking Ben Smith too. Wait, why do you – I think Kalipa beats out Vellner. I think Vellner is – I mean Kalipa has a lot of years in there, a lot of time to build data points. He does have a lot of time to build data points and a lot of years in there. I just think high performance in the games now is way more relevant than in past years just because of the depth of the field. And I don't want to, like you said, Brian, I don't want to discredit Jason

because he did massive things for the sport itself and his longevity and his consistency. But I don't know. I think – I mean, look, I'm very much – Does that change your criteria, Brian? Like whether you won in 2009 or whether you won in 2020? Definitely, yeah.

I mean, I don't think we've talked about it yet, but I do consider the years in which, like if you only had four years of competition, they were 2009 to 2013 and they were the exact same performances as 2014 to 2018. I'd take the 2014 to 2018 just because I think the field's continuing to get stronger and deeper. I have every confidence that if Vellner, that after this season, that at least Vellner will jump Kalipa on this list for me. I just feel like he needs to prove to me that the last two years were in fact a fluke. And that if he does that this year, then I can say with certainty that his fitness never went anywhere. The formats and circumstances changed, but he is that guy.

And like I said, I think there's a very high likelihood Vellner rises all the way to number three on this list after this season. Okay. I'm going to do it, Sivan. Brian, I agree with you on that one. There we go. And most notably from just being on the ground there with Kalipa was the fact of, I think you mentioned, what he did in the endurance events. The fact that he was able to not just be the big strong guy out there but to win endurance events and to really put the pressure on.

And someone called him. I don't know who did, but the California Bear. I mean, man, at that row that year, he was something else. And what was the event where he peed himself after the event? It had a run in it. It was the one that I think even Rich walked in. What event was that? It was in Madison.

Yeah. I mean, Khalid was so impressive. That was Carson. That was a Carson. What did I say? Yeah, Carson. Yeah, yeah, you're right. And he definitely has the best arms in the history of the CrossFit Games.

Nobody beats him on that shit. James Hobart's CrossFit bodies list, he wins arms. Triceps, biceps, shoulders, the whole thing. His arm is bigger than you, Siobhan. It is. That is true. You know what I think was one of the most impressive individual events

Jason ever competed in was Naughty Nancy, where he took third place behind Bridges, who just annihilated that, and Froning. And really, it was a great event because that was a pretty demanding weight for the overhead squats, but it was also a long run. And Jason hung right up there with Rich ahead of everyone else in the field. And that's a good testament to what you're talking about, Savant. Number three. Yeah. So number three, two and one or three, at least here is probably pretty obvious. It's Ben

Smith. Ben Smith is the only guy with more CrossFit Games appearances than Scott Panchik. He's been to the games 11 times. He was invited one year, but he qualified the first 10 times he made it. And he won it in 2015. He was a runner-up once. He was on third place twice, making him have four podium appearances, which is the third most all-time for the men. Even with a couple of bad years, he had a 28th. I guess that was really his only bad year. He did have an 11th and a 12th also, but he was first, second, third, third, seventh, eighth, eighth, 11th, 12th, and 28th. So an average of 7.5 placing at the games over 11 years is pretty substantial.

He does only have three event wins. He won the Toto Bar Ground Overhead Workout in 2010, and he won two events in the year that he won the games, Heavy DT and Soccer Chipper. That Soccer Chipper event was basically the signature event for him of the games because obviously Fraser struggled with it and he was just incredibly dominant on that. Overall, I don't think he's the most flashy athlete. He's just a get work done type of guy. But when you have this combination of longevity in the sport and excellence at the top of the sport, it's pretty hard to exclude him from the top three right now. I do think that Pat Vellner and possibly Brent Fikowski with two or three more

solid years, like top five finish type years at the games, have the potential to pass him. But he's pretty well etched into the history books here, and I have no hesitancy to have him third on the list, especially prior to this year's games. It is interesting what you say. He's not a very flashy athlete. Of all the guys that are going to be on this list, of all the guys I've interviewed, he's definitely the most soft-spoken. He kind of is the most difficult to get words out of. That's not a dig at all. And he probably has less notoriety than any of them in terms of just media notoriety

and fan acknowledgement. Maybe Scott Panchick too, although Scott is funny as shit. When you do get him talking, he says some funny shit. I think all those guys I've heard toss some dirt around and do some shit-talking interviews, which is always fun, but I don't think I've ever, you know, toss some dirt around and do some shit talking interviews, which is always fun. But I don't think I've ever gotten anything like that from Ben Smith. He is so chill.

James, you like Ben here? I like Ben here a lot. Yeah. And again, just because I've known him in the sport for a long time and he literally came in as a kid. Now, I think Ben's a super, super and like you said he's sort of like unspoken kind of like scott in this way but more successful just his ability to do work show show up it is it's true more successful he's got that championship medal man um no dig against scott

like i you know but uh i don't know i like that about him him. Brian, thank you for slapping Hobart and making sure he stays awake during the show. Number two. I was seeing how many Instagram followers he had. Oh, that is – and how is he? How many does he have? I think it was a little over like 455,000. This is interesting. Yeah.

I wonder if that's more than Scott. Not one of the criteria I factored into the rankings. How many does Scott have? Can you see that easily, Hobart? I could just check. I remember BKG was like 177, and then Noah and Fikowski had like 750. Wow. Hold on.

323 for Scott Pancheck. Interesting. Yeah. Interesting. Yeah. Interesting. And Ben was one of the early guys to get really, really strong too, right? Right in front of that refrigerator. He got really strong with the – wasn't back squatting his thing? He back squatted 500.

I think he was one of the early guys to snatch 300, right? Yeah, sounds right. Both him and Scott Pancheck are just, I mean, when I think about these guys, as good as they are at everything, the thing that stands out to me most is their proficiency at Olympic lifting. They just have phenomenal technique, even under heavy loads, and I think it's one of the reasons that they've been able to be so good for so long. By that, you mean injury-free because of their technique, Brian?

Yeah, they lift a lot of weight. By that, you mean injury-free because of their technique, Brian? Yeah. They lift a lot of weight. They do it regularly, but they don't do it unsafely. I don't think they ever push it beyond what they need to or circumstances where they need to. Like in training, I think they train percentages with high quality of excellence. It's the only way I can explain how they can continue to show up for 10 years at these competitions and be in the upper echelons on every weightlifting test. Number two, Ricky Garrard. Well, you had the first three letters right.

A different Rick. Yeah, so obviously there's much to be said here about the comparison between Rich Froning and Matt Fraser competed five times at the CrossFit Games as individuals. During the five years that they competed, Rich was second once and first four times. Matt was second twice and first three times. But their average event finish across those years of competition, like in all of the events they participated in, Rich was 6.97 and Matt was 6.95. Wow. So almost identical.

Basically the same, yeah. There were some things that needed to be taken into account, like a different number of, like some different scoring systems and stuff like that when you start to compare them. But there were also some interesting stats from their first five years of competition. In five years, Rich won 16 events at the Games and Matt only won nine in his first five years of competition. In five years, Rich won 16 events at the Games, and Matt only won nine in his first five years. However, Rich finished second or third 12 times. Matt finished second or third 25 times. So top three finishes, Matt actually outshines Rich 33 to 28

at that point in his career. That's probably a nuance that only a statistician would spot, by the way, too, since as a fan, we really do appreciate the event wins. Yeah, but it's like when I think about some other sports, like Roger Federer's got a ton of career majors, but he also has finished second like 10 times in addition to winning 20 times. It's like pretty significant stuff, whereas one of his his chief rivals, Rafael Nadal has 20 wins. He doesn't have that many runner-ups because he had to deal with injuries. So he wasn't as consistent over

time. So I think it's a relevant thing to talk about. The other thing that people like to talk about with Froning and Fraser is their average margin of victory. And obviously Matt had only won three times at that point, but he did win those three years by an average of 211 points. Whereas in Rich's four years of winning, he averaged 93 point margin of victory. So less than double. And I think that this more speaks to not necessarily their fitness levels maybe, but more to just their mindset and the way that they approached the season and the competition. I think Rich was more of a, I'm going to win the competition by any means necessary, even if it means having a couple of events not so good here or there.

I know what it takes to win come Sunday. Whereas Matt had this unrelentless desire to win every time he stepped on the floor. And so he was attacking event after event after event where Rich seemed to just have more of the big picture of the game's weekend in mind. And he said, it doesn't matter so much what happens on Thursday, Friday. I just have to make sure that by Sunday, I'm on top.

Another interesting thing too, and Hobart, I'm totally open to being wrong about this, but Rich is really good at CrossFit. Like really, and by that, I mean Sunday. Rich is really good at crossfit like really and by that i mean sunday rich is really good at crossfit because isn't sunday really sort of anecdotally the crossfit day at the crossfit games i don't know yeah anecdotally i would say that and i definitely agree with that just but i think at the same time matt is really good at crossfit but i think what you're saying is like rich doesn't have a ton of event wins in like the single modality stuff or like you know things like i

don't know a bike race or something where there's a lot of odd object stuff is that kind of what you're getting at sure not that not that i don't know what how to describe it exactly but when you would just be he was very confident when sunday would come along because we knew that those were going to be where the barbell cycling would show up, the DTs, the frans, the rope climbs. He was going to handle his business on those days. He was really, really good at CrossFit. Another thing to throw out there real quick is both of these guys, and Rich was extremely notorious for this, they didn't leave anything in the judges' hands. Rich never left anything in the judges' hands. His reps are fucking solid.

He would rather make sure every rep is perfect than beat you with speed. And that lockout in the picture that Ryan's chosen here is indicative of that. I mean, there's never any controversy around the guy. No, I completely agree with that. And what you're saying is completely true. In 2014, he won all the events on Sunday. In 2013, he won all the events on Sunday. In 2012, he went two for three in the three-part final,

only losing the final event, Fran, to Scott Pantrick and a couple other guys. But by that point, he'd locked up the win. He won the final event in 2011. I mean, it's just incredible. And that's one of the things that's kind of disappointing about the last two years is when you look at all the previous years and you see that the guys that have done the best, like the podium finishers from 2010 through 2018, are guys that were getting stronger as the weekend went on, whereas their opponents were getting weaker as the weekend went on. And in 2019, we never got the chance to see that play out because a majority of the guys who were notorious or famous for making charges in the back half of the competition were eliminated before they had the chance to do that. And we could say that it's their fault for not navigating the season that way, the way

that it was meant to be navigated. But when we talk about the CrossFit Games historically and from what it has always been, there is this ever since 2009, really, when Dave really upped the ante in terms of the quantity of events and duration of the time and difficulty of the test. That's one of the factors. And it's like, you can say, oh yeah, I finished this event here, this event there, but it's like, no, how well did you manage the totality of the test? And that is relevant at the CrossFit games. And I think it should be, and Rich is amongst the, you know, arguably the best at that. Another note about Chris and you guys tell me if this is right is he never had a coach. Rich, you mean? Yeah. What did I say? Who did I say? Chris. Oh, who's Chris? Yeah, I don't know. Rich.

Chris Froning. That was his coach. Rich never had a coach, did he? I think he always just brought Darren as his coach, yeah. Yeah. Darren's the winningest CrossFit coach in the history of CrossFit. If there was a CrossFit coach's top ten, he would be on the top of it, I think. I mean, maybe he had a boyfriend or a confidant you know with him um in an amazing support team but rich pretty much did all of his own programming i think

for except you know for except for all like the um like specialty stuff running rich i think once told me that rich froning coach is rich froning but i don't want to quote him on that i might have dreamt it and so what does that mean? I'm not suggesting that having a coach or not having a coach is good. What I'm suggesting is that he's honest with himself about his weaknesses, and so he worked on them. I think that's one of the, from my layman's eye, one of the definitive components of having a coach or not having a coach is just being able to be honest with yourself,

do the stuff that Matt Fraser, Miko Salo, Rich rich froney did if they thought they were weak at something they would lock themselves in a closet i mean you know matt has that famous story where he sucked at running so he joined the high school track team and let the high schoolers beat him up until until they couldn't so i mean it it's it's a winning mentality at all costs, winning over – I don't know what it's over. But it seems to be a definitive characteristic. Let's transition to Fraser on that point then because obviously he comes in at number one on this list. And all the stats that I was giving before were only talking about his first five years of individual competition because Rich only competed for five years. And when I made that analysis, I included at the very end, you know, Matt's career is not over yet and he's probably going to continue to build on that legacy, which he obviously did in 2019 and 2020.

And as many times as we've said that those years were outliers, the thing that didn't change no matter what the circumstances were, was who was the fittest. And Matt still rose to the top and, um, and, you know, he overcame a variety of different challenges that weren't all necessarily fitness related to do that. Uh, and you know, um, he ends up retiring this season. Currently now he has 29, arguably 30 event wins at the CrossFit games total. Now 14 of those come from the 2020 CrossFit games alone. And you say, okay, well, that's kind of weird that you'd have half your event wins come from one season. So why is that? Twofold, one, the second stage of the games, there was only five people competing. So usually you have to beat 39 guys to get an event win. You only had to beat four. second stage of the games, there was only five people competing. Um, so, you know, if usually

you have to beat 39 guys to get an event when you only had to beat four. So it's kind of weird to, to consider those on the same caliber of event wins as, as rich as 16. But when you look at stage one of the games, there were still 30 guys competing. There were seven events. Four of them were CrossFit events, like cross classic CrossFit events, and two of them were single modality, one weightlifting, a handstand hold, and a row event. And he won the four CrossFit events, Friendly Fran, Damn Diane, Nasty Nancy, it was called, and Awful Annie. He won all four of those. And so when you talk about Rich being good at CrossFit and good at those Sunday-type tests, I mean, Matt was four for four in his last year of competition against that field in the classic CrossFit domain workouts and five titles, two runner-ups. And if you look at his off-season resume, I don't think he's lost a lot of competition since losing to Ben Smith in 2015

at the Games. I think it's undisputed number one. Let me ask you this. Did you consider the fact that when Rich and Matt were both at the CrossFit Games together, Rich did beat him? Yeah, I mean, obviously that's the case, but Rich also didn't win in his first season. And if you're talking about a guy breaking into the scene, going up against the current best of all time, beating Kalipa to finish third, beating all those other guys I listed that were just behind Kalipa that year, That's a pretty impressive start to his career. I think if anything, like the bigger question is how come he wasn't able to beat Ben Smith in 2015. But you know, that's just a testament to how difficult it is to win. And he has admitted that, that his off season wasn't as

dialed in as it could have been that year that he wasn't making the best diet choices, lifestyle choices. And he made a commitment after that to put all of that aside. He wrote about it. Um, and you know, Matt Fraser or why I'm retiring article that morning chocolate published last January. And he talks about these crazy sacrifices that he made and like really minute decisions he made to make sure that he was giving himself every single opportunity to win, and that's what he relentlessly did. Let me ask you this as a hypothetical, and you don't have to answer this obviously,

but what if Rich would have beat Graham that year? What if Rich would have climbed the rope and beat Graham? Would you put him at number one? Probably still not at this point. After five years, yeah, maybe. But I think that whether it really matters or not, that Rich and Matt seem to have this different mentality. They talked about going into the games. I mean, Matt has less career finishes in the bottom 10, less career finishes in the bottom 20, less career finishes in the bottom 20, more career finishes in the top 10, more career finishes in the top three. He's just been better across the board relative to the fields.

And like James talked about earlier, the fields are deeper and more competitive, and it's more difficult to get there to begin with now than it was in 2010, 11, 12. Just a quick digression. Michael, just so you know, we will be putting a clean audio version of this on YouTube. We're really sorry that Brian's audio is breaking up because he is actually plugged into the router now. We did a speed check before. Everything was fast and fine. We have no idea what's going on, so we apologize. But this will be fixed on the final output, which should be up later tonight.

Are you okay, Hobart? I know that with the Fraser froning one, two, what is your – are you struggling with that? I'm torn up over here, man. No, honestly, I feel the same way about this with Brian's criteria. You know, I think if Froning competed at individual a couple more years and beat Matt again, if that had happened, I think this story is different. And if you take into other criteria, too, I don't know. I feel like Rich has done what Rich has done in the sport entirely. I don't think we'll be touched by anyone for a long time, but man, just the way Matt, two things like Brian said, one, his competing outside of the CrossFit game season and his

success there. I think that's really hard to deny. That was something Rich never really got involved in. And just the way Matt beat people. That event, the Standard in 2019, when Noah caught up to him on the snatches and then just like Matt grabbed the bar and did like a set of five. I think there were times when Matt held back even when he was beating people or winning people at the games. And the times where you got to see him just kind of flip that switch and go for it. There's this story. One of the judges who's on seminar staff was judging Matt during the parallel handstand push-up kettlebell overhead walking lunge finale. That was the Fibonacci final, and that was what, 2018? Brian?

The Fibonacci finale was, I think it was 2017. 2017. Fibonacci came back in 2018. Um, the one with the, uh, it finished with the kettlebell overhead walking lunges and it had parallel handstand pushups in it. And I think, you know, Matt was sort of like hanging on and a little bit in the lead or like neck to neck with everybody. And he looked down at the judge and say, Hey, should I turn it on now? And then just finish the thing on broken. You know, like I think there was even levels of his fitness that we didn't really get to see in competition. Um, the online event in 2019 that he demolished, I think were extraordinary, uh, 20, I think we're extraordinary.

Uh, 20, yeah, 20. When was a damn Diane? Yeah. 2020. Um, so yeah, I mean, I'm not, I'm not torn up about it. I think, uh, with this criteria, I'm, I'm not torn up about it. There's a point seven, just before you go, there's a point that James makes there that I think is extremely relevant to sport in general. Like, like nowadays people want to talk about Jordan or LeBron.

Well, you have to realize about Michael Jordan is not only was he the best or second best basketball player of all time, but he paved the way for professionalism in basketball and redefined that for what the sport could sustain in terms of sponsorships and outside endorsement deals. Tiger Woods did that for golf, and Rich Froning did that for CrossFit. He made it possible to be a professional athlete in this sport off the competition floor. Based on your performance on the floor, you could create opportunities for yourself off the floor

that allowed people like Matt Fraser and Tia Clartumi and all the other people that are now professionals in the sport to have the opportunities they have. And that is something that no matter how good any other athletes ever become and might surpass him in terms of physical feats or accomplishments that he alone can really claim, lay claim to. I want to say this about Rich. I think that there's never been a more charismatic CrossFitter in the men or women's side of the field. He was the complete package. That being said, I don't think, and we'll get to this here on the next episode here, which we will take a small bathroom break and get to, we're going to do the top 10 women. I don't think psychologically defeating there's a more, um, a more potent

athlete basically that, that gets in the head of their athletes than Tia Claire to me. I think that, that it, and I could be wrong, but that's just my opinion on it. That being said, Matt also had that more so than rich. I think that people thought that they could beat rich, you know,

however small that is. I don't think people thought that they could beat Matt. He, he, when he was out on the field, uh, field of play, um, I think it was bad for everyone's head the same way. And I think it's even worse for the females when they see Tia.

I just think it's a psychological head fuck. Do you have thoughts on that Hobart? No, I, I really, I do agree with that. And I think that just had to do with how, when Matt started winning the margin that he was winning, beating people at, and like, you know, people remember that trail run when they went back to the ranch and then like Matt smashed everybody at it. And there were, there were kind of these upsets that Matt put out where you were like, oh, you know, this is that weird one-off event where people will beat Matt. And then they just didn't. And it did, it did seem, it did seem like hopeless, but yeah, I agree with Brian as far as

like what rich did in the sport for upcoming athletes. But as far as Matt's competitive dominance, I do think it's hard to touch. And I don't, the only person I think who comes close and will surpass it if she stays on is I think Tia can, can, you know, if there was an all time list in terms of competitive dominance, I think she could sit on top of that, and I'd like to see that. But right now, I still think it's Matt. Yeah, I'd like to see that too. So I guess to clarify what I'm saying, in the order of who was the – I think that there were some – very few, but some people who went out there who thought they could beat Rich. I think Kalipa thought he could beat him.

beat rich like i think like kalipa thought he could beat him and then i think that there were some people who thought that um uh maybe and there's a chance in hell they could beat matt but i don't think anyone walks out onto the field and thinks they can beat tia i think she is in everyone's fucking headspace and it's i i i don't envy the women that's for sure someone you want to really just quickly see the five guys that just barely missed the cut? Yeah. Before you show us that, how hard was it choosing between 10 and 11? 10 and 11 was tough,

especially when you see who it is. But at the end of the day, we can show 11, Ryan. 11 was Dan Bailey. And I had to put Josh ahead of him because Dan never beat him at the games. But Dan's resume was pretty good. Five for five in top 10 finishes in the five years he competed there. But he didn't make the podium and he never beat the guy that was in 10th. So I had to leave him off. And then

right behind him, we had a couple of legends in the sport. Graham Holdenberg, the 2010 champion, comes in at 12th. Matt Chan comes in at 13. Miko Salo I had at 14. That's going to make some people happy. There you go, Brian. And then Cole Sager, 15. Cole Sager is actually set to compete in his eighth CrossFit Games this year as well. So he certainly still has some potential to climb in these rankings. But those are the five guys I just barely missed.

Let's say Cole wins the Games this year. Would he break into your uh would he break into your top 10 i was showing all of them oh this is great actually yeah if cole wins the games i think he travis mayer number 22 i love it oh my god look at that and maliolo showed up look at that you just saw hobart little steam come off of hobart deadlifting he had a way better individual career in the though oh yeah we'll just leave it at that wow logan i don't even know who logan collins is and he made the list that's amazing josh everett 27 i'm loving this yeah we'll just scroll through to 35 here and i you know oh jeremy theo 29 that's so good

there's some old school guys down here. Chad McKay, so low. Go back to Chad McKay real quick, number 31. There was a year where he was winning. He was in first place and he injured himself. And man, he looked dominant that year. Was that the bird and run year? I can't remember, but I thought he was going to win the games that year before his injury.

He was crushing it. These guys are all good. That's what I'm saying. Even when you was going to win the games that year before his injury. He was crushing it. No, no. These guys are all good. That's what I'm saying. Even when you get down to the 30s, there's some impressive resumes here. The manimal. Holy cow. You're telling me that Pat Barber made your list and not James Hobart?

That's not a dig at Pat, but come on, man. I don't know. Pat had a pretty good individual career. He had two top 10 finishes. Yeah. All right. The original champ, 33. OPT.

You'll like this next one. Yeah. Yeah. My boy, Lucas Parker. And then only went down to 35. I stopped there. Ah, Stonehenge. He's awesome.

He's a legend. Yep, for sure. And it's cool to look at that because you can see, like, obviously there's a ton of incredibly talented and fit guys on that list. It just gives a little bit more credence and merit to the guys that did end up making the top 10, I think.

Ben Stoneberg, probably fewer Instagram followers than anyone who ever graced the field at the CrossFit Games, and yet he's still in the top 35. I love it. Alright guys, thanks for tuning in. We're going to take the CrossFit Games, and yet he's still in the top 35. I love it. All right, guys. Thanks for tuning in. We're going to take a small pee break, and we will come back shortly with the top 10

women of all time in the history of CrossFit. And like I said, please excuse us with Brian's audio. When we put up the final rendition of this, the audio will be clean. And on that note, Ryan, can we take a small