We cover the sport of CrossFit from all angles. We talk with athletes, coaches and celebrities that compete and surround in the sport of CrossFit at all levels. We also bring you Breaking News, Human Interest Stories and report on the Methodology of CrossFit. We also use the methodology to make ourselves the fittest we can be.
What is going on, everybody?
Welcome to Lunch with the Clydesdale.
This is Wednesday.
We're doing some Cajun
cooking on a Wednesday
because that's because we
bring in the Cajun himself,
Corey Leonard.
What's going on, brother?
What's happening, Scott?
Just another day in paradise, brother,
man.
Hey, Sarah.
Yeah, so, yeah,
a lot going on in the space
these last couple days.
Yeah.
Um,
we've kept everything pretty full on
this show.
Usually I'm struggling like
on the Monday and the
Tuesday after the Sunday
show to like have anything to talk about.
Um, but man,
like every day there's just
stuff coming out now.
We got the world fitness
project qualifier starting today.
Um, did you see, uh,
did you see spins post about it?
Uh, do you mean with the community stuff?
Yeah.
With like the people signed up for it.
Yeah, well,
that's for the community events,
and you can sign up up until the event,
and you don't have to call.
Word.
I didn't know that.
I just saw the numbers on there.
I thought it was interesting.
Yeah, that they pay out the podium,
and some of them don't even
have three teams signed up.
Yeah.
Someone in the comments was like,
this is kind of cool,
but I wish I was in one of
the divisions that only had three people.
Yeah.
so you could make money as
long as you are in the top
three in those community
events there are some of
the events don't even have
three teams in them um but
we have six weeks before
that event takes off and
there's and it's first come
first serve there is no
qualifier good for now so
you and me could do teams
right now just get signed
up brother get signed up I gotta
I got a list I've been
adding to since I started
competing of team names for
CrossFit competition.
And I don't know why it
didn't strike me before,
but I just added the Magic
Man and El Diablo.
Sarah wants to know if you
guys can be a team for free money.
I'm in.
Sign me up, sir.
Sign me up.
I mean, good Lord.
What's the registration fee for it?
I imagine you got to pay to
play like anything else.
I just don't know what it is.
I never looked into it.
Like there is probably a registration fee.
Um, I don't know what those are.
Honestly.
Like I I'm at a level where
I'm not ready to compete.
Um,
I'm quite there.
We get working on it.
So before we get into too much yesterday,
I talked about my goals in the open,
how I hit twentieth
percentile up eight percent
from the twelfth in twenty twenty three.
Someone in the chat asked me
about how you find out what
those levels are and stuff like that.
I actually have the chart.
Here, pull it up.
Let me... This one.
There we go.
So it's tiny.
I'll blow it up here.
Yeah, yeah.
Find my mouse.
There we go.
All right.
So there are five divisions, pro, advanced,
intermediate, novice, and rookie.
As I mentioned yesterday...
I think I'm level two,
but actually I didn't realize this.
There's a fifty five plus level.
So one through five is
eleven to twenty first percentile.
So maybe I'm a level five now.
I don't know.
But in the regular division,
it is eleven to twenty one
percent is level two.
And then like twenty two to
thirty two is level three.
Thirty three to forty three is level four.
Forty four to fifty four is level five.
Fifty five to sixty five is level six.
Sixty six to seventy six is seven.
Seventy seven to eighty seven is eight.
Eighty eight to ninety eight is nine.
And you have to be in the
ninety ninth or higher
percentile to be level ten.
and you can find your
percentile by logging into
the app it's like on the
first page you see they
give you a percentile of
where you finished then you
just come over to here you
plug in the percentile you
finished and it'll tell you
what level you are look
that up now while we're
talking about it because it uh
would be a lot easier if in
the app they told you if um
what your level is in
addition to so I don't know
if it's still doing it the
same way it used to but I
know like on my profile
from last year or the
current current one or
whatever it said what
number I was next to my
name like if you go look at
your athlete profile on the app
I don't know if they're
still quantifying it like they did before,
but it was on there before.
Yeah, I've been looking.
It's just percentile at this point.
So you can see like there.
I don't know if you can.
Yeah.
What I'm saying is if you go
look at your stuff, it's not that,
but like go click on where
you can view your profile.
It had a number by it.
Okay.
Okay.
Like where it says view athlete profile.
So right now mine doesn't have anything.
Yeah.
My last year that had a number next to it.
Okay.
Yeah.
Nothing on my athlete profile at all.
But yeah, there's my world ride.
Twentieth percentile.
Right along.
Maybe one percent better every day.
D Reed says he's two levels below rookie.
I have one that's hard to believe.
Doug's fit, man.
Don't let him lie to you.
I know his name's David, by the way.
We just like to call him
Doug Reed because Seve's
been calling him Doug Reed
for the past six months.
So yeah, those are the levels.
I didn't realize that
Fifty-Five Plus and
Fourteen to Fifteen had
their own set of criteria.
And so,
eleven to twenty-one is one through five.
And then you get ten at
sixty-six percent if fifty-five plus.
That don't make a lot of sense to me.
I don't know why the
percentile of one would be
different than the
percentile of the other.
Yeah,
that's kind of... You consider it a ten,
but you're only in as,
you know... Sixty-seven percentile?
Yeah.
Yeah.
That's kind of weird.
Is that supposed to be like
an overall thing?
I guess that's how they're
going to do it for the community cup,
the community cup.
So this is actually called
the community cup tiers.
Yeah.
So like I said,
doing that proceeding
because you go against your level,
not necessarily your age group.
yeah and then they're the
fourteen fifteen year olds
you only have to be in well
it's eight to ten so
somewhere in that range of
forty four to sixty five
you start level ten I think
that's fair because some
fourteen fifteen year olds
are like already hidden
already hit puberty started
growing and whatnot some
are not like still you know
developing and whatnot so
it's kind of a lot of match
up against the same age
group the two ages like I
don't know why you wouldn't
just use the same
percentage but maybe the
numbers are so small that
the upper tiers would
wouldn't be enough to form
a full amount of people
that's probably what it is
fifty five plus and
fourteen and fifteen the
groups would be too small
so you have yeah like your
age group so my my one of
my best friends uh bernard
like he's fifty five plus
two and uh we were talking
about the other day like
there's thirteen thousand
people in forty five forty nine men
Like just just just my age group.
And then fifty five, fifty nine,
like it dropped down tremendously.
Like the number was way,
way lower in fifty five, fifty nine.
As far as like, you know,
people actually registered for the open.
It was mind boggling because
it's not that much older than me,
relatively speaking.
I mean, I'll be forty eight in a month.
And I'm not that far from fifty five,
fifty nine.
And just the numbers that
the amount of number that dropped off,
I thought was absolutely bananas.
I think Sarah hit it on the head.
I think when you get to
fifty five plus and fourteen, fifteen,
they're just they're different groups.
There's less signups.
Yeah.
Like we always talk about
the Masters being the most
populated signups to the open.
But that's really the thirty
five to forty nine year old divisions.
Yeah.
Like it's those three
divisions that are fifty
percent of open signups.
I'm sure other divisions sign up as well,
but just not at the clip
that those three do.
Yeah, I mean,
obviously the open division
is the biggest one.
And then that thirty five, like you said,
from thirty five to forty nine,
there's a lot of people.
I mean, good Lord.
yes doug you are correct
yeah I was a listen what
happens at fifty five I was
a big benefit from um I was
not I I have an rx to uh an
open workout and so damn
long um and I I could have
rx'd all three this year um
I I did rx too
And again, I've said the second one,
I chose to compete against
my old score rather than go
RX because I wanted to see
where I was at.
So I did that one twice, Scott,
just saying,
did one against your old score,
gave yourself two days and
then do it again.
I am fifty five.
I'm fifty five.
And that means body can do one a weekend.
I'm a one and done for the
rest of my life.
You young kids in your forties,
you can go twice,
three times if you want on the weekend.
I'm a one and done-er.
You young kids and that dog.
I feel like you're talking
about Scooby-Doo at this point.
Yeah.
You pesky kids.
Meddling kids and that dog.
My wife, my friends,
everybody knows I've become
the get off my lawn dude.
Oh, I can't wait.
I'm already, look, I'm halfway there.
My neighbors, I'll get home.
So our houses face each
other in our neighborhood,
which is not necessarily a thing.
So like when I pull into my garage,
I can see their garage,
which is not supposed to be
a thing in the neighborhood.
And I'll get home and one of
their kids will be like the
back tire of his car that
we parked in the street.
But the back tire will be on
my grass and I lose my ever loving mind.
I'm like,
I'm like actually physically angry.
I want to take the tow strap
out the back of my Jeep and
hook it to Bryce's car and
pull it out of the way.
So, yeah, I feel you.
I'll take your forty year
old grumpy old man and I will raise you.
If I if I'm driving down my
street and a car is this
far off the curb.
Giving me little space to get by.
I lose my I want to get out,
write a note on, put it on the windshield,
learn how to park your car.
So FYI, don't ask me how I know this,
but you can order
pre-posted pre-printed
sticky notes from Amazon
and you can write whatever
you want on them.
Again, don't ask me how I know that.
My wife may or may not be
waiting for me to pull the
trigger on them to go get them.
Cause we got the exact same
problem in my neighborhood.
I go to turn.
The street before I turned
on in my house and people
are just in the parked in
the street for no,
and there's nobody in their driveway.
That's the part that, but that really,
like, there's nobody in the driveway.
Why are you parked in the street?
Like, I don't,
I can't wrap my head around
it and it drives me absolutely bananas.
Cause I don't do that.
I would never do that.
Yeah.
Before we did the lunch with,
on the round table,
I talked about how I had a
woodpecker last summer in fall.
I remember that.
And I would run out the door,
and I would yell at the
woodpecker to get going,
like throughout the day.
I would hear him.
Old man yells at bird.
I have a post out on my front porch,
and he would peck right through that post,
right?
Yeah.
All fall, I'm yelling at this thing.
And I literally had my BB gun loaded,
ready to take him out.
And then like winter came
and it kind of went away.
But what I didn't realize is
he got the whole way through.
So now I have squirrels living in my post,
taking their nuts and seeds
into the hole and down in.
And so I go out,
like take my dog out and I
hear the rustling inside my
post out on the front, on my front porch.
So now how do I get the
squirrels out before I plug that hole in?
Yeah.
I'm going to have dead
carcasses in my pole
smelling up the joint.
Well, I feel like if you go to,
you get ready to plug it,
they're going to get scared
and they're going to get out the hole.
They're not just going to
hide up in there.
They're going to get out.
Yeah.
No, in my life,
as I'm plugging it right
into like Clark Griswold me right,
right to the face.
I mean, possibly.
Oh,
you don't yell squirrel and wreck the
car.
You ought to be all right.
The plight of the suburban grumpy old man.
A hundred percent.
A hundred percent.
A hundred percent.
Old man yells at cloud.
The other thing that gets to me, man,
is because I have a dog and the dog,
like anytime somebody comes
to my front yard, he loses his mind.
So I have all these like
elementary school age kids that live
around me for some reason
when they get off the bus
at the end of the street
it's probably a hundred
yards away they mosey down
the street and they seem to
gather and um and convene
some kind of meeting right
in front of my house every
day after school and my dog
loses his mind and I'm just like
that's where I want to run up,
run out the door and say,
you kids get off my, you know,
actually get off my lawn.
Yes.
Truly.
That's fantastic.
That's fantastic.
And they're not doing anything.
That's the best part about it.
When you have kids,
you're more tolerant of all that, right?
You've lost all tolerance for that,
that stuff.
It is crazy.
Looking outside.
What are those kids doing?
Nevermind the fact that you guys didn't,
you always used to be doing
the same thing and they're
now grown and it's not there.
It's the only thing that's changed.
Well,
I think the other thing is that this
is my office now, right?
I work from home.
So like I finished my day at five Eastern,
the kids come home from school at three.
So I'm in the middle of my
work day and then I get
disrupted with this dog and everything.
So I think that adds to the
aggravation of it all,
but I'd probably still be
that grumpy guy anyway.
But,
I can't wait, dude.
I wish I had a good front
porch to sit on so that
when I did get old and was
retired at home,
I couldn't just yell at
people that happened by.
Get out of here.
Reed echoes what my wife
says every time we drive in
our neighborhood.
Why can't you park in your driveway?
It's what it's there for.
Right.
Going out of our neighborhood,
like the last little bend
before you go out,
People park on that bend.
It is a complete blind curve.
And you're just praying
nothing's coming the other
way at any rate of speed.
Jesus Christ.
Yeah.
Better yet, park in your bloody garage.
Amen.
James checking in from the West Coast.
Up early?
Not early now, but
I mean early enough and
still nine thirty four over
there yeah so one thing I
did want to do um today
that I I kind of omitted
yesterday is because we
were talking about carolyn
and jamie and winning their
open divisions and how
incredibly fit they are
And how privileged we are
that we get that
perspective from those two
ladies every Sunday night.
I am one of the luckiest
guys in the world to be
able to have those two as my co-hosts,
giving that perspective as
elite athletes.
But we also had some
audience members who have
become friends tremendously.
Two of them, especially,
that won the Open as well.
And one of them was Chris
Anderson in your division.
Yep.
He's become a great friend of the show.
I got to know him through the burgers.
Yep, he's fit, dude.
That dude's fit.
And Rudy took second in the open.
To J.R.
Howell, of all people,
I did not see that coming.
Well, Chris Anderson took first.
Yeah, but in Rudy's division.
Oh, in that two-and-five-three?
Rudy took second.
To J.R.
Howell.
Oh, wow.
Yeah.
I didn't see that coming like that.
I mean, I know J.R.
's fit, obviously,
but I also like I have
worked out next to Rudy.
Like I know how fit that dude is.
And it is that is wild to me
that I didn't realize J.R.
was that fit.
yeah I've done documentaries
on rudy and they're both
still living out there on
youtube uh that guy is
amazing and as good of an
athlete as he is he's that
much better a person a
hundred percent the same
way I feel about chris
anderson um super fit dude
but like one of the nicest
guys you'll ever meet
And then the other person
from our crew that killed
it is Denise Moore.
Denise Moore, who's always in the chat,
ended up winning the sixty
five to sixty nine year old division.
Let's go.
So I want to shout out to
those two who are clear
friends of the show and so
happy for them.
It just.
swells up my pride and my
beans in my heart,
whatever those sayings are.
They're killing it like that.
The cockles,
warms the cockles of your heart.
I don't know exactly where that part is.
I knew the current Cajun guy
would know the euphemism.
Cockles of the heart, baby.
Cockles of the heart.
Shay says,
always look forward to the Sunday show.
Shay,
you're one of the best commenters in
our group.
Love getting your chats
every Monday morning after
the show and getting your input.
Thankful that you're there.
Tristan, dude, JR is fit fit.
Obviously.
Yeah.
Obviously.
Yeah.
I wish,
I think that's the hardest thing
with the masters is like to
do a deep dive into what all happened.
There's so many divisions,
so many divisions that you
have to get through to kind of see it.
And that my two co-hosts are
in that group.
Those are the names I look for first.
Yeah.
It's Jamie and Carolyn and then Rudy.
because those are my like
close close friends um and
then it's like denise and
then it's then it looks
through the rest like all
of my other friends that
I've met through this
process yeah that's when
I'm looking at the lead
award that's what I'm
looking for is people I've
competed against uh people
I've met met on instagram
that you know I I'm
friendly with or whatever I
kind of watch those people
because that's what that's people I know
know and that's the people I
would think or uh or not
think I would know her
roughly how fit they are
and have a good at least a
good grasp on it I would
say either competing
against them in person
online through qualifiers
that that type of deal uh
yeah that's the people
that's people I'm looking
forward to and then you
know the people I know jamie and
good lord, the vast amount of people.
I'm like, oh, hey, there's that guy.
Oh, hey,
there's that guy or that girl or
whoever it might be.
What Jamie and Carolyn did
is absolutely bonkers.
I don't even know a good way to put it.
It's bananas freaking crazy.
I would say some of the
stuff that Jamie's still doing at her age,
not that she's old by a
stretch of the imagination,
but that girl is fit, dude.
I don't think people
understand exactly how fit
she actually is, but it's a lot.
When you see that Caroline got a hat trick,
and she's up against the
likes of Andrea Nistler and
Caroline Klutz and Kristen Holta,
and that she pulled off
three straight wins.
Badass, dude.
Yeah.
That probably does not get
enough praise around the space.
That's an impressive, impressive stat.
And you got Colton one, one,
two is mighty impressive as well.
I thought,
so as far as Colton is concerned,
like after he won the second one,
I was like, okay,
he's been away in the open,
but I did not see him.
doing what he did on the
last one like I figured
he'd be in the top ten
somewhere you know I'm
saying I have a score safe
enough for him to win the
open but not that he was
going to do that like
that's that's another one
dude like that dude is he's sick with it
Uh,
so I have a couple of questions about
this.
I'm totally off what I had
planned on talking about today.
Um, but that's cool.
Okay.
So what is on the women's side?
First of all, Lucy Campbell,
we talked about her
comeback after water
Palooza because of what she
did there and then back
that up with a third place
finish in the open.
Like that is one cool story.
Yeah, good on her, man.
Good on her.
May not be able to ever lift
anything again to her
finishes at Waterpalooza
and now the Open.
Should be one of the top
stories that CrossFit is
pumping out there going into semis.
If they're not talking about it,
if they're not following
her around or putting something together,
whatever footage and
whatnot they have interviews,
they should be.
They're missing a huge
opportunity if they're not.
Yeah.
What an amazing comeback story.
I mean, I know the chills I got, like,
the year I followed Emily
after she had the arm
surgery at the games and getting, like,
talking to Dr. Rocket and
all that stuff of what entailed there.
Like,
Lucy's injury was maybe not as
life-threatening,
but it was way more career-threatening.
Right.
Yeah.
Your back is mostly your body.
Well, it's your wrist.
Like, and the surgery, she had to fix it.
She cut, they shortened her wrist.
They cut it off.
I was not aware of that.
Yeah.
I knew she was hurt.
I didn't realize it was to that extent.
And I got her conflated with,
what's her name?
That is still trying to get
back from the back.
Okay.
Yeah, that's insane.
Yeah.
And if you watch,
she did like the
Frankenstein cleans for a
while because her wrist was so bad.
But now she's able to do all the stuff.
So, yeah.
But the reason I pulled this
up is that my question to you is,
what is more impressive?
And I think you can argue either way.
Miriam Von Rohr going one, one,
twelve or one, one,
eleven or Fee going three, four, seven.
I think you can look at it
either way to be quite
honest with you um scroll
back over a little bit let
me see the times on the on
the n one so we got eleven
eleven minutes maram was
eleven sixteen okay so
you're talking about
sixteen seconds separating
what is that four places is that right
If it's me, granted,
nothing taken away from Miriam because,
I mean, two firsts and then an eleventh.
But the consistency that Fi
is putting up with a third, a fourth,
and a seventh, you know what I mean?
And most of these tests were motor tests.
Everybody seems to be in
agreement as far as that
because we didn't really
see anything super heavy.
Yes, there was more muscle-ups,
but these are elite of the
elite of the elite.
for me fee doing what she
did and still staying right
there in that same you know
because yeah okay you got
two first and you got an
eleventh if she was in and
she still won by how many
points by one point whereas
fee got third fourth
seventh all within that you
know three top tens
basically um one top three
for my money that's that's
probably edges it out a little bit
What Miriam did is, I mean, it's,
I won't say it's unheard of
because Colton did the same thing,
but it's until this year,
it was definitely unheard of.
I just think that's insane.
Yeah.
Right there.
The other thing I wanted to
say is if you look at the
winner of twenty five point three,
it was Olivia Kerstetter at ten eighteen.
She was rowing fifty
calories with the guys.
I heard Dallin and Hopper and Madera say,
if she actually got to do
the forty calories instead
of the fifty that most
women get to do in that workout,
she would have beat Dallin.
Oh,
I have no problem believing that
whatsoever.
That's insane.
I would like to know what her, like,
I like that if she's got it on video,
I would like to go see that
just to be able to see, like,
what she was pulling on the roller.
know what I'm saying one
thing we know about olivia
is she's never met a
barbell she didn't like
that is correct that is
correct she is super strong
like it's silly I would
like to see what she was
rolling and like if she if
she just got on and just
you know I'm saying just
stroke the entire way if
she had a plan you know
kind of roll the first five
calories and then kind of
you know get settled in and
then start picking up the pace
or just if she just blasted
it the entire time,
I would really like to be
able to go and do like a little,
not a deep dive,
but a dive on that just to
see what it was because
it's a shame or she doesn't
have a video up.
Um, but maybe she has a video somewhere.
Yeah.
Yeah.
Um,
A couple other things.
We have that tournament challenge,
NCAA tournament bracket.
The links are in the
description of this YouTube,
and they'll be in the
description of the audio as well.
And it's just for fun,
just to compete against each other.
I don't watch a ton of
college basketball anymore, but I thought,
what the hell?
It'll give me a reason to
watch a couple games over
the next couple weeks to
see where I'm at and see
how I compete against my friends.
and I have no doubt in that
fight either and then
whoever wins with the
highest score between the
two I will put together a
prize pack and get out to
them for winning that so
nothing to enter all free
free free just for fun for
us to kind of have some
bragging rights and
something to talk about
over the next few weeks and
yeah you might win a prize pack
sign up people like
subscribe sign up how you
like that three things
three things at once yeah
there you go uh the last
question I I wanted to ask
you uh and get your input
is are we in a new golden
age of crossfit yes I have
I I'm glad you actually
asked that because I was
thinking about this the
other day and I think it
happens in a lot of sports
Right.
Something gets real popular
for a little while.
And then something weird happens.
Doesn't necessarily like,
it's not necessarily that
somebody passes away, you know,
on the field or on the
court or whatever it is,
but something happens and
it takes the shine off of it.
Right.
And people start feeling
some sort of way about it and all,
it's not like it used to be and blah,
blah, blah, whatever.
And it sort of takes a dip
and then it starts building back up.
Right.
Tristan, we'll get to that in a second,
a new golden age.
Well, what I would say that that is,
is that,
did you know you were in a golden
age whenever we had rich and, uh,
Dan Bailey and Josh bridges
and all of those guys that
were such larger than life personalities.
You know what I'm saying?
Because you look at it back
at it now and you're like, man,
That was great times with
these people who were in this,
in the space and who were,
I won't say in your face,
cause that doesn't sound right,
but they were alive, if that makes sense.
And then for a while,
like once Matt kind of got
out of it and he was the
only one like that was really,
I won't say emotional,
but you could feel his
passion while he was on the floor.
But do you say that's fair?
You know what I'm saying?
Like when he comes across the line,
he was yelling deep on his
chest and stuff like that.
And Madero's run two years in a row.
And one, what, one event, is that right?
I think that's right.
And it got it kind of,
as far as the games
themselves are concerned,
it was kind of bland for a little while.
And then media was going downhill.
It wasn't any kind of like
the only content coming out
was from guys like you and Savan and,
you know, Pedro and whatnot.
And then that started
building things back up.
And then right now I would
say right now here in this moment,
The media team for the games is on fire.
They are pumping out excellent content,
like the little promo videos,
the open announcements
themselves were top notch
as far as I'm concerned.
They chose the right people.
They had them in the right places.
Everybody that you've heard
speak about who was at the
announcement said the
atmosphere was electric the entire time.
People fired up as far as
that's concerned.
They're pumping out regular content,
not games related as well.
Stuff about affiliates and a
couple of personal stories
and stuff like that, which again,
hadn't happened for years.
Right.
So yeah, I would say,
I don't know if we're necessarily in it,
but I feel like we're,
we're pushing back towards
that because now we got
like the Dallin and Jason and Justin and,
you know,
that are all Colton super competitive.
Colton Colton's amazing, dude.
Um,
super competitive poking at each other
the entire time talking shit, uh, Oh, and,
or, or backing it up.
Right.
I mean,
They're going head to head, toe to toe,
and there's not anybody
that you can see anyway
that's better than them in
the space right now.
So I'm glad you answered
that way because here's my counterpoint.
In the golden age we had before,
everybody mentions the Rich
and the Dan and the Josh
and the Matt Chan and all that stuff,
right?
Yeah.
But everybody forgets to
mention Annie and Camille
and Sam Briggs and Lindsay
Valenzuela and...
to Elena Fortunato and all
in that golden age of women
at the same time.
Yep.
I think the guys are
starting to get it in this
era by producing their own
media content and using
other third party media opportunities, uh,
to build, uh,
a storyline for them so I
think the guys are starting
to get it and that we're
moving into a new golden
era of men but I think that
the women are so private
and competitive with
everything they're doing
we're not seeing their
journey through the process
like the men are allowing us to see
Does that make sense?
A hundred percent.
Like Dallin and Jason and
them are not afraid to post
a score and say, Hey, this is what I did.
Come get it.
If you can.
Yeah.
Come get me.
Come get some.
Right.
And they're willing to do it
live on air to do that.
I think the other thing that
men have this time that
they didn't in the previous
golden era is they have a heel.
I think Hopper is becoming the heel.
And if you follow wrestling at all,
a good heel makes the
storyline ten times better.
Yeah, absolutely.
He is the person that no
matter what he says, people dog him,
people come after him.
And I think that makes that
storyline really, really, really,
really good.
Yeah.
Yeah.
You're right.
What he can say,
it doesn't matter what he says.
Like he could go out and be like,
the sky is blue and be like,
did you hear Jason Hopper
said the sky was blue?
Well,
and he's really good at when he like
does a dig, he does,
he can do it with a
straight face where the
other guys just laugh at
themselves or right.
And he will do it with a
straight face to like,
sell it more like a heel
wooden wrestling.
And Jeff, Jeffrey Birchfield said,
is a heel different than a villain?
Yes.
Think of it as the antagonist in a story.
He is that counter to the golden boy,
Dallin Pepper,
with the nice hair and the good values.
And you look at James Sprague,
very wholesome, young kid growing up.
And Jason,
while he has a lot of the same values,
his digs can cut deeper.
And it moves the storyline along.
I would almost say he plays their game,
that part, better than the others.
He's better at doing that kind of stuff.
He is probably the best one
at talking shit because he will do it,
like you said, with a straight face.
And it sounds like he believes it.
So take the instance during
kill Taylor Colton, you do this.
I'm telling everybody what your score was.
Yeah.
Like that cuts deeper than just like, Hey,
you're short and you can't row.
Like, you know what I mean?
Like, like he's getting personal.
Like I'm going to reveal something.
You don't want me to reveal.
If you go ahead with this,
like he wanted that cash too.
Like the heel wanted it.
Yeah.
Like, I'm going to give it to the kids.
I'm going to donate the money.
And Jason's like,
you need to not do this so I get my cash.
The one that he won where he just,
he still had fifteen seconds left,
twenty seconds left,
whatever that one was,
and he just got off the
bike because he was like,
nobody's beating that.
Yeah.
It's a
Some people probably think
it comes off as arrogant.
He does the more eccentric
celebrations when he wins an event.
He has the showman aspect, the cocky,
arrogant, pound the chest.
I guess Josh Bridges might
have been the heel back in the day.
But you can be a likable heel.
Yeah, everybody loves Josh Bridges.
Right.
It doesn't mean that people
hate you or that you're bad.
You're just the antagonist
that moves the story forward.
Josh Bridges was this little
guy that had no business
beating Rich Froning in anything,
yet he could.
Yeah.
And when he did, he let you know he did.
Well, when he won Murph,
he called his shot before
he got out on the field.
Like, I'm winning this.
Like, y'all can do whatever y'all want.
I'm winning this.
And he was ahead by a lot, a lot.
Like,
when he took off from his last set of
air squats and he took out,
he was out the stadium, I think,
before he went to second
place when he even got off the field.
Came back in and watching a
Josh Bridges celebration is
almost like it's a
religious experience at this point,
right?
I mean, you could feel it through him.
And I think, yeah,
same type thing is going on
with old Jason there.
I agree with Tristan,
who is arguing with Kenneth
at this point.
Rich was never the heel.
He was so beloved by everybody.
You couldn't even make him
the heel if you wanted to.
No.
No.
And then he would just come
out on Sunday and just win
everything just because he was like, oh,
it's time for me to win everything.
And people still were like, oh,
look at him.
He's just out there winning.
Yeah.
Like Jason's the heel in a
way where the other two are
talking about how rich is the goat.
And he's like, the hell he is.
Matt's the goat.
Like he's going to be the
counter to whatever the others say.
No matter if it's right or wrong.
Right.
Yeah.
Oh.
But Stone Cold did.
He was the antagonist a lot.
So I remember watching Stone
Cold drive into the stadium in his truck,
get out with a six-pack of tall boys,
stand on the roof of the
truck because somebody was
in the ring talking about him,
and he just sat there
drinking a beer looking at him.
Yeah.
Like,
that's the kind of behavior we're
talking about.
Like, that's the kind of,
if Jason Hopper drank,
he would probably do some shit like that.
Like, oh, all right, we just talking shit?
Okay, cool.
Uh,
train to lift says Matt was more of a
heel than rich.
Matt was an awesome heel career.
Go back and watch the behind
the scenes of and when Matt took second,
he was every bit the heel.
He wanted all that smoke.
When they asked him in one
of the behind the scenes,
when they asked him if it
was worth it and he said, turn, I said,
did I win?
Oh, okay.
So I guess not.
Hopper's heel era started
after he won the handstand
walk at syndicate,
then did the cigarette celebration.
Yes.
Yes.
That's exactly what was in
my head when I was thinking Hopper,
the heel,
those types of celebrations are
just different.
A hundred percent.
A hundred percent.
I'm here for it too, dude.
Like me, like,
Yeah.
We're seeing it for years.
We need somebody like that.
Yeah.
Charlie and I have argued
that on the round table
since this podcast has been
around that the sport needed a heel.
Absolutely.
And we thought Ricky was it.
And then he popped.
Then, you know,
like we thought there were
candidates and none of them have held up.
Hopper's got the fitness
behind him to be good
enough to be the heel.
I don't know if
Talking about Ricky,
I don't know if he never
would have popped if he had
got to that status.
Does that make sense?
I think the only reason
people started thinking
that was because he popped
and because he was still
doing the open workouts and
screwing up the camera,
beat that and whatnot.
I was at that game.
He was cocky.
He was brash.
He was letting everybody
know at that game's.
Okay, I did not know that.
He was becoming the heel
during that games.
That is different.
I had a front row seat to that.
I hated him by Sunday.
And that was before he ever
popped and did any of the other stuff.
Yeah, because nobody knew for...
Now, I would say the comeback,
he had to fix that image to
be accepted back into the community.
And he's done an amazing job of that.
But the young Ricky in two
thousand seventeen, every bit the heel.
Yeah.
No, because everybody loves that dude now.
Yeah.
Everybody.
I was one of those ones when
he when his band first came up as being,
you know.
or was first,
he was going to be able to compete again.
I was one of the people that was like,
okay, whatever.
I'm a steroid boy, whatever.
But kudos to him.
He turned it around
completely because now everybody's like,
yay, Ricky Mack.
Love that guy.
And that was not a thing beforehand.
I think Kenneth makes a good point.
Roman would have been the ultimate heel.
I think he could have been.
The problem is he got
delayed so long in actually
getting to compete over
here that by the time he did,
he was at that age where
injury started to take over
and other things.
He would have been good
because he would have had
the fitness to back it up.
And what's happened now is I think...
And I kind of hope I'm wrong.
I think that he has been
hurt so much that his
fitness has decreased.
He just can't train like he
could back before he got
admitted into the U.S.
I am curious to see what
he's going to do for
semifinals at this point.
Like just judging off of
what I've seen from him from the open.
see you know what I'm saying
like I think you're correct
I'm curious to see how much
he's either falling off or
if we're just not peaking
right now if you remember
he was competitive last
year's semifinals it was
him hopper and pepper and
adler in the in the east um
and that was a very
competitive matchup with
those four it's the games
he just he broke down yeah
which was a weird games
anyway and it's hard to put
much on it but
yeah that's why I don't and
not to take anything away
from from spray being the
champ but like every time
somebody says something
about how somebody
performed last year okay
yeah but it was also very
weird games games to begin
like probably the strangest
one that's ever taken place
um so as far as that goes
well I'm already late back
from my lunch hour so
The rest of you hooligans
get back to work.
We're done here.
We will see you tomorrow on
Clydesdale Lunch.
Lunch with the Clydesdale.
Something like that.
Something like that.
Scratch it, flip it, do that thing.
Lunch with the Clydesdale tomorrow.
Bye.