Masters Alliance
9th Dan BlackBelt and Olympic Gold Medalist Herb Perez visit with the best and brightest to bring clarity to the future of Martial arts.
Masters Alliance
The Mayor of Taekwondo Takes on AAU Nationals: Triumphs, Failures, and Everything in Between
When leadership changes at a major competition like the AAU National Championships, what happens to the quality of the event? Olympic medalists and veteran coaches Juan "The Mayor of Taekwondo" Moreno and TJ "Bronze" Grimes take us behind the scenes of the recent tournament in Salt Lake City, providing a raw, unfiltered look at what worked and what critically failed.
The 3,400+ competitor event showed promising participation numbers, especially in youth divisions where color belts had multiple matches. But beneath this success lurked serious problems: inexperienced referees making critical errors, procedural inconsistencies that changed match outcomes, and most troublingly, young children competing without coaches present. The hosts don't just criticize—they offer concrete solutions while acknowledging the challenges of rebuilding after a leadership exodus.
The conversation shifts to broader themes in combat sports, including a takedown of Joe Rogan's claims about his Taekwondo background (did he really have "Olympic aspirations"?), and a fascinating parallel with USA Soccer's systemic development problems following their disappointing loss to Mexico. Both discussions highlight how organizational structures and leadership directly impact athletic performance and development.
This episode delivers more than just tournament talk—it's a masterclass in sports organization from two coaches who've experienced everything from local competitions to Olympic gold medal matches. Whether you're a coach, competitor, or martial arts enthusiast, you'll gain valuable insights into what makes competitions succeed or fail at the most fundamental levels.
Have you experienced poor officiating at a tournament? Share your stories and join the conversation about how we can collectively improve competition experiences for athletes at all levels.
I'm Terrence, run to the St Louis grill. I'm sorry, not sorry. Ain't it funny? Herb P on the track, my sister, ill advised opinions maybe, but facts ain't lies, it's cold metal mentality. Watch the sunrise. One of one. I'm checking in. So we're sitting pretty Still me, second best in the world. Get witty. Face down to Ponyx. Pressure cooking, hot, Gave my sweat, my focus, everything. I got TJ Grimes. Tj holding down the bronze Stood on the stage. I fought the giants turned the new page, learned to discipline, respect for the fight. My fight ain't lies, it's something that no reality. Deep in the sun. I'm one of two. I'm, in reality, just me. Still me, stuck in the box. There's something in this. I'm free, let it crash, I'm free.
Speaker 2:This is the warehouse 15 and the warehouse was not in the warehouse because they were out and about at the aau championships in salt lake city, missing vegas. That is a sharp difference between salt lake city and vegas. I would have preferred vegas. How are you doing the mayor of taekwondo? I see you've changed your name. What's going on, coach?
Speaker 3:I shout out to one of my friends, grandmaster Ryan Andercheck. He always says you're the mayor of Taekwondo. You're the mayor of Taekwondo. Have you talked to everyone? So I said you know what? You guys got cool names on there. I just had my boring name. So I said you know what? I'm the mayor of Taekwondo.
Speaker 2:I like it. What's up, Mr Bronze TJ? I noticed that you're keeping your name. You've embraced it, which is good. I think you should embrace it. You look good. I like your background today. It looks good. Nice shirt. That's a nice shirt today.
Speaker 1:Thank you, Thank you, I like that. Hey man, listen. I mean, like you know, that bronze has been on the scoreboard for a few years now.
Speaker 2:I mean, it's been on the scoreboard for a while now. I'm just saying might be the last thing to do, that's pretty sure.
Speaker 3:Ruth 16, 16 years before the last us olympic men's medal.
Speaker 2:Is that true? Is that true?
Speaker 3:that's true I thought that was 2012 so 16, that's 4, 20 about any metal. That is embarrassing I had the I had 92 to 2000.
Speaker 2:I had eight years and that was only, I think, because there was no olympics in 96 that's right, but I take it, I own it, I love it. You know I'm not going to say anything. And then, uh, but tj, you are now the reigning king yeah, bro, you need to change your name king bronze, king bronze, king bronze, I like not king lebron king lebron's dj I've been arguing with my boy about lebron since, like the last six weeks.
Speaker 1:I got a young kid on my team too. Just their cycle when they had to start this conversation between lebron and george and there's no conversation.
Speaker 2:I don't know man, it's MJ. I don't know man, it's MJ.
Speaker 1:I don't know. You could talk about it it don't matter, but it's MJ.
Speaker 2:I don't know.
Speaker 1:It continues to be MJ. But, like you said, we had the AAU Nationals this week. Tj, bronze, tj. We had the AAU Nationals this week, I think. I was there for three days, kind of long and short days all at the same time, but, um, it was. It was overall, I'll say I'll say an experience.
Speaker 1:I was standing next to um daniel alcovitz. Actually he was talking to one of his parents on his friends and it was always good to see you guys like that. You know they were around for a long time competing and you know doing the things at this level. So it's funny to kind of.
Speaker 1:I was kind of eavesdropping a little bit on the conversation. I ended up getting interjected into it a little bit. But he made a comment. He said um, you know it's, it's. You know you look over and you see, you know coach reyno and coach lee and uh uh, coach sell was there as well and you guys, it's like to see all those guys at au standing on the fence was kind of like I guess that like nostalgic to him or something along the lines of that, and I was like that's pretty cool. But he was telling his parent about the um. You know we started coming over there because the the pipeline for kids is better, the so I'm like you know what. I don't think I asked you. I'm like you know is that the case he goes? It's true because then I look at some of my guys that brought their students from you know Colorado's places. Their blue belts are having four or five matches. You know five bro you know, Red Belt.
Speaker 1:On the last day, I think, one of the guys told me that he had four matches in red belt, so that was refreshing to kind of kind of wrap my mind around it. I mean, I looked at it obviously through the weekend but being a little busy with my seniors, but that's, that's the good part. I mean that that part of the organization is definitely healthy and I guess there's a lot, of, a lot of kids. Like I said, bluebell is my special one. That's kind of like my first nationals I. It was good to see that division still had four or five matches in it, so it was pretty cool. That part was good.
Speaker 3:Good, I like that. I think we need to talk about AU because there's a lot to unpack there some good, bad and some ugly, to be honest with you. But I got like a couple of things I want to throw out there. Number one I got a Joe Rogan rant. Oh, but before I start any of that man, just out of pure coincidence, I was talking to a guy and he told me I said, hey, how's it going? And he's like not good.
Speaker 3:Basically, long story short this flooding in Texas. One of his daughters is friends with this younger girl on a soccer team and they're over the house, they're good friends, they're like 10, 11 years old and she was on a Christian retreat at the Mystic River and she was missing that night. He had told me and I was like, oh so then the next day I checked in with him and he sent me a message that the grandmother sent and the whole cabin was washed away and I've been infatuated with watching it. And we have a lot of natural disasters here in Florida. I tell you what this one is super sad because there's over 80 people who lost their lives and it happened so fast. It's just a lot of little kids and things like that. I just want to send a prayer to all those people that are just pure devastation and hurt. What do you say? It's a bad thing, it's a difficult thing. I just want to say something like that, first and foremost.
Speaker 2:It's heartbreaking.
Speaker 2:It's heartbreaking when you send your kids away to summer camp and you know you, when you give that trust to anyone or anything or just life in general, and then something untoward happens, and I'm not like, I'm not by. None of this is meant to be accusatory or placing blame, because it's just ridiculous, the uh, the, the drama and and stuff like that. But it just reminds you to keep your people precious and and remember those things and moments, because something like this, which was unanticipated and certainly, um, not what people were expecting, and then the thought process of trying to keep people safe in that situation but my hearts and prayers go out to everyone. I had, ironically, just sent a note to James Villasana on July 4th, because about this time last year I was in Texas, or two years ago, and I had spent some time with James on Mother's Day a little while back and, I know, on Father's Day actually, and so I just sent him a kind of a note and I'm going to have to reach back out to him to make sure he's OK as well.
Speaker 3:Yeah, so listen, let's go with this. I got a Joe Rogan rant man. Everyone knows that. You know I'm a huge Joe Rogan fan. I love his podcast.
Speaker 2:Well, before we go there, I just have to share one thing. I apologize. I found it and I did not know. I had no idea. I had no idea. No, no, I had no idea. I had no idea. I have found Juan in his original days as mayor of Taekwondo. Hold on as your mayor. I promise to uphold the values of discipline and respect that define Taekwondo. Taekwondo Dude. That is unbelievable. In such a short period of time, we were able to find that footage of Taekwondo, so you got 40 seconds left oh you did.
Speaker 3:I was 20 seconds there, alright well it was worth it because that was Juan Moreno in front of the Korean and Mexican flags yeah, I've had Koreans guys, I had Mexican guys, I had all kind of people. Once again, I love the podcast. I love the podcast. You say love the podcast. You say what everyone's talking. So, man, I'm just so excited about it. So I'm so everyone that's listening, love you guys. Glad you're enjoying it and we're going to keep going.
Speaker 3:But anyway, look my Joe Rogan rant. I love Joe Rogan. He's a great jujitsu, he's an amazing analyst and during the UFC fights he breaks it down so detailed. I just love everything about the guy. But as you know, he first started doing martial arts. His first martial art was taekwondo and there was some. He's mentioned my coach before, he's mentioned you, grandmaster Perez, about some things and he's always given pretty good respect.
Speaker 3:And I've heard the same story in 1987. He went to the Nationals Anaheim, california. I fought there. Supposedly he he not, supposedly he spun hook kick. Somebody guy went to sleep, didn't wake up. They carried him out and I guess that was the end of his career. But they were talking about spinning hook kicks specifically and he basically said he was scared after that and he just thought it could have happened to him and he decided to move on and then he started kind of talking some bs about about taekwondo, saying, you know, I realized I had a false sense of security because I didn't know how to punch, so I went to kickboxing, then Muay Thai, then Jiu-Jitsu. Okay, that's all, that's fine and dandy.
Speaker 3:But the guy he was interviewing asked him he's like, so wait a minute, like did you have any, you know, aspirations to be like a national champion or anything like that in Taekwondo? He goes, oh no, I was a national champion, I had dreams to go to the Olympics. And he's like, oh wow. And he's like the guy goes real dreams. He says oh yeah, real dreams. And when I heard that I had never heard him say that kind of stuff, he had always given props. But I'm like that's a pretty far stretch for a guy of his caliber to say that he could have went to the Olympics when in he didn't even place at nationals. You know who's to say that you could place at nationals in 88 and win the Olympic trials in 88 and go to the Olympics and blah, blah. It was just. It was one of those things that I hear a lot, especially down here in South Florida no, no, that's my point.
Speaker 3:So I mean, because if he he would have said I went out and fought in the Pan Am Champions, pan Am Qualifiers and stuff like that, all this stuff and it just I mean, it just it kind of bothered me a little bit, because I'm like man, I get it, he kicks, well, I mean for that style. But for him to say that he had real Olympic aspirations as in he could make it, I was like, ah, I thought that was a little bit. What weight was he? I don't know, he was probably a welterweight lightweight. If he was lightweight, he was in the machine division, because I know there was Doug Baker, greg Baker, bobby Clayton, stephen Kaepner, kareem Jabbar, I mean there's a bunch of other Tim Conley, and those guys were back in those days. There was even more people. I can't think of them off the top of my head, but yeah he had no chance, so there's a difference between so what?
Speaker 2:I always tell people because I meet these guys and most times, to be honest, they're Koreans. The guy goes oh, the guy's a world champion or he's a this or he's that, and I go and I look on the website and, sure enough, the guy's got something up about something he didn't do or couldn't do or could never have done. And, to be honest, most of these guys were plumbers. And now we're stuck with the second generation of those instructors, which is going to get me some nonsense. But we now have the second generation of guys who were plumbers in Korea, came here and realized that because they were Korean, they could put up a sign and start Taekwondo the true Taekwondo fighters that fought in Korea and won something legitimate. My instructor was one of them. Coach Sang Lee fought in Korea was one of them. Dongkun Park was one of them and it's limited because, put it in perspective, they had the President's Cup, they had the National Championship and they didn't have a World Championship back then. So that was what it was. So how did you get that proliferation of people here saying they did this, this and this, when in reality they did Taekwondo in school? They would have been a bus driver, but instead they came here and taught Taekwondo, and now their second generation is, you know, trying to overtake this Kukiwon, usa, for example. With that said, there are a lot of legitimate Taekwondo instructors. Example, with that said, there are a lot of legitimate taekwondo instructors american, korean, whatever, it doesn't really matter, of course.
Speaker 2:With that said, though, the one thing that always has irked me about the olympic thing is you say you're an olympic hopeful. So does that mean that you have a hope? Well, I have a hope. I have. I have a hope to be a lot of things. I keep playing the lottery. I'm not a lottery winner. I hope to win the lottery. So there's got to be a little bit more, and it's always frustrated me when you see these guys go out and they raise money and they say this and they do that. And I'm an Olympic hopeful. You got to kind of get on the. You got to get on the playing field and be a player, and then you got to get to the top one, two or three or four.
Speaker 2:So I've always respected Rogan only because he said kind things about me right on his podcast. He mentioned me as one of the guys he had watched and was a guy that could kick and knock guys out and and I always respected that. It's unfortunate that if he said that recently, what he said because showing up at one nationals and doing anything is one nationals doing one thing you know that it took us I don't know how many times, especially in that era especially it took me I.
Speaker 2:I started fighting nationals in 82. It took me till 83 83 to get a national collegiate's medal and I took that in 83, 80, 45. It took me till 85 to get a bronze medal at the. At the trials I didn't run around and say anything. And it took me to 86 to make the us team. And then for the next six, eight years I was the guy. What took you so long, dude? It was hard.
Speaker 2:It was, I didn't, you don't understand how, on the way to this, I did it too I did none of them in my house. I don't have any of them in my house. I don't know what those? Are so with that. With that said, though, you know, like I didn't say anything, I didn't wear a team uniform, I didn't buy an olympic training center usa sweatshirt, I didn't buy anything usa until somebody gave it to me for free. But because I earned it.
Speaker 3:You know what I remember when I got a bronze medal at nationals my first, second nationals senior nationals. I don't have no idea where it's at no, but I remember the people on the Illinois team.
Speaker 3:People were excited for me. They were so excited for me and I was like dude, I lost. I didn't really understand how hard it was because I did break in a little bit earlier. But I know it's a rant, we're going down a rabbit hole. But for me I was a little shocked that he said that kind of stuff because, like I said, I love the guy, I think he's so cool, he's on the edge of so many good things, but that one kind of threw me off a little bit. It's nice to see a guy in his defense.
Speaker 2:It's nice to see a guy that loves what we do as a sport, whether it's MMA, jujitsu, whatever you're doing. You know Kung Pao Chicken, he likes it, he's a fan. He's made a ridiculous amount of money doing comedy, doing a TV show, doing this. So I never, you know, I never sweat that. And he came from my area, right out my way and he stepped in, but in. But you know, don't confuse being a fan of something with being able to do something, right. Yeah, I like being a, I love soccer. But you know, stand out there on the stand, stand out there on a goal line and let somebody kick a penalty kick at you, and then you'll really understand. So you don't pretend to be a goalie, right? So, yeah, anyway, thumbs up or thumbs down. Was he good? Thumbs up for good, thumbs down for bad, was he good? And then you'll really understand.
Speaker 1:You don't pretend to be a goalie, right? So you know. Anyway, I'll let you guys go Thumbs up or thumbs down. Was he good? Thumbs up for good, thumbs down for bad. Was he good Down? I'm going to say bad.
Speaker 2:Back then it was tough to be good because there were a lot of guys out there that were great and in those two divisions in particular, at least one of those divisions lightweight was static.
Speaker 3:But I'm going to say, like if you didn't place it at nationals, how can I say you're good, you gotta you gotta show up to be up right.
Speaker 2:So you can't, you gotta. If you didn't, if you, you know I I hit a lot of guys and hurt a lot of guys and the my mind until 1991 was ouch. I never thought that could have been me. And the other thing I never said was oh, I felt sorry for the guys I hit in 91. That's what I'm saying like 91. I finally felt sorry because it was a friend of mine and then I realized I had maybe one more year to fight and I should retire that's what was so confusing to me, if you listen to this.
Speaker 3:When he said I was, I thought about it at the end of my career, he goes I was young, I was doing it for free, I wasn't making money, I'm like. But then you went to kickboxing, then you went to Muay Thai, which are technically a little bit more brutal, and then you went to, I mean, jiu-jitsu, which I think is obviously more technical.
Speaker 2:Blah, blah blah but I. What was his record in those? Did he compete in those?
Speaker 3:I don't think he ever competed, to be honest. After that, to his credit, he just said he was looking for martial art awareness and stuff. He kept taking that next step he realized that kickboxing was much better because then he could realize he could use his taekwondo against the kickboxer, because they didn't know how to kick. Then I went to Muay Thai and I'm like, oh shit, they're kicking my legs like that was open another thing. And then he did jujitsu. He said I think he started jujitsu like the year after the ufc started, 93, and now he's very accomplished like I.
Speaker 2:You know, I don't like whatever they call it throwing shade on people, I think it's what you guys call it now but I don't like to do that. Like I, I I read all these posts, I I'm on Tik TOK and all these other things, and then I see these posts by these guys. There's some guy, taekwondo fury, and he posts this nonsense and I, I try and I don't know the guy, so I, I actually comment on his nonsense because he's horrible. But he and then I this weekend, he was popular this weekend. He was popular this weekend.
Speaker 2:Listen the guy sucks at taekwondo. To be honest, how do I say it? I just said it. He sucks at taekwondo. Have you watched him fight at all Taekwondo?
Speaker 3:Fury no, I watch his videos.
Speaker 2:If that's his best at taekwondo. He sucks at taekwondo. It doesn't have far reach for me.
Speaker 2:But like the Villa guy I watch just via's videos and his taekwondo, yeah, but you know, like there's stuff that he puts up that I'm like, yeah, you know, uh, but I don't say anything because he's actually good at taekwondo, so he's one of the few guys out there that does both sides of the fence and seems to, you know, be able I, I and I, I hold myself back from saying anything because I have a lot of respect for his dad, um, but you know, at the end of the day, you know if you're hook kicking, the body conversation's over for me. So you know I don't.
Speaker 1:That's the day, though. That's the whole. I'm not gonna do it. I won't do it. I won't do it. I understand, I understand, I got, I understand, I understand.
Speaker 2:I got it. If you're a vegetarian, conversation's over for me. You're not a meat eater. I got nothing to say to you, hey.
Speaker 3:I had a little girl, a 10-year-old, at dinner and told me she's like I don't trust anyone that's a vegetarian there you go.
Speaker 2:You're raising her right, whoever that is you're raising her right yeah.
Speaker 3:I'll tell her. I'll tell her you want to get into AU you can start, I'll follow you. I got a shirt.
Speaker 2:I got an AU. Oh, I thought you wanted me to join it. I have a shirt. I miss Bobby. To be honest, I like Bobby Stone.
Speaker 3:Yeah, yeah, a good place to start. This guy steps down and there is a mad dash for who's going to be the guy to fill his role, who's going to be the guy to step in, who's going to? You know, what's going to happen with nationals is such a huge event. When he stepped down, a bunch of other people stepped down as well, in big positions, referee chairs, I mean just a lot of people. So there was this big question mark. I mean I had the question mark too, Like, do I want to go to an event that's going to suck? Possibly A couple of people that I know got involved and took a shot at running it and it was big.
Speaker 3:It was 3,400 plus. It was like you know TJ mentioned earlier. I mean the little kids divisions were stacked. There's 40 and 50 in each one. They're having five matches Yellow belt, blue, orange belts, green belts, blue. It was crazy.
Speaker 3:The seniors, juniors and cadets same thing. There's a couple of cadet divisions. There are 30, 40 kids. I mean they were some really live divisions. Seniors I thought the level was a little down, but the there was some quality matches by the semi-final and finals. Um, but all that. Let me say that they had one day there's a poomsae day that finished at eight o'clock, which is not horrible, but by au standards it's kind of bad because they usually finish at five, six, um. But other than that they really ran the event pretty flawlessly. I mean, it got in and out. I think a couple days were done by 4 o'clock, a couple days 5 o'clock, maybe 6 or something like that, but it wasn't the end of the world. When we've been to these events they're 8, 9, 10 o'clock and they're much, much smaller. I don't care, Go ahead, and they're much much smaller, I don't care.
Speaker 1:Go ahead, go ahead, finish this.
Speaker 3:Yeah, no, I know that that's not the mark of a tournament, but I'm just this is the good stuff, this is the good stuff, and unfortunately I'm like I have the inside and the outside, so I'm just going to say that was good From that standpoint good numbers, good divisions and decent time of finishing every day For the good divisions and decent time of finishing every day for the bad DJ. I'll let you start on that. Unless you got some good you want to go with first no, I don't know.
Speaker 1:my good was just, I think, like you said, the grassroots um divisions being kind of packed with like the yellow belts you can bring. You can bring a yellow belt there, a green belt there and a blue belt there and actually find some matches and for the most part they weren't like exhibition matches, they were like people in the same division, same weight, same same age, all that stuff. So that was pretty cool. Where do I start Go? I try to find my words because I don't think it's anyone. I don't know if it's anyone's fault, I just know it's not acceptable at this level. I mean you go all the way to nationals, you spend all this money, you bring all these people. I mean I got, I mean even from a business standpoint and dealing with parents and all that stuff like that.
Speaker 1:I'm gonna start first with the thing I said it at another event I said of other people there's no way we're not holding matches for children. It's just there's no way you got. I don't, don't, you got to figure it out. I mean I would rather stay there longer than than after, like let one of my seven, eight year old you know so many coaches, so many coaches were hey can you help me, hey can you help me? Like with kids that we don't know anything about. And obviously as coaches we understand the situation and we try to step in for each other and do things for each other. But, like, from a kid standpoint I can talk about the seniors. But from a kid standpoint that cannot be the answer, because we harp on safety, we harp on this, we harp on that, we harp on so many things and then we run these matches and say we can't hold it because your coach isn't here. Like that's crazy to me.
Speaker 3:Let me say this to you, tj, because I agree with you 1,000%. And it's funny because, you know, I heard that the comment was maybe we should bring more coaches. I'm like, first of all me, I have three coaches from my gym and then I have people like TJ, oi Russell, thomas Jenkins. We have tons of coaches and so we're all running around doing that. But it shouldn't be like that.
Speaker 3:I was at a ring and I'm sitting there. I have a kid that's going to fight next and I see this little kid. He goes up there and he looks like he's about to cry and he's looking, looking and somebody's like pointing he's looking across. Long story short. Also, I get a tap on the back of the back my history of spanish-speaking people and they asked me could I sit in? And I'm like, you know, I got someone in the division that's fighting next and I'm like, okay, I sat in there.
Speaker 3:The kid was already losing the first round. He lost first round. Second round was close. But the kid comes back and he's about he's getting beat pretty bad, he about to cry, and I'm like, okay, and here I'm trying to console him. I'm like, all right, here's what we're going to do. He did much better. But I'm sitting there going like this kid comes from wherever he comes from, and is sitting in the ring. He can't be more than 12. Sitting in the ring and he's a little dude, little kid Sitting by himself, no mom, no dad, no his coach over, and then he loses whatever. A couple hours later the coach comes under me, says thank you, sir, I appreciate it, but to your point, tj, it's got to be the most horrible and that's. I think I could do a pretty good job of sitting in, but what a horrible feeling for that kid you know what I'm saying, what a horrible feeling.
Speaker 1:You know and I agree, you know anybody that's having a conversation, even having a conversation with this kid, telling them from a referee standpoint, telling them hey, we're gonna start this match. I know your coach is not here. Like he don't understand that, like he, he can't process that, or she, he or she can't process that, like that's just. That part is shitty to me. I'm not gonna lie to you, you, it can't be the case. It has to be be fixed. Children cannot start matches by themselves, nowhere. I don't care. All the way up through, even through juniors we can start this way. But all the way through juniors, there should be no way they're allowed to start a match without their coach in the ring Period, point blank and simple, even from a rule standpoint. Because then this kid, if no one sits down, they're foregoing using their card ever. I mean listen.
Speaker 3:One day I had 10 people, I had three coaches and we were still jumping around and we're pretty lucky with that. But what are the chances? I mean, some guy comes with four people. You think, okay, one coach for four people and they all go to the ring at the same time. Stop it, man. You got to do something.
Speaker 1:Now, if a guy shows up with one coach, I people in the first match of the day in like three, four different rings, like like you're gonna punish him for bringing you got, like that's, that's punishing him and what he's you know, had talked to his parents about it, like what he's pushed is like team support and like being there and all this stuff like that. And now it's first match of the day and you're splitting hairs trying to figure it out and there's nothing anyone can do about it. Meanwhile, my next point, and then I'll let you. Meanwhile, you have people on the bracket that are not there, didn't weigh in, weren't in the back. You get to the ring and their names are still being called. How are you still on the bracket if you didn't weigh in? How is this listen, I got? How's that not being removed? Before getting to the point, I listen to you.
Speaker 3:You said earlier about throwing shade. I've thrown shade at the other organization, so I gotta throw shade at this organization. I gotta be. I gotta be open, even though I'm partial to one or the other. But you are right, tj, that's ridiculous. The minimum you could do is, if the system can't fix that, come on, someone should look at these. There was people that didn't just make weight. They had people that didn't show up. I had one girl from Chicago that was in the first match of the day in the bracket. I know you had a couple of people that had two wins. It was just crazy. That's unacceptable.
Speaker 1:They shouldn't be on the bracket. We're talking about some of the senior divisions too. We're talking about some of the senior divisions. So let's say the kids blah, blah, blah, blah, but the seniors are slipping through the cracks. They're not here. They didn't weigh in. We're at the ring. We want to talk about delays and holding matches, but now we spend five or six minutes looking for a kid that has not been here at any level of the game at the ring.
Speaker 3:Yeah, yeah, and and I mean I saw one division that started and some kid made weight and it was actually one of my kids division and they had to add after a while. The kid was like I, I didn't fight yet and they're like what they check the stuff? They're like, oh, they forgot, they forgot to add them in. So this computer system doesn't take people off, or didn't add people in, or correctly. And so, yes, you're right, today we had well, that one was like I think it was a good 45 minute delay, yet they can't wait for coach x to run over here for two minutes later so so the question, the question becomes you know we're all gonna have, oh taekwondo, fury tj, your fan, he's on my feet again.
Speaker 2:the um with that back hook, kick to the body and then anyway. So the reason.
Speaker 2:I. The question becomes in these situations is it endemic, or is it the first time, second time, third time? So, now that you're aware of this and it's happened, do you follow up with the AAU leadership whoever that is now and say to them here's what happened, here's my experience. What are you guys going to do to fix this in the future? Now, if they hear that message and they change, then they're better. There are organizations, um, that don't listen, don't change, and then and that's the problem they just take the money. They keep going. So, um, sometimes there's logistics things from that you know, um, like we, we went to a tournament with my kids and the tournament is in a place where they have thunderstorms every time. Now, for two years they've had the same thunderstorms and for two years they've canceled matches and for two years they've canceled, like, full-on games or limited the games. So these parents who spend thousands of dollars to go to, uh, tennessee, like that's weather hold on a second, but this is every year in the same location.
Speaker 2:They know that this is rainy season, thunderstorm and human, and it's going to happen. So they have a three-year contract with this place in tennessee, so they have one more year there. Luckily, my kids doesn't really matter next year, but, um, as a parent, when I'm making that decision next year. We had that same tournament in Texas for two years and had a great event, right, only thing you have is a lot of heat. Well, at least it's not thunderstorms and rain where you're canceling games. You're having water breaks. So does the organization hear that message? And if it does hear that message, what does it do to rectify that? They have to have a contingency plan and that means you have to put more days and more time, and that's hard.
Speaker 3:So you know like logistically that's a nice shirt coach I like that.
Speaker 1:We promote getting out early. You see this shirt. Look at this shirt. Do you see that shirt? Yes, I see it. Let me see yours.
Speaker 2:I see it Mine almost I want to peek one. I want to peek one.
Speaker 1:But my problem is that we support and like fall around getting out early. I'm sure they know, but again I go. How do we not? It's not just them, it's at a lot of different events where they do that, where they let the kids start.
Speaker 3:It's not just. It's not just a you, it's not just. I just don't understand how that could ever be. A thing like but that was, but at this event it was a big thing, tj right. So I mean, we're talking about this event. This was on unacceptable. Blah, blah, blah. Keep moving on, because we got we, I'm sure we gotta get to the big one.
Speaker 1:I'll flip, fly with you, you go, I'll sit back listen.
Speaker 3:I just. I mean, at the end of the day, we got to go with the referees and I'm going to talk again. Young, you always say, oh, we got to have some. Sometimes we bring up some problems, we should have some solutions. I have some solutions, but still we have to address this. This was by far the worst AAU officiated ever. Why do you think that? Why?
Speaker 2:do you think that to be the case?
Speaker 3:Well, that's I mean. So I'm going to give. The truth of the matter is there was a huge influx of brand new referees and because of the turnover, there was a I mean, a lot of the old referees decided not to come, a lot of the ones that had been there for years, a lot of the top level ones. I'm not trying to crap on the referees because they got a tireless job. They were there for six, seven days. Their last couple of days are important days and they're tired and blah, blah, blah. But I don't even think it was that they were tired.
Speaker 3:I think that there was a lot of miscommunication, a lot of ego, a lot of not understanding the rules, a lot of when I say ego slash not working with the coaches literally trying to. I mean you know what I mean. I'm not. I'm not very good with people like look at me and tell me to sit down, like I'm a fucking little kid. I mean that doesn't go over with me real well at all. I mean I don't care if one of you guys did that to me. It's not going to be, it's not going to be fun. And when I see this people and I not only that when I see about 20 year olds looking at people doing that kind of stuff and giving that look in their face like if you don't sit down, I'm gonna smack you. And they're 20 years old. I mean it, I'll start. It was bad.
Speaker 1:There was one coach. There was one coach that was something was being protested. Maybe there was a card going on. Let's say there was a card going on and he's literally talking to his athlete in the free time. Has the athlete listening? Blah, blah. He's like yeah, do this, do this. The referee turns to him in the center, tells him to be quiet, like calm down. And he responds he's like, don't tell me to calm down. I'm talking to my athlete like there was no reason he wasn't talking to the ref, there was no fighting going on.
Speaker 1:But to think that they, whatever their interpretation of the rules, of how our coach should act, it's twisted, it's it's, it's, it's confusing. And then you have, and then where? Then you watch them? You're gonna tell me they made in their eyes. You'd have to say they made no mistakes.
Speaker 1:I'm watching cars and I'm watching people lose cars and I'm watching weird things happen. You're gonna tell me you don't understand anyone's frustration. So like, yeah, you're saying, because what we're saying is they read the game completely wrong. Right, I watched the game being read wrong the entire day, from the fake low kicks to the random holding calls to people getting sidekick as they extend their arm and the punch scores to people punching and the other person standing still, and then they put it on the other side and you try to explain to them what the procedure in that situation is and they're telling you and unfortunately for them, I've been able to sit in a lot of chairs at a lot of high levels, so I have a very good interpretation of the rules and what is and what isn't, and it's like when I listen, I have to walk away at some point because I'm like dude, you don't even know the rule.
Speaker 1:You don't even know the rule, you don't know how to handle the rule, you don't know what is supposed to be interpreted and I'm gonna go to the other side. They were allowing some of these coaches to like protest things that weren't protestable or protest the project what are we doing so?
Speaker 2:the worst so the like what I do is I just vote with my dollars, and I know you can't do that at the au, but I what I will say is this historically one of the worst tournaments here locally. And it's a prestigious tournament because it's at stanford and the only the name stanford gives it prestige and the guy that used to run it was the second rate has been player that never was timmy. Timmy gormley was his name and timmy had the world's worst referees and they were horrible and he was terrible at taekwondo as well, but he was so full of himself and taught the referees who were basically college kids, most of them little brainiacs that went to stanford, um, and they I would sit in that tournament or the match things and I'd see them misinterpret the rules and I'd finally get up and just have enough. And I go and talk to timmy who hates to be called timmy, by the way, but he's my junior and so I'll call him Timmy and I think he's like a second degree or something, and Timmy would empower these little jerk-offs to believe that referees were superior when they didn't understand the rules. And so I just got to the place where I didn't let my people go and don't let my people go, and now that Timmy's gone it's still bad, but that's because when you've, you got to understand where you're getting referees from and when you get referees from a place where they unlike judo to compete, if you want to ref a certain level of judo we've talked about this you have to have had competed at it and made it to a certain level. So if you want to be an Olympic ref at judo, you had to make it through the first half or the first, or pretty high up in judo as a competitor to referee at that level. And it depends on the level you have to. But the moment where you and I learned this from Sifu Vizio the moment where you enter the ring and you allow that person to judge you, you might be a world class competitor, you might be an Olympic champion.
Speaker 2:You might have an 18-year-old kid who doesn't understand the rules refereeing, and so as a coach, I don't sit in chairs anymore, why? Because I don't want to let this little snot-nosed kid who doesn't understand the rules never fought judge me. Now the AAU needs to hear that message. They have to fix that. In other words, you've got to educate your referees and when you lose people that it's life is inevitable. You're going to lose people, political whatever, and people are going to leave with those people. You know, unfortunately, every time I left the room, nobody left with me. I was left alone, but in this situation they've got. It's something to be addressed if the referees don't understand the rules, can't enforce the rules and can't interpret the rules, and then you have high level coaches who are sitting in chairs and people that are spending thousands of dollars. I mean, I like Salt Lake City, but I would never go to Salt Lake.
Speaker 1:City unless there was a reason.
Speaker 2:You know what I mean. I'm not going to Salt.
Speaker 1:Lake City. But I guess if they did it with a little bit of grace, because we as coaches are threatened with yellow cards and warnings and slapped on the wrist and we got grown-ass men being forced to apologize for conversations and things in debate. That's crazy. Like stop, let's stop. That's what we're doing. Like, I understand you want, as a staff member of the people in charge, you protect your people. You want to make sure that it's fair on both sides, but don't forget how important the coaches are and everything too. We're not going to sit here and take this. We're watching the game. You know how many coaches bit their tongue. You know how many conversations we've had. They're like oh man, if, if, if, it's this yellow card thing and it's only played on one side. These referees made a lot of mistakes. They did a lot of weird things and a lot of weird situations. I had one guy stopping the match. The people were fighting.
Speaker 2:He would stop the match just to switch positions and then say go like, can you imagine? Can you imagine I want you to think for a minute can you imagine if there were a job that you had anywhere in the world where you weren't evaluated and you weren't challenged and you couldn't be promoted or demoted? The only job like that is the supreme court and, apparently, refereeing, steve kaepner and I. Back back in Copenhagen World Championships.
Speaker 2:Steve did an evaluation of all the refs and then we had that video review of the refs where we would overturn the calls or uphold the calls, with a referee, high-level referee and a high-level athlete I'm talking Pasquale Hadi, me Kaepner sitting in chairs alongside of them. We overturned 60% to 70% of the calls. At the end of it, we came up with an evaluation of the referees, which was after that, we never saw it again. The reason Because they wanted to be immune. They thought they were the Supreme Court and when you put people in a position of absolute power, absolute power corrupts absolutely, and that's why you got Philippee, they, whatever his name still in charge and you're not fixing the problem.
Speaker 1:That's too high level, but that's where it starts.
Speaker 2:It starts at high level in other words, if I'm in a job where I can say and do whatever I want and nothing can happen to me, you have to until you get to a place where referees and we started this back in usat so we, when I was running the program, as you know, we did the coaching program, we did the athlete program and we did the ref program. We had a program. We could videotape the matches, we could see what the refs were scoring and then after the match we could do an evaluation and use it as education. We weren't trying to use it as punishment. I'm saying okay, now you had a ref there, sit with them and say you pressed the button for that.
Speaker 2:Was it a mistake or why? What's your justification? Well, here's nobody else pressed it and that's life. But if the referee is pressing that button nine out of ten times, yeah, you got to educate the ref and then you get a better ref. If you don't have an education process where the only thing refs back then were learning were warnings. They didn't learn how to score a point. We were the first group trying to teach them what a point was. So I don't know what's happening Now.
Speaker 2:You have a different dynamic because you've got the dumb system that doesn't score technique anymore, it just scores foot farting.
Speaker 3:I think what TJ is talking about, though, is this specific tournament. I think what TJ is talking about, though, is this specific tournament, and I think it's important to highlight these individual cases that we saw, because if we just say it was bad, then they won't get to where you're at, Young, and I actually have something even simpler they won't get to the solution or the fixing of it. I think it has to be. I mean, I know, in social media it's not the best, you know, because everyone thinks they're perfect, everyone thinks that they're right, but there was a lot of very good comments criticizing for different calls, different situations, and I think of you know what are you?
Speaker 2:doing. I'm going to pull up something because you mentioned it. Go ahead, and I'm going to pull up this. I think oh, yeah, so here's a case in point right, and this is embarrassing on so many different levels, besides the fact that this is the last match of the day, the last of the tournament so here's the match boom.
Speaker 3:Look at his dude fall.
Speaker 2:Watch the scoreboard so for those of you, those of you that are Boom, look at his dude fall, watch the scoreboard. So for those of you that are just simply listening, what we had here was a picture of a player getting full-on kicked in the face, knocked to the ground, basically on the verge of being unconscious, and no score, no point. And then I'll let no point and he's being counted out by the way being counted out I'll let you pick it up from there, coach.
Speaker 3:No, I mean I I'll get that one later, but I mean let me close what I would say.
Speaker 1:I think it's again, I think, the only thing that got me through that weekend. I'm going, I'm telling myself you know, my new motto is you don't know what you don't know, and I can accept that as a reasoning behind things. But then, as you approach the game, like you said, when you're being not only the rules are being interpreted wrong and calls are being made weird and punches are being scored and things are being allowed to protest and calls are not being made in there and the wrong calls are being made, you kind of go okay, at least have a little humility in the process. And I think they go the exact opposite. They go like this guy's got to be wrong, or or look at him, he's angry. You know why I'm angry? Because I do this as a profession. I do this every single day, monday through Saturday. I go to trip after trip.
Speaker 1:I have coached at big tournaments, I have coached at the world champs, I have coached at grand prixs and the Olympic games, and I'm sitting here trying to watch and figure out the game, because the goal is to win and all the coaches in tech want to know. The goal is to win and we. We are smart enough to play around the rules and change and, you know, focus on the match at the moment. But you watch these guys and they just have no, no decor about it. They really think that they have rights to tell you to sit down in situations where you're a hundred percent right or you're being forced not to use your card because you know they're going to get a hundred percent wrong. Like it's crazy, you know. And that's where my issue comes in, right there.
Speaker 3:Now I'll add that, to listen, I I've coached a long time too and I know you know sometimes I was good calls and bad calls and I was holding, he was pushing. You know, sometimes there's good calls and bad calls and I was holding, he was pushing, and you know it's a matter of interpretation. Why call it now when you haven't called it the whole time? Again, all that. I hate to say it, but I can live with it. I really can. But what I can't live with is what you said. That's a great point, TJ.
Speaker 3:You coach every day. You go to terms every weekend. Most of these people at this event refereeing probably go to two or three a year and then they're going to have the ego because they're wearing a certain shirt in a certain position of the ring, to look at you and basically scold you or tell you whatever, or even be vindictive, because when you do lose your card, you know you're getting things coming back your way. Or let's say, you had a problem last match and now you're in a new match. They're being vindictive, can control the thing.
Speaker 1:so for me it's like a basin. Sorry, my bad, but that's not like the. They're looking at you like like he wants another call. Like, dude, do your job and get out of your emotions. It's not against you, you just made a bad call, let it go. But like that's my issue, because I don't know why I come from disrespect is met with disrespect. It's very simple. Like I don't I. It's a very equal equation. And and they don't get that because then when you respond to them, the same energy they give you, then you're being told to apologize and say sorry yeah you know, yeah, that's what.
Speaker 3:That's what you're saying. Like it's not held to the same standard here. We are professionals doing what we do I would say most of us and these guys are volunteers and I'll get into that in a second and very amateur in what they do and they still will have these kind of emotions and facial things and ego power things. I mean I don't really review too much. I've reviewed so many no-come, john, for my player. I'm basing what you called grabbing, pushing, falling, I mean, and I won so many of them and I know it killed them to come back and give me my damn card. You know what I'm saying. Like normally I'm like ah, but I'm like no, no, enough of this. I mean I kind of I had to throw my card at a few people, you know.
Speaker 3:At the end of the match I had to grab my card and look at to quit trying to control the match and win or lose the match for the athlete. The guy looks at me and I'm like, yeah, I said that to you because these guys are fighting beautiful match, everything's going and go figure, the guy that's winning gets a bad call in the last 15 seconds. You haven't called shit. The whole event, the whole match, and now you make yourself seen. And it was. I mean, it wasn't egregious, it wasn't like he was everything that was happening in the first 30 seconds, the first 60 seconds, the first 90 seconds. And now here we are. And guess what? Bravo, mr Referee, you just gave somebody a match and took somebody's match away and feel good about it.
Speaker 3:That's horrible, horrible, horrible, horrible.
Speaker 1:So that last kick you showed back to the last kick. You showed right, yeah, yeah, so it was. Then they had to sort of review, so it didn't score. Obviously they looked at the score but it didn't score. From what I understand is they reviewed it and then they came back and X'd it. In what world is that an X Like? I don't even understand? The medic should have been called.
Speaker 3:He should have been counted out. He should not have probably continued. He was on all fours past the number of counting, like he was hit. So this is my guy that did one of my guys coaches my coaches. It was his guy, young and so it's.
Speaker 2:We can't hear you we can't hear you, we can't hear you the reason it didn't happen they weren't used to seeing anybody get kicked in the face, so that nobody ever gets kicked in the face with power anymore. So they were confused because it was like a unicorn. It never happens and when a guy actually found down from the blow of the kick, rather than just having his feelings hurt, they didn't know what to do young, that was. Ultras too, that was one of my try to disqualify the athlete no, actually my junior.
Speaker 1:There was a kid in 74, a shorter guy in 74, and he hit this kid. I think it was like a pot of chuggy inside or a round kick to the body and this boy went down to his knee and the referee just told him to stand up and everyone was like count, count. But it was a hard body shot. He ate. It laid there and they just let him get away with it. And I don't know if they gave the gum john. They might have said his hand was down before he touched the ground or something strange.
Speaker 3:Yeah, yeah there was a lot of that. So, yeah, I think, listen, the lack of respect you know, you know both ways and the lack of level was, was unacceptable for au. I know, and I know au has a um. So let me go back to some solutions. You know, young, you were talking about big, you know kind of things. But listen, the only um, the only excuse I'll give is I know there was a mass exodus of referees and to get this 20 division I'm sorry, 20 ring event going, the referees, chairs or whoever, they had to go out to their states and just work hard to get people to come and certify them at the state level, work a little, and then they threw them into the fire. So that's an excuse, but it's not an excuse because that's your job, our job is to prepare, our job is to win, it's your job to prepare these people to referee properly. So can it get better in the future? I hope so.
Speaker 3:I think that AAU is in a leadership limbo. Like I said, I know there was like three people that were assigned to this competition to get it done. Listen, they got people registered, they got people through the event. It wasn't a complete disaster. And so now we have the big question, because I will tell you this and I'm one included If it's anywhere close to this, you'll never see me again. There's no reason to, and I'm a fan of AAU.
Speaker 3:I want to be there, I want to help, I want to put my two cents in. I'll do whatever I can to see it succeed, because I think it could be something unique and something special With the amount of people, the amount of coaches there. Unique and something special with the amount of people, the amount of coaches, and there's a lot of knowledge that usually gets listened to. So, but it's going to be dependent on what you say young, the leadership, are they going to listen or who's going to? Who's it going to be and what? How are they going to utilize the resources that they have Because the other organization, they don't utilize their resources and look where they're at. Not a good situation. Not a good situation, but you can't coach and play through that chaos.
Speaker 1:That was probably one of the most hectic coaching days ever. Because I'm in limbo, trying not to get in trouble, not to rip the mats up and throw them over the fence one by one. You're just watching and then I guess, okay, I want them to prioritize athletes, that's it. Because I think it was the second day or something they told now, well, they brought the divisions out early and then told them they couldn't kick a wall up at the ring. What do you want them? What do you want them to do? What do you want them to do? We, we've taught our kids to warm up and stretch and be ready and get focused on this stuff, and now we go out early, and that's a good thing because we end early. I don't care if the event runs efficiently and it officially has to run until 10, 11 PM. I don't care, because it's the game and the athletes and the things that are going on that day. They're more important. I get it. I get it.
Speaker 3:What they wanted to do is go to that little back area and warm up and then come back Right behind the yeah, but they want them to stay at the ring too. Yeah, it depends on one side.
Speaker 1:It was so much going on, we went from being at the ring to not being at the ring to. I think that creates a lot of chaos. I mean, I think it makes it easier, like we were talking about before, to get everyone in the same place at the same time no-transcript on and there was a lot wrong.
Speaker 3:That's what's weird, TJ, me and you talked this morning when I you know we were talking earlier that sometimes a result isn't indicative of a performance Just because you win. There's a lot of stuff that went wrong and you kind of got lucky to win, or vice versa, you lose but you fought really well. This event, I think, finished good on paper, Like when you said, oh, we finished at 5 o'clock, Okay, great, but the inner workings of it was rough.
Speaker 3:And it hasn't been like that in a long time and I think it's going to. That's why I said leadership, give people time. I mean to these people's credit. You know, these guys got thrown into this thing with about four months and to go from nothing, like I'm just in my kitchen drinking coffee and all of a sudden they're like hey, juan, we need you to run this event, get your group together. Oh shoot. You know, kitchen drinking coffee and all of a sudden they're like hey, juan, we need you to run this event, get your group together. Oh shoot, you know, some of these guys have not run. Well, no one's run a 3,400 person event, maybe five, 600, you know person events, 700 event if you're lucky, but that's. You know, a seven day tournament.
Speaker 1:I would have loved to have seen someone tell the referees to try to limit their interactions within the match. Like I can almost deal with the no calls over, the too many calls and all that stuff like that. I don't know what the approach was, I don't know what the conversations were, but it just seemed like I'm going to say, from the first day I was there Thursday to Friday to Saturday it progressively got worse and maybe because it got to the seniors and it's easier to see and it's more impactful, but like it just seemed like it progressively got a little bit more rough, listen, tired.
Speaker 3:They were tired, they were inexperienced. The level is better, the coaching is more important. I mean there's a lot of things that, just like you said, added into that problem. I mean, for me I have an easy solution. Okay, you bring those people in. I think referees have to understand that they are part of the system, they are part of the brand. They work with people, not against people. You are not on your own and, yes, there's always going to be a little adversary because the coach thinks he's right.
Speaker 3:The referee made their judgment call in the heat of the moment. Sometimes you go okay, okay, okay, I get that. But for me it's like, if you make a mistake, sorry about that. You know, if you made a call, sorry, you didn't like it. That's the way I saw it. But there's a ways to make this better. I mean some things.
Speaker 3:Look, I don't expect, I don't. I'm not a referee. I can't tell you what angle to put your hand at. You know all that stuff, but I think if someone had the conversation with them and said, listen, your job is to not be seen, you should call it egregious. Call People fall down. Call it. People go out of bounds. Call it. People leg check, call it Holding, pushing. I mean, okay, if you see it for real, but there's a hold and a push on every single clinch, just like in the NFL, just like in soccer. We just watched USA soccer. The ref let these guys kill each other for the first half, but okay, we know that's how it's going. So I think that if they understood that they don't have to show every deduction that they've learned in the match, let it go, let these guys fight, let these kids fight. I think if you'd call less, people would be more happy versus calling more, you know what I'm saying.
Speaker 1:I think, like you just said, if it's stuck to the, my issue is the procedural stuff. I watch matches and the referee didn't know how to start the guys. He had both the kids facing each other face forward instead of turning them sideways, so he actually had the chest guard. So the kids are trying to like and it's just like. So we don't even know how to start the match. And then I guess the other thing was or finish, or finish the match.
Speaker 3:Finish Just go like this.
Speaker 1:They're like chong-ho bow-wow, someone would spin Both referees would stand up in the corner and go two, two and for whatever reason, the center ref would still take out his card and go to the table. I'm pretty sure if they both agree it's on car to stop the match. But that's important to me because sometimes the cardio thing, maybe we're down and there's other guys tired. Now we got a three and a half minute break because you just ignored the two people in the corner. That's what I mean by structural and procedural stuff that like just made it like messy. You know what I mean, that type of stuff.
Speaker 3:But but what they're trying to think about is I'm doing the right thing? Because I'm not sure, let me go check, do you? Do you understand? But that's why I think they need to live it more.
Speaker 1:That's the corner rest. The corner rest, I mean the corner rest. Both say 2-2. They're both calling it.
Speaker 3:I agree, I agree, I mean, I'm just giving you like devil's advocate.
Speaker 1:I agree with you.
Speaker 3:I mean, that should be obvious. You know what they Like. Look, it wasn't my call and you're right If the other coach goes. No, he didn't spin. Actually, we did that. That's how it works, though we did that with Coach Lee. He got in a clinch and some kid did one of those little back whip kicks and hit him in the head and the referee they put two. I'm like, hey, he didn't spin, he didn't spin, he just flipped his leg around if you didn't pay attention. And when they reviewed it they were like good, no, two points. I was like, and both corners gave those two points. But to your point, it was up to the other call.
Speaker 1:you know, coach, in that situation yeah, I think that was the thing. I think it was just that uncertainty of the rules and things that made them kind of like, again all the checking, all this switch. I mean I had people like in the middle of the fight, stop it to go check where the people were located in the ring. When they stopped it and it's just like, but they're still standing. It was just too much. Like you said, it was just it's just too chaotic, it's too crazy.
Speaker 1:You, you can't, you can't coach at that level, let alone coaching little kids at that level, because everything you said probably looks wrong to them, you know abcdrf d minus d minus d D man I mean, if you want to give him like a C-minus because of the A for effort syndrome on a curve A for effort. You know, but like, come on, I mean that was a lot. I'm watching again. I'm watching matches I had to leave places in the match. I'm watching matches being judged. I'm just like this is not even my match.
Speaker 3:And I'm getting like emotionally invested because it's like there's no way this is going this way. I was watching like one coach and I'm kind of like this. I was like, oh, I don't know, then the call would go against other coaches. I'm like, oh, my gosh, same thing. I was before anybody looked at me. I was like let me go to another ring because I was, I felt bad for both coaches. Man, I don't know what to tell you guys.
Speaker 1:I don't know what to tell you. One coach thought I was like kind of giving him a hard time or something. I'm like dude, I didn't go have a conversation with him but I'm just looking in like oh, I was like how deep in the levels of this call went to the, the changes and the switches and what they're doing. So I'm just sitting back like the same thing, mouth covered, like I can't believe it.
Speaker 3:You know it's funny. I'm like I didn't have that many bad calls, nothing out of the ordinary. I had like maybe one ref that I thought was a little bit weird, maybe two, but I just it wasn't like really I saw a lot worse for other people than me. So I'm not, I can't, I can't say I was one of those guys but I did see a lot. So refereeing was tough. Again, I'm not trying to bag on the referees because I know they're volunteers, I know they're young, I know they're doing their best but you know the rule for headshotsshots when they look at the video review, they look for the contact.
Speaker 1:If, for whatever reason, they can't see whether it's scored or not, they keep the card correct, like that's the thing. I think that that's philly. I mean, it's like when they it's like, let's say, when the video is recording or whatever it doesn't record, they give you your card back, right? Yes right, yes, but if the video is playing and the kick is not seen and we only have one camera, then I lose my card and we just move on with the day.
Speaker 3:See. That's why I think, under the circumstances of one camera, that's not fair. It's like saying I got only punch right here, I should be able to punch everywhere. But if you're in a real tournament and they got two cameras front and back and they can't see it, hey, you lose your card. Or if you got three or four cameras, they can't see it, hey, you lose your card. If you got three or four cameras, they can't see it because it was a weird angle. That's too bad, man. But in this situation, yes, they should have. Uh, do you think I wish I could remember this, do you?
Speaker 1:think when they look for a contact they look at where the foot hits. I'm sorry. Okay, when they review for head contact, when they review they're just supposed to look at it to see if the foot made contact with the head correct. Doesn't matter if they matter. If it hit the front side, back, middle, it doesn't really make a difference, right?
Speaker 3:Man, I'm sure if someone says, oh, it hit the spinal cord of the back of the head, I don't know. I think that's what's happening too. It should just be if it hit.
Speaker 1:But I guess what's the rule? Do you know the exact wording for it?
Speaker 3:They're just looking for contact. From what I, supposedly the only rule that says you can't hit the back of the head is in the clinch. In the clinch, you can't hit the back of the head, right? So no, it should be. In should be the headgear. There's no rule, yeah, so I mean, I wish there's a. There's a referee man I I asked his name. He was in the women's 67. It was down by where uh britney was fighting. I don't know if you remember where that was, that 17 or 19. He's a, a smaller gentleman from texas yeah, dark hair.
Speaker 1:I don't know where that was Was that 17 or 19?.
Speaker 3:He's a smaller gentleman from Texas. Yeah, dark hair. I don't know if he's Hispanic. I think he's a Hispanic guy. He's from Charles, virginia. Oh man, I don't want to say the wrong name. So whatever his name was, that dude is good. He controlled the center referee a lot. He brought the referee. I saw him, for example. He gave a come John for going out and then he gave a come John for kicking low and he just told him to come in and he asked him why he was like he went out of bounds. He was like and what was the other? He goes. Well, he kicked them low, he goes. So he kicked them low before he went out of bounds. He's like yes, he's like okay, so you can't give him a deduction for an illegal came out why you dropped just little things. He did a really good job in the ring and mentoring the other people. So I don't know. Hats off to that guy. I mean I wish I didn't know his name because I feel stupid right now. I go.
Speaker 1:C C D, I get it D. C I get the C part. I get the D part. I just again, I think it's just the messiness from a procedural standpoint, watching things happen that shouldn't happen. People get away with things that we would never get away with, that like the, the middle level tournaments out and open. Like there's certain things that, as much as we'd like to argue with the refs, there's sometimes like they are right when they tell us to be quiet. You know what I mean and you're watching. Like guys hold up matches because they're misinterpreting the rules and like they're arguing with them and they're trying to convince them and they're trying to convince them and everybody's trying to convince everybody.
Speaker 3:But it's like there's a set of rules for a reason too but that's that's my point, like I listen, okay, so you know most. I mean, we know for the most part, me and there's other people. But I saw a couple referees I could tell they didn't know what they were doing and they're telling them and the referees trying to get the answer, trying to get there, and then kind of grabs the card and it's like puts it in a pocket or kind of like okay, that's what you want to do, knowing that it's going to be an x, and so sometimes you know they, you know they they're just doing their jobs, you know. But yeah, it was, it was rough and it was blatant and I, I, this is just not me. I mean, I can't tell you how many coaches were not happy with the refereeing part. So, like I said, I throw some shade in the past.
Speaker 3:Other organizations, uh, whether it's patu, whether it's usat, blah, blah, blah. This time I gotta throw it at the au. I mean, granted, they had to build this thing out in three to four months, granted, they had to get a bunch of new people, but nevertheless it was a. It was a tough one to swallow for a lot of people, but um usAT is in two weeks.
Speaker 3:We'll be there.
Speaker 1:How do you fix slippery mats? Because I think someone needs to send a long email and let them give them the procedural chat. Gpt, it look it up. How you fix slippery Taekwondo mats, because this is the second or third year I've been to the AU and I hate the mats you can't move. Hairspray sometimes means nuts. People are spraying their feet with hairspray and wiping their feet off because it's dirty, but the mats are slippery. How do we fix slippery mats? Do you know, grandmaster, tell me how we fix slippery mats?
Speaker 2:So the only thing that fixes slippery mats is wear and tear, and we've all competed on slippery mats, and humidity exacerbates that problem, and so there's not a lot you can do about it. Uh, salt lake city, yeah, but it's the mats. You know, it's the quality of mats. There's not a lot you can do about it. But you got slippery mats, slippery socks, sucky scoring systems, but other than that, it's a pretty good sport. But you know, you got. You got many things to fix, of which I think the slippery mats is the last thing to fix.
Speaker 2:But that's the first thing well, what you would do, to be honest, is you put stick them on, put stick them on the bottom of the kids feet. They were doing all that stuff their hairspray and they get dust and there's dust on the mat and then you got to wipe it off between right, I think there's two things I think you have to.
Speaker 3:there's some kind of like brush, kind of like a bristle brush, that you can mop it off or you can kind of grind it down a little bit. I think there's a solution that takes some stuff off too, because I know like that's not a problem at world championships and stuff like that. I mean, it used to be a big problem. Well, now they go to those rollout mats, which is much, much better, but the Dolomar type of mats that your friend Mark Swain invented.
Speaker 2:He's got the best. Mats are always a tough one because there are better mats and mat systems, but it means they've got to buy them. What were they using puzzle mats? Puzzle mats are always slippery. They suck.
Speaker 1:I mean that's true, but not true For me. I've been again. We've been a lot of tournaments. These are historically the slipperiest mats in the world.
Speaker 2:They're cheap. Puzzle mats.
Speaker 3:I'm going to ask that because I don't think they bought new mats, so these must have been from last year.
Speaker 1:I think they just use them for nationals and store them.
Speaker 3:Yeah, I think so too, I'm going to find out. I'll find out, I'll find out.
Speaker 2:Did you want to talk about the soccer thing? Oh yeah, I want to hear this.
Speaker 3:Yeah, just real fast. Listen, the USA man was disappointing yesterday. They got whooped by Mexico. They scored the first goal in the first three minutes and 30 seconds. They scored against. They scored a beautiful header. I was like, all right, it's gonna, you know.
Speaker 3:But after that ball control, mexico had all the play, all the possession, all the passing. The usa, um, in small spaces, have horrible touches. And you know it's funny because my brother-in-law's a big soccer fan now and he was saying, you know, the new coach from chelsea came in, um, he's argentinian, can't think of his last name, he's got a touch ofanino or something like a tough name, but he said he was brought in to have small touches, to have, you know little, faster breaks, more ball control, and we didn't see any of it. Now there were some people like Pulisic, or how to pronounce his name. He didn't play, which is he's their main offensive.
Speaker 3:You know, center guy, he plays in Europe and so I'm not quite sure why some of the other big stars didn't play if his plan was to give people experience and minutes in a memorable and meaningful event. But man, they look bad, which is interesting because before this tournament started, they lost like four games in a row and they look like crap. Then they started running through this tournament and they looked up to pick up some steam, but last night they looked like a bad team. They looked really, really bad. In mexico had a 16 year old kid on the team, bro who was killed?
Speaker 2:who was killing it?
Speaker 3:who was killing it. He played really well, really well, so who won.
Speaker 2:But the truth is that mexico came out and they played a very aggressive game and they were attacking from beginning to end. They were attacking the ball in there and the other sides last third and they were aggressively playing and that's a. That's a style of play that is prevalent in the East Coast and in Europe that the Americans aren't used to playing, and so you watch the Americans who didn't know how to play that style, because that style is played mostly on the East Coast and in college and these players are playing in academies that don't play that style necessarily. And then you had this guy who was a forward and I don't want to speak badly about him, but he sucked. He didn't run the guy up front. The African-American kid who was 600 feet tall can't run. He didn't attack the guy up front.
Speaker 2:The uh, african-american kid who was yeah, 600 feet tall, can't run, he's slow, no skills, no touch, and he missed every time he got a one on the goalie. He basically gave it to the goalie. So that guy as as they were saying on social media, he shouldn't be on the team next year. They are guys that were on the field Tillman and these other guys in Adams that kind of held it down and, to the credit of the Mexicans, they put Diego Luna on an island. The guy couldn't get the ball, couldn't do anything with the ball. When he did get the ball, they ran at the ball because he's so far back.
Speaker 3:Yeah, it was so far back. They needed them. They were afraid of the.
Speaker 2:Mexicans ability, ability to attack and score. So they played a very low block I think that's what it's called, and they had everybody back. And this is the truth you can't win games if you can't score. Defense can't be the way you're going to win a game. Now, to the Americans' credit, they got a lucky first goal. That was luck. The ball went high, hit the post, went in the goal and it was a goal. And, to the Americans' credit as well, there was a handball. That was a handball. No doubt it was a handball. It the most giantest, biggest pipeline of youth involvement.
Speaker 3:You have high school, you have a great university program, you have a professional, you have actually a semi-pro league and a professional league for a number of years. How is America so bad in soccer? How are we so bad? I said that, give me that with Taekwondo, give me that with Taekwondo you got a crazy grasp with high school collegiate professional. You would say that's a system for success. Well, how are we so bad in soccer? Not in America, not on the women's side. Women's side, we're great.
Speaker 2:Well now, the women's side, women's side, we're great. Well, here's the, here's the question the, the, the. If you are, if you are, people want to say it's other sports. So they say, because all our best athletes go to basketball and football soccer can't get that same vibe like that's what I said.
Speaker 2:The guys that are playing. They wouldn't be good at soccer. The guys who are playing baseball wouldn't be good at anything. They'd suck. The guys who are baseball players suck the guys who play football. A handful of the guys that play football could probably play soccer and be good at it, and that's. Did I miss any professional sports? Is that it Baseball, soccer, football, anything else?
Speaker 3:That's it Hockey tennis.
Speaker 2:What's a hockey player going to do? So the reality is that soccer is getting the best athletes, it can.
Speaker 2:The direction of MLS, which doesn't give its elite clubs enough help, and the direction of the academies, which makes the academy attendance almost impossible for kids of certain ages. They just haven't. They don't fund it. And here's the other part of it. You want better soccer players. Make the carrot better. Make the service better in the middle. Fund the bubble. So if you fund the bubble, you throw money down into the lower leagues. Get more kids playing. Half the country plays soccer. The problem is the reward. So a kid plays soccer, what's his best hope? He gets a homegrown contract. He makes a hundred grand a year for a year or two and that's the pipeline. All right, or you can go to college.
Speaker 3:Yeah, I still don't get it. I still don't get it because they have, like I just said, like you can't in Taekwondo. You can't go to high school and do Taekwondo. You can't go to college and do Taekwondo. You can't say I'm going to go play overseas Taekwondo or I'm going to play in a minor league system here. I mean it's just, they have all the opportunity to just develop over from the age of 13 to 19 and we just don't like nobody, like one or two, like again Pulisic. I don't know Pulisic. He's a, you know, prolific scorer, like in Europe, but like nobody, nobody that's. I mean like you can't. You can't say one famous American soccer player no, pulisic Polisic.
Speaker 3:Again, give me another one, give me anybody else.
Speaker 2:Anybody, I have this. You know, I have this conversation endlessly and the reason.
Speaker 3:I have it endless Donovan, landon, donovan, landon, donovan, when he was decent. But like this too, there's gotta be I it's. It's mind boggling. It doesn't make sense to me. I want it to make sense to me. It's not money, it's not opportunities, it's not training. Is it coaching? Is it just? We just don't have it. I just I can't believe that, year after year, a Brazilian kid can learn it. Or year after year, a Mexican kid, this 16 year old kid, can do it A year after year Argentinian or Croatian and Italian, italian. Why can't I mean OK, we've had, we've had 70 years in this, 70 years since 1950 earlier, but let's just say 1950 to 2025, 75 years. How long has the MLS been there? And we still suck. So the if America.
Speaker 2:I've had. I always used to have these conversations right about other sports Right, and so I had this conversation with a friend of mine who was the president of cross-country skiing and you know I've told you that before and how many people do that sport?
Speaker 2:well, the problem is that cross-country skiing said. I said they said they could never win a medal. And I said if you, what does that mean? I said I could you give me 10 million dollars? I said, no matter, if you gave me enough money I could win a medal in any sport. And if you don't believe that to be the case, then you've got a bigger problem, right. And and my problem is, you can win a medal in any sport if you put the right energy, time and effort and education into it.
Speaker 2:So america's got to make a choice now to be good at soccer and so like. Take my son, for example, right, which we always talk about. I know he drives you guys crazy, but my son right now is in Japan training with a professional team. Why? Because to do that same thing in the United States would tie him to a professional team. So if I did it with the Earthquakes, the Earthquakes then would hold his rights all the way through senior year of college. He would have to take a contract with the Earthquakes if they offered him a contract and he couldn't go into the draft. So we decided to go to Japan one of their better teams and then we're going to Brazil with the team that's in the semifinals at the World Cup club team Fluminese Tomorrow.
Speaker 3:Yeah.
Speaker 2:And Fluminese, and so that's what we decided to do to get my son. Now, if we were really hardcore, we'd send my son to another country to live and train with their academies, because even their third and second level teams are better than most of the MLS's professional teams. Now that's not throwing shade on the MLS. The problem is like if they're not going to put like I love the earthquakes, they they scouted my son. They wanted to join the u18 team. So right now I'm going through an inner conversation about whether that's in the best interest of him moving forward.
Speaker 2:Great team, great coach, great history. Fc dallas love the guy, he's really one of the best. But that it pigeonholes your son or daughter. So, to be honest, the clubs here have to do a better job of grooming the kids, raising the bar and doing stuff to get people to want to be here. So Inter-Miami, great club, but Red Bulls, great club. All these clubs have great programs, but then the majority of the other MLS programs, you know, fcc, uh, what is it called? La fc, la galaxy, la galaxy. So what are you doing to give kids a realistic don't forget about them. Boys, charlotte, my boy, one of our kids, my son's teammates, is going to charlotte right now. This kid ateo honestly I enjoy their games.
Speaker 1:I. I take this for a little. I think we talked about it before, but the crowd is fun. The stadium is the Panther Stadium. It's nice, wide and open. It's never overly packed.
Speaker 2:What else are you doing in Charlotte? I mean that and going to the dentist? He's going to tech window to everybody.
Speaker 1:Anybody want to come, I'll give you the address.
Speaker 2:You have a dental plan, but I mean. So USA soccer. The reality is that, and you know this, yeah, if you watch I watch PSG play who do they play? In the quarters of the semis, psg played another really high level team. I can't remember who it was, but when you watched PSG play it was, uh, the German team. I think it was ridiculous, like the level of soccer was unbelievable. That's my point. And then you watch Real Madrid play, and these are club.
Speaker 3:Well, real Madrid is playing PSG in the semifinals on Wednesday, and tomorrow it's Fluminense and Chelsea.
Speaker 2:It's going to be games. It's real games when you watch that level of play.
Speaker 3:Watch tomorrow, because you're going to see two different, distinct styles, so the English style and the Brazilian style. It's going to be pretty cool.
Speaker 2:Go back and watch the Mexican USA game just for 10 minutes and what you'll see is this the difference between Mexico and the States. Mexico played one touch. The ball hit the player's foot, he sent it somewhere he was scanning before he received the ball and America was trying to play a build-out game. And you can't play a build-out game against that kind of game. You can try, but the reality was the Mexican ball handling was superior, the Mexican shots on goal were superior, and it's just. It was a superior style of play.
Speaker 3:Yeah, players didn't have to play.
Speaker 1:It's not the players, it's the play, it's both. The players should be good, right, I mean, they're the best, of the best at the level.
Speaker 3:That's my point. They got a good USA's, got a good coach. Now this guy's a good coach Not that Burr Walter wasn't, I thought he was a good coach's. He's been coaching around europe for a long time. He's a good coach. The players can't play right now at that level. They can't do what he wants them to do. That's the fact. I mean, what was the german coach? Uh, my gosh, he was a famous klinsman. Klinsman's a famous, you know world cup, two-time world cup champion in germany. He's like a legend. He came over here, he did a lot, he made us professionalize and how we do things, but he wasn't able to get it done. So anyway, I'll let that go. I just thought that I was so disappointed yesterday, I thought I was pretty sloppy, but still, next year World Cup, we're going. Young, we're going. Tj, you're welcome, let's do it. That'll be fun, man, go to the World Cup game.
Speaker 2:TJ, do you still have a car or are you a horse and buggy guy?
Speaker 1:I've got like six horses, six horses, six horses. I got a black one, a white one and a mixed one, so that's how much I want to ride every single day. I'll let you borrow one if you come out here. I got this little donkey. He don't got no teeth, though. Hey yo.
Speaker 3:DJ. He's going to USAT Nationals. It's in California, right?
Speaker 1:I can't hear this I hear he's going everywhere. I'm always here. He never shows up.
Speaker 3:It's in LA, it's in Ontario.
Speaker 1:Baby, let's go, I'm going to hop skip and jump for you.
Speaker 2:I'm already scared to go. When is it? When is it? Two weeks, my students are going with my coaches. You know, if I go, I'm going to have to. I don't want to go to jail. I'm going to have to slap somebody, right? Yeah, wait for me. I can't. I can't go Cause somebody is going to say something stupid, you know, but you would think that they would have sent a ticket to their their uh, one of the people that has won an Olympic gold medal for him. You would think that there would be something. I'm a lifetime member.
Speaker 1:I'm the guy that designed the programs for him, california Heights. Well, you know I don't want to.
Speaker 2:Nothing's happened you know I don't want to go because I'll be cast in shade, and you know it's hard when a bright star like me gets in the room.
Speaker 3:It dims the stars of others, Guess who? The AU. Let me finish with this. Guess who the AU.
Speaker 2:They sung me Well that where's he living now.
Speaker 3:China. Oh, he's still in China. Yeah, there's a rumor he might come back to the States, he said, but he doesn't know yet. But it was great to see him, man, he was so nice, he was so complimentary, he was talking about history.
Speaker 2:Why was he at?
Speaker 3:the AAU. He was helping some. There was some kind of like management system program that he was kind of peddling or helping try to tell people that it's a great system. So I don't know.
Speaker 2:I had sent him a note. I talked to him a little while ago. He had told me he wanted to come back and, uh, I, I offered him to come back, but I didn't hear back from him I heard he might, so let's see.
Speaker 3:If he does, it'd be all be nice to have him back.
Speaker 2:I told him he could come back and run my school in Mountain View. All right, all right. Well, I think we've killed it. It's been an hour and 15 minutes. This has been the Warehouse 15, with the mayor of Taiwan, though, and Taiwan, though, and with bronze TJ, who has embraced his bronzeness both in his dress room decor KB King bronze King bronze.
Speaker 1:King bronze. King LeBron's PJ. No stop, please. I'll just leave my name off.
Speaker 2:Oh, come on Now, don't get all. Is your mom going to call me again? This has been. Tell your mom I love you. Tell your mom I love you. Is your mom going to call me again? Yeah, all right, this has been the Warehouse 15. We are out.