Masters Alliance Uncut
Honest Conversations with Masters of their craft about life and Olympic Sport Issues
Masters Alliance Uncut
From Peru to Podcasting: Catching Up with Taekwondo's Finest
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Just when you thought they might have disappeared into the Peruvian mountains forever, the Warehouse 15 crew has resurfaced with fresh perspectives and a wealth of insights from their global adventures.
After sampling pisco sours and exploring South American landscapes, the hosts dive deep into the recent President's Cup tournament, where Brazil's national team delivered a performance for the history books. With seven finalists and six gold medals in the men's divisions, they shattered records previously held by the legendary 1987 American team. The hosts analyze what this shift in competitive dominance means for the Pan-American region and why Team USA failed to secure any gold medals despite bringing their top competitors.
The conversation takes a critical turn when examining the disconnect between national team coaches and their athletes at the competition. Why weren't coaches working with their national team members with the World Championships just around the corner? This puzzling situation raises questions about preparation strategies and team cohesion that could impact future performances on the international stage.
Referee inconsistencies remain a persistent challenge in taekwondo, with the hosts dissecting how different regions have developed distinct officiating styles. From the aggressive Pan-American approach to the more technical European style, these variations create an unpredictable competitive environment that rewards different techniques depending on where you compete. Is the sport being shaped by constantly changing rules rather than athletic excellence?
Beyond the mat, the discussion extends to the recent Canelo vs Crawford boxing match, with the hosts praising Crawford's masterful performance and Canelo's gracious acceptance of defeat. The episode concludes with a thought-provoking philosophical exchange about friendship loyalties and the importance of maintaining civil discourse despite our differences.
Whether you're a competitive athlete seeking insights or simply enjoy hearing authentic conversations about sports and life, this episode delivers sharp analysis wrapped in the hosts' signature blend of expertise and unfiltered honesty. Subscribe now and join the conversation that's shaping the future of martial arts.
Welcome Back After Peru
Speaker 1Sorry, not sorry. Yes, I know it's been too long and you've been waiting for us, but we have resurfaced. We are back from Machu Picchu and other places south, after. We've had some pisco sours and some sour piscos, some sour finishes and certainly some sour looks. This is home of the warehouse 15 that gives each of us five, five, five and five and, as we say, here's the disclaimer if we offend you, we rear-end you. Sorry, not sorry. What's going on, gentlemen?
Speaker 2I have to say that was probably your best intro to date. That was that was good.
Speaker 1That was good I got my flow going. I'm tapped into the eternal spirit I got my incense burning.
Speaker 3It's all that took off the weekend he studied because that was good, that was that was good I'll take it all right, I'll take that as a compliment.
Speaker 1Thank you so much. Is that an upside down p on your?
Speaker 2he loves me. Yes, yes, it's a brand. Yes, it's just an upside down.
Speaker 1P oh nice, is it for peak performance? No, no, no, it's just a clothing brand, different clothing brand oh nice, okay, cool all right, what we got today, gentlemen, anyways, great intro.
Speaker 2Uh, no, we, like you said, just got back from some traveling, a of a lot of planes and a lot of walking and buses and horns and crazy stuff and a lot of good food. But um yeah, like you said, just got back from peru.
Speaker 1So great food, great food, great people, great people.
Speaker 3How you doing, coach moreno I'm good, I told everybody the same thing. I said, man, you know what I mean for price point and stuff like that, go to peru, man. The food is good, the hotels are great, the people are cool and just chill. I mean it's uh, definitely go. Actually, this weekend I was a little bit north of tampa, in port richie, doing a little small seminar for master rages lima, um, actually a brazilian guy that's been in the States since 1970. He's a student, young, of Fabio Goulart.
Speaker 3Nice nice guy. Great school had a good group of people. It's always fun for me to meet new people. You know what I'm saying. I do a lot of my seminars and training camps with my circle, so this was a new group of people Super nice, super polite.
President's Cup Tournament Review
Speaker 1Just fun. It was good, alright good of people super nice, super polite, super uh. Uh, it's just fun. It's good, all right, good. Well, we got a lot to catch up on. I know it's been a monumentous and and momentous day here. Who wants to start? What do we got?
Speaker 3president's cup. They started president's cup. Yeah, let me start yeah, no president.
Speaker 2For me I think it was the event itself kind of ran like it was supposed to run, I mean obviously like we talk about you know. Yeah, exactly A couple. For me even the check-in process wasn't as long as I thought it was going to be. The facilities was par with every other Pan-American region facilities, pretty much, you know.
Speaker 3The equipment for me. What do you think about the equipment Coach? First of all, let me say I'm going to tell you what I'm going to say that that organization was awesome. I think it was great. I think the venue was awesome. The holding area is a little bit small, but I mean I'll tell you what I was super impressed with just how they ran everything and those dudes were professional man. They didn't play around in the stands, they didn't play around in the holding area. You couldn't get away with nothing. I mean I know you got sent back around a couple times instead of walking across, but you know, to their credit, I have to give them credit for that. The equipment listen, I like KP.
Speaker 2I'll give anything for that seating. I always like the stadium seating that goes up that high, so you can kind of see everything no matter where you're sitting, you know. So that's always a plus, that's better. Yeah, that was good.
Speaker 3I think the venue was great. The electronics I mean typical KPMP. I think it was pretty good to the body, the face, I mean. Just like always, it seems like something's wrong and you always have to IVR. Some of the IVRs threw me for a loop. I ain't going to lie. I mean, but that's, look at this guy, look at this guy. But yeah, I think overall it was pretty good. I thought it was pretty well run. I stayed there an extra day for the junior cadets so I got to see some of that and I thought that ran extremely well as well, so pretty good, I feel like that went pretty fast.
Speaker 3Very good, very good. As far as the results, I mean I have to do a little bragging right now. I mean the Brazil team, the men Actually you know what Young I got to challenge you. I think your greatest team, the greatest US team ever maybe in Pan Am region, is the 87 team.
Speaker 1Yes or no. Hands down. Yes, six out of eight gold medals.
Speaker 3Okay, how many finals?
Speaker 1Seven finals, six finals, six finals.
Speaker 3Yes.
Speaker 1Six finals Six finals.
Speaker 3So you had seven medals out of eight.
Speaker 1Yes, so seven out of eight. Jay warwick um got a bronze. He wet the bed and and uh didn't feel like showing up that day.
Speaker 3Paul paul lee no medals, paul lee was brand new paul.
Speaker 1Paul lee was the newest guy on the team, nicest guy in the world, but had tough way to go. Did he lose to Arlindo?
Speaker 3Probably, I'm not sure exactly, but anyway. So in this event, Brazil has seven out of eight finals six gold medals, a silver and about seven bronze. I don't know how much, so I'm not going to say nothing.
Speaker 1There's nothing to say.
Speaker 3There's nothing.
Speaker 1All you can say is congratulations. We held the title for a lot of years and we're going to have to give it up. Now it's 30, just almost 30 years, and they took it, and it couldn't happen to a nicer group.
Speaker 3Unprecedented. To be honest with you, tj, we've been around these presidents' cup for a long time. To see seven Brazilians in the final is crazy. To win six golds is crazy. On the women's side there was five out of eight and they won three. So I mean the overall team was a slam dunk for the brazil group. But, um, I don't know, tj, we haven't seen something like that in a long time, right, I mean no americans, zero americans. I mean so, mean so historically did they come to the tournament?
Speaker 3we had a lot of people from the USA there the Americans came the Americans came the only one that wasn't there, was of a major status, was CJ, so other than that, everybody was there.
Speaker 1So I mean did they fight or they just came to watch no, they fought, they fought, they fought.
Speaker 3They made some finals.
Speaker 2That's what you're saying was that, yeah, we had a few in the finals, but no gold medals throughout the whole competition for the seniors I'm not talking about the kids, obviously for the senior day Kids did well. Yeah, that's I mean. I look at the other side. I think it's still. It's crazy to see that many gold medals. The results, like you just said, were pretty lopsided and heavy on, like the Brazil side, you know. I mean, I know Mexico had a couple gold medals. Canada had a few gold medals as well. Right, mexico, canada, yeah, mexico had one and then one female.
Speaker 2Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah. So I mean that's crazy to think. I mean, whether it's this is a Pan Am region, this is our President's Cup. You know, this is our bonus points of our region, so all of our big guys usually show up. That need the points.
Speaker 1Wait, wait a minute. This is the President's Cup. Yep, oh, no, no, we still got the title. Then Pan Am Games baby, we still got the title. We own it, baby. No, no, president's Cup. No, no, no, no, sorry, yeah, yeah, it's still a good result, but I mean, come on now, no, no listen, it's not the Pan Am Championships but the Pan Am Games.
Speaker 3But I mean to be honest with you, to be fair, like this event is probably harder just because of the volume. I mean you got 40, 50 people in the division and it's open, so Mexico could have five, usa could have five, brazil could have five. So it's not like you're.
Speaker 1Oh, no, no, I'm sure.
Speaker 3I know it's a great tournament.
Speaker 1I'm just saying for the Pan Am games we still own it.
Speaker 3You know just to be honest with you right now. I mean, we're Olympic weight category, so there's only four. You know what I'm saying. So we'll never, you know. I mean, unless something changes, if we get back to eight weight categories, I mean you know that your 87 team is luck. It's pretty good, yeah, we're gonna.
Speaker 1We're gonna have to do some trigonometry calculus, some sort of whatever that was probably the last big one before the world championships, correct?
Speaker 2well, we gotta have to take that for us, our side, pretty much.
Speaker 1Yeah, for a lot of people probably that's the last one well, I realized the other day, we still got some time right.
Brazil's Unprecedented Dominance
Speaker 3This is 2025 and the olympics are until 2028 oh, we got plenty of time listen going on listen, you know what the funny thing is, because there's so many events and there's so many ups and up. You know so many peaks and valleys. Actually, next year the points reset. So, for all the success, great congratulations to whoever. Blah, blah, blah. Come next year it resets. And 20 late, 2026 and 2027, that's going to be, that's going to be the money, money, events, that's going to be. You know, it's like one of those things you know don't get, don't get hot too early because late.
Speaker 1And don't get too comfortable.
Speaker 3Right, and I think that's what, like some of these Asian countries, some of these European countries I mean TJ right, we're looking at some of these Grand Prixs and we're looking at who's not there. We're like what's going on? Why aren't they there? I think they're just chilling, chilling a little bit, you know.
Speaker 2Yeah, I chill a little bit, you know. Yeah, I think it's gonna be interesting to see, like, but you said, once the points go back to zero, like right out the gate, like, I still think some of the faces are going to change. Still, you know what I mean. I think we're seeing a lot of, a lot of uh, I still think, middle of the ground, maybe experimental people, but I think all the big dogs are the ones they've been investing in, will be the ones back at the show once we get back around to like 2026 yeah it's scary because
Speaker 3I don't know yeah, we haven't seen iran at all like a year and a half. Nowhere. They haven't come to any opens, no opens, another grand prix's challenges.
Speaker 3Like I'm shocked, I'm really shocked, interesting very yeah, and and last time they came on really late with their 58s and their 80 guy, I mean, and they came on like strong. So it should be interesting. It should be interesting, I mean, for us. You know, the Brazil national team went there as a national team and of course there was other Brazilians as well. I don't am I wrong TJ? I'm not sure. Did the USA team go there as a national team?
Speaker 2I don't know. It couldn't have been, because I saw like I think our 54 and our negative 87 guys were being coached by someone that wasn't their home coach but at this event, while we had national team coaches there. So I'm assuming it was an academy thing or whatever as far as who they were coaching, who they weren't coaching.
Speaker 3So for me, I think this would have been a great opportunity to have kind of like a preview of your national team. Right, you're about to compete at the Worlds. You might want to work with them, you might want to sit with them, you might want to kind of break down what they did good and what they didn't do good, and so to now sit in some of those kids' chairs. Because I did see, I think I saw the 54 you're right, 54 and 87, and I didn't see them being coached by the national team?
Speaker 2I don't know how that I don't know how that came about or how it comes about, or if it's like a they don't want or these guys don't want to, however it gets there, but not to be able to cultivate that relationship at this point leading, it's just, it's just strange, it's, it's a waste unless they there's some ultimate other plan, but like that's what you'd want to do at those events.
Speaker 2You know what you have and uh, michael rodriguez 87 is experience, you know yeah, he's, he's been to some of the bigger games and been in front of some people and I think he has been around those guys.
Speaker 3So I I don't, I just don't understand how you don't invest the time or energy in that situation especially with and again I have to go back my thoughts especially when you see these national team kids there to compete. You would think that they would want to work with them as they get prepared for the world championships, and they weren't coached by them and then you see them coaching some other random people that aren't on the national team.
Speaker 3That's where the disconnect kind of stands out for me it's a little strange, but again, not knowing the situation, I think it's. I think it's a little uh, probably a bad uh it's lame. I don't care, it's lame.
Speaker 2It's lame. It's lame you got. I don't care, it's lame, you got to. I think you figure out a way to be in their chair or even have something to do with them building a civil championships.
Speaker 1How does the structure work? And I guess what I'm asking is how is the structure of the coaching staff working? In other words, who is the coaching staff answering to in the organization? What's the leadership pipeline Like? Who's making those determinations? Who they coach? I?
Speaker 2would assume them. I mean't I would assume them. I mean I would assume them or whoever is their, their planning, but like, like I said, I know when. If there's national team members there on a trip, it's just really strange this close that they're not somehow being coached by national team coaches or who's going to meet. Maybe there's this crazy list of people who are going to be at the world championships or something, but like it just doesn't make sense and I don't think that makes any kid or anybody on the national team feel comfortable going into the situation without someone ie their home coach or that's actually paying attention to what's going on, you know I mean, it's a silly thing I'm gonna say this, but like it's even weird to me, like when, in a registration process, you know, like when you're on the draw like for example, when brazil when we take our group we're the brazil national team.
Speaker 3If you're when you're on the draw, like, for example, when Brazil when we take our group we're the Brazil national team. If you're not, you're just Brazil. Right. And when I look at them, they are not US national team, they're academy, us academy or academy, I don't know what academy team, and it just it seems like it's a club team and for me that's a little I don't know.
Speaker 2I mean, if you're trying to create cohesion, Can you make an argument that it's not a club team?
Speaker 3No, I think it is a club team.
Speaker 2That's what I'm saying. I'm agreeing, I just don't. It has to be, you know. Yeah, I mean, if we're differentiating the two names and it's like USA national team, that means it's just not a national team event.
Speaker 3I don't even know what it says when world championships. Does it say national team or academy team? I wonder, I think it has. I think at that point it has to be just usa. There's no like. It's just usa, brazil, mexico, canada. It doesn't say anything else. But I just think of these opens and stuff like that. You know you're, you're representing usa. Taekwondo, not, I don't know, maybe maybe semantics, I don't know.
Speaker 1I think it's a little. Who's buying the ticket?
Speaker 2that's the question. But they also coach, coach the other 54 kid. They coach the other 54 kid too. Ethan, that's not on the national team. They coach them there. I'm not saying it's an issue, but I'm just saying like I just don't understand how it doesn't make sense to be coaching a national team member. You know, leading into the world championships, you know.
Speaker 3That's a great point. So you're not coaching the national, you know another.
Speaker 2you know national level athlete Good kid yeah, I don't care about none, I just. I just. It doesn't make sense to me, that's all.
Speaker 1When are the? When are the world championships and where? October and Wuxi?
Speaker 3Wuxi China.
Speaker 1Oh, it's in Wuxi.
Speaker 3Yeah.
Speaker 1Yeah.
Speaker 3Actually, I get my patent, my uh and I. It's been a mission to get a visa for me, but I'm, I get a Monday, so it's cool and that's good.
Speaker 1But Can you get back in the country? I hope so.
Speaker 3Actually it's funny Cause I've got we have a pre, a pre-staging camp in Brazil, and then we go to Wuxi and then, right after Wuxi, that the China is hosting a grand, a grand slam event, and then there's a world cup teami China is hosting a Grand Slam event, and then there's the World Cup team event, which is like a tag team fighting. So they're there another two weeks after the World Championships.
Speaker 2So all together. The Brazilian team likes that, the team fighting stuff. It's like that, they like it.
Speaker 3We're just doing it because we keep thinking that it's going to be on the docket somewhere. But yeah, we've done pretty well. I mean every time we've done really well. We won both Pan Ams, we won the under Pan Am 22. We won the World Cup, I mean. So yeah, we've done pretty good.
Speaker 2That's the mixed one, right? It's like two guys, one girl.
Speaker 1Well, we fought both. No, that's that late night video you watch. Oh my God, what's the makeup of the team that's a different. I don't know. It depends what side you're batting for. You keep going. I'm trying to get you out of the hole, so can I? I just got to ask you one more question about the shirt. So you're out late night at Walmart and you find this thing. So what does it stand for? What is it? Is it a D or a P? What is that? California?
Speaker 2I want my California outfit for you.
Speaker 1It stands for what's the bottom one?
Speaker 2It's an upside down P. Obviously, it doesn't look like a D, does it? Actually it is a D Stands for diamonds.
Speaker 1Oh, diamonds.
Speaker 2Is it a D? Okay, okay, I'm just checking, I just he always fit, checks me every, every, every, every podcast I fit, check me. It's weird.
Speaker 1I got it like that hey breaking subject.
Speaker 3I just want to say for the record Cowboys about to win the Super Bowl.
Speaker 2Oh, I don't know. This is me for Dallas. Oh my God, what a crazy game.
Speaker 3We won, but like we're so bad, Our kicker's a hero. Kicker's a hero, Kicker's a stud. He kicked a 65-yard field goal to push into overtime After we're up. Man, we're just horrible. We're just trash 49 time after we're up. We're just horrible. We're just trash. 49ers won. Your wife is happy, right.
Speaker 1She was extremely happy, as we all were. That was after we watched LAFC beat the Earthquakes yesterday, which was horrible.
Speaker 3Have you guys seen America's Team on Netflix? No, what is it?
Speaker 2I started watching it the other day, that's the cowboy thing.
Speaker 3Yeah, it's basically when Jerry Jones bought the cowboys First of all. Those are always well made, but it's pretty cool there's a lot of San Francisco in there, because obviously they had a big rivalry in the 80s and 90s.
Speaker 1It was a point when the cowboys mattered, right, they were the guys cutting the stuff.
Speaker 3This dude, jerry Jones, bought the Cowboys when he was 46 years old. Eight years ago, that's like me buying the Miami Dolphins for $150 million. Think about the contracts that these guys, these kids, get nowadays. He bought the Cowboys, the most expensive franchise in the world right now, and he bought it for $150 million. It's like nothing. It's nothing.
Speaker 2It's like nothing it's nothing. But they pay each person. You know what I mean. Yeah, crazy.
Speaker 3When they were trying to get Dion and it's funny because they paid him $35 million. They're like $35 million. They're talking like oh my gosh, it was so much. I'm like $35 million. You can't get a third stringer for that.
Speaker 1I mean it's crazy, you can't get a kick, can't get a san francisco kicker for that. No, no, no no, hey, would you put the ball in?
Speaker 3there changing. You guys watched the fight last night absolutely canelo and crawford absolutely he's good.
Speaker 2what else do you say? He's, he's, he's amazing, amazing.
Speaker 1How old is Canelo?
Speaker 3The funny thing is Canelo is younger than Crawford. Everyone thought that Canelo was so old. He's 35 and he's 37. But Canelo's got like 25 more fights, he's like 60 fights and I think Crawford 65 fights, 66. And Crawford has like 30, I'm sorry, 41, 42, 43, something like that, but it's just. I mean I think it's a style matchup. I mean Canelo's historically had a problem with quick boxers and if he's able to hit them and knock them out. But Crawford put on the weight. Crawford man did a master class. I mean that was impressive.
Speaker 2I'm going to tell you that right now. To do it at that level against someone at that level you know what I mean. That's been around for as long as Canelo and fought big matches like Canelo. It's crazy to see. It's crazy to see man.
Speaker 3You know what's cool? You look at the post-fight conference. Canelo is so professional. He didn't take anything away from Crawford. You know, Sometimes the guy's a little bit sour. They're like what surprised you? His speed, His power, he's like everything. I tried to figure it out but he was just too good. Everything was too good. He was a better man. I literally gave him all the credit. The guy was like how does it feel not to be a world champion anymore? Has it sunk in? He's like I'm a champion. What are you talking about? I'm a champion. I was a champion before. I'm a champion now. Sometimes you got to take that loss and you just got to move on. I did everything. I trained right, I was healthy, I did my best every single round. I didn't quit. He was better, but I'm still a champion. I was like good for him, man, Just like Nice, do you?
Speaker 3want to see it again. No.
Speaker 2Me neither.
Speaker 3No.
Speaker 2Me neither Zero interest.
Speaker 3No.
Speaker 2No, it was just too clean. It was just too clean. I thought Canelo would get off a little bit sooner though, like when it got to like the fifth and sixth round. You know, I thought he was going to kind of put a little bit of pressure on him and kind of start throwing him around a little bit, but not too much.
Speaker 3He was just too fast. He was just too fast for him and you know, crawford didn't hurt Canelo at all. He doesn't hit hard enough to hurt him, but he just he was too fast and Canelo never caught him with a big shot to put Crawford in trouble and boxing once. Like they always say, speed kills.
Speaker 1Speed kills man. So where are they? In their careers, their respective careers?
Speaker 2Both.
Speaker 3Both in the end.
Speaker 2Maybe that's why it made it such a good fight. They both had such big records and big histories in boxing that make this fight kind of late Him being undefeated and Canelo losing to only a few people. It's a big fight to kind of close out everything.
Speaker 3You know what I give Canelo credit for. He fought Mayweather when he wasn't supposed to. He was like 21, 22. And he fought him. He fought Bival, who's way bigger. He fights Crawford, gives Crawford. Canelo has nothing to gain by this match. If he wins, he beats a smaller guy. If he wins, he beat a smaller guy. You know what I'm saying. If he loses, he lost to a smaller guy. And you know he fights all the big people. He doesn't. He fought, you know, triple G three times. He fought Kovalev, a light heavyweight. He fought all the big dudes and you know he has obviously his fair share of wins and he made $100,000,000-plus for this fight $100,000,000-plus.
Speaker 2That's crazy. Did he actually lose then? No, but Crawford was amazing. It was a master class, though, coach, it was damn near perfect, you know.
Speaker 3It was a master class, for sure.
Speaker 2Yeah, for sure.
Speaker 3Hey, did you look at the German? Uh, german open at all a little bit.
Speaker 2I didn't see, I didn't see too many matches. I saw some of the complaints about the matches and the scoring and a couple headshots that kind of went up twice and shouldn't have came up. Win of all.
Speaker 3You can't fix it, I just I still don't understand the purpose of taking away the card, though yeah, I was talking to an ir this weekend, a pretty good ir that actually travels around to everything world championships, grand prixs and he was like he, you know. I was asking like can't the headshots be video reviewed by ai? If you think about, like tennis, tennis, you don't ever watch the video of the ball going out. It's like it's like a little dot, right, that's done by AI and it's done right away. So I'm like couldn't AI show you if you hit the head and maybe the video replay official looks at if you grabbed or whatever? And he was like you know, with this system you might. If there's no video replay, you're going to use less referees. So I'm like I don't know, this is going to be interesting if they really take it away.
Speaker 3Actually, I had a debate with my wife today. I said and you'll appreciate this, young, a little bit because we've accepted the body shots, we've accepted that, okay, these little slashes score and when we see a big body shot, tj, we don't even flinch, we just keep going, keep going, kick again. But for the head, if we get a little scratch, we wanna be able to video review it. But if you're just being even across the board, if you can't video review the body, why should you video review the head?
Speaker 2Yeah, I think you know, I think, where it started with the whole like kicking the front of the face thing and saying that the helmet wouldn't score if it hit the face. That's where it started and it turned quickly from that to any little toe touch, you know, wins the match, but it's I don't know. I don't know what you do, I think.
Speaker 3I agree with you. If you're going to do it, dj, do you think it would revert back to old school? Like, think about it. Like, listen, somebody sent me a fight I won't say the fight and I was watching and I hit the guy twice in the head in the first round the score was 0-0. Hit him once in the round in the second round 0-0. Third round two times in the head, zero, zero. I lost one to zero because there was a cut kid. So three rounds I hit the head.
Speaker 3I easily like not, we're not talking like you got a video review to see, like you just see them. But in that day, in those days they didn't score it, unless she was like like Kaboom. So right now we're conditioned to go oh my gosh, it touched your face. Oh my gosh, I. So right now we're conditioned to go, oh my gosh, it touched the face. Oh my gosh, I saw it go like that. And we're saying, hey, that's good. But what if we start just going the other way? Dude, that didn't hit hard enough, it didn't score. You know what I'm saying? Just like we do with the body, because the body, we see some bombs go off and we don't go like, oh my gosh. We just kind of like twist kick again.
Speaker 2You know? Yeah, I think the question was what happens in the reverse, where it does get hit and it goes off twice. It gets hit once and it scores twice and you still can't do anything about it.
Speaker 3Yeah, that'd be bad.
Speaker 1But you guys, you know it goes back to the question which we've had a lot of conversation about. What we have here is a from a movie of failure to communicate. But what we have here is a problem where we're again, we're acquiescing to the system as opposed to the laudable outcome. So if you start from a place right now, what you're saying is okay, here's the system. So do we adjust our expectations to the system and then accept the system as it is and just make it a video game? And that's like I always used a karate fighter video game analogy.
Speaker 1You play that thing with your quarter, keep doing the same move. Sometimes it works, sometimes it doesn't, sometimes it does the move. You do the same combination. You don't start yelling at the game, you just keep pressing the buttons. But isn't the better outcome, potentially the better outcome, to try to really think about what you're trying to fix and then, rather than accepting mediocrity you know, or less than mediocrity that you try to figure out how to make it better. Once we start, you know, like I told you, that, saying in Korean once it starts to rain, people walk. Once it starts to rain, people walk. When it starts to rain, then they first, then they run until they get wet, then they start walking, they give up, and that's kind of where we find ourselves, right now like if you listen, listen to the conversation, we're, we're all walking.
Referee Standards and Controversies
Speaker 1We're like, yeah, wouldn't it be better just to like get completely wet? You know what I mean? Yeah, I get it, no it.
Speaker 3No, I mean again that's. I mean, I've debated with you and I've debated with Steve Young about the system and stuff like that. But when I start to think about this head thing, because you know what's going to happen, tj, they're going to come back and say, oh my gosh, the German Open was great and it's just going to be a reason to push through the agenda, and so we're all going to have to adjust to these shots getting hit in the head. Or, like you said, if there's two, they go, one kick and two go up, or someone just literally, because we'll see some blast. Young, we see some. Like you know, at the olympics we saw a dude slide back, put a chuggy, the guy's head gear off like a bat. The cuban guy zero points. The coach had a review like when you see that, you're gonna be like what the heck you know and that's gonna be outcome.
Speaker 1Yeah, what do you want, right?
Speaker 3that's when the referees guys step in and use their card, and then we're gonna have to rely that the referees are good, they also use the gloves this time.
Speaker 2Did you see any of that stuff?
Speaker 3So it's funny because they test on the body, they test on the head, and then they punch each other. They got a square like right in the middle, right here. I didn't watch a ton of fights, but I didn't see any punches scored. It's kind of dumb. It's like it's right here. It's like right here. So if I push you right here or right here and I folded you nothing, I mean it was kind of gross too. I think what I read was they use the same gloves Like. When I was done, I put them there. I'm like.
Speaker 2I was at US Open in like 2000, I forget what year that was when they first started using the just and they were putting the socks in the bags. Do you remember that?
Speaker 3no, that was in in 2008 in puerto rico I did a us open once too.
Speaker 2It was gross disgusting like yeah, that was like and those, those brackets were huge. I think I fought, I fought six times and didn't get a medal.
Speaker 3Come on.
Speaker 2I swear to you, I lost my sixth match. The sixth match is quarterfinals. A lightweight one year.
Speaker 1That's over 64. Yeah.
Speaker 3And talking about that, there was one guy in the Turkish nationals. In the Turkish nationals in the cadet divisions there was one draw and 345 kids in one division. Imagine that 345 people you want to talk about a pipeline, there's your pipeline.
Speaker 2That's crazy.
Speaker 1Yeah, that's one of those days where you're fighting and you hope you lose so you can go home.
Speaker 3Yeah, you're like dude. I'm on match number five and I'm not even in quarterfinals yet. That's crazy. Oh my gosh, that's amazing.
Speaker 2It's such a big sport over there. They have a huge following, but that's just. I don't care for whatever you say.
Speaker 1That's crazy. How does it even finish in a day? You can't finish in a day unless you're fighting multiple rings. I mean, just think about the draw itself 128.
Speaker 3That's one division. All the divisions are like that. I don't understand that. We do 50 in President's Cup and we're there until 8 o'clock at night. I mean, granted, when we we had, what do we have? Eight rings or ten rings? I think it was ten ten was ten, yeah ten I mean I saw 15 rings at the german open I mean I think there's ever too many rings.
Speaker 2I think I like six. I like six rings. Six rings. I think it's good for a tournament. I know it's not big enough, but just six is like my max when everything's going on and stuff like that. I think six is good for a tournament. I know it's not big enough, but just six is like my max when everything's going on and stuff like that. I think six is good. It keeps you out of like the whole, like not waiting for your coach thing and all that stuff like that you know.
Speaker 3Yeah, I think six is manageable, but like just again, when it's pure numbers, I mean it's just you don't got that many good referees when you said what's the number, I'm like that's the problem 15 is way too many, because it's just difficult to get any kind of quality. And let's say there's quality Consistency how about that word? Consistency from each ring and that's their lives and their problem.
Speaker 1And that's the problem. So that's why they used to try to keep all the matches in the same ring from one division. This way, at least, you're all on the same sheet of music, right? You have the referees. Good or bad, they're, they're all they're doing that.
Speaker 3It opens right now.
Speaker 2It seems like right I mean very rarely, do you changing for the?
Speaker 3I mean changing rings yeah, you stay in your same ring for the most part, until like towards quarters.
Speaker 2It's like. This one jumped around a little bit, I think.
Speaker 3I went from like one side to the other yeah, I think just just because when rings got out of balance. But I think generally speaking you're always in the same rate. But I know, like I mean that doesn't happen in america, it just kind of runs all I mean it's good and bad, right, young, because you, if you have a good ring, you have a good ring, but if you have a bad, but if you have a bad ring, you know you're kind of like please, man, send me to ring five, let me get out of ring one.
Speaker 1You know, that's why we would always adjust. You know we'd look and go and see what referees were scoring and not scoring, and doing and not doing. You know, and you know that's always one of my favorite stories when I was doing seminars right after the games. You know, I'm teaching down somewhere and it's a taekwondo guy, and so you were talking about cut kick and talking about so he does a cut kick and I said what I said what do you do if that kick doesn't score? I said he goes.
Speaker 1Well, I had an athlete he raised his hand that went to a tournament and he had he kept doing skip side kick and they wouldn't score it. It was like in north carolina and so actually it was. And I go so what do you do? He goes, well, I'll tell him to keep doing it until it scores. And I go all right, you're a terrible coach. What I said if you go to a pizza restaurant and you order chicken, what are you going to get? You're not going to get chicken, you're going to get pizza. So start ordering pizza.
Speaker 1I said you're out of tournament, start doing what they're scoring. You can't, you're not going to change, the ref's going to be like oh, I really didn't like that kick, but I like this one. No, you gotta. And that's where you have the problem with the refereeing. You know, I still go back. I think our biggest challenge today still is the, the referee core itself, the individuals that referee in general. And you know, whenever you say that people, like when you talk about lawyers are like, oh, but this one's good. Yeah, I get it. But you know, yeah, one out of 200 are good. Reality is that the average taekwondo referee can't score properly and the average taekwondo scoring system can't score properly. So how can you expect an athlete to perform properly?
Speaker 2I think it's kind of. It's kind of cool when you start looking at, I think, um the pan am region, referees in general offer offer a different kind of fight in the pan am region in comparison to like european referees and obviously the asian referees. When I've watched some of their nationals and other events, it's such a different play. Call you're not watch, watch soccer.
Speaker 1Watch soccer you want. Basically, you watch south american soccer, so south america's soccer, it's a fist fight. You, to get a foul in south american soccer and not to have a fist fight during the fight is an anomaly, right? When you watch european soccer or you watch even american soccer, it's a different. Watch college soccer, right. The refereeing is just so different and it creates a different environment, which makes the point even more so, right.
Speaker 2Yeah, so which is better?
Speaker 3Which one do you like better?
Speaker 2TJ, that's a good question, I'm going to say for the Pan Am region. For what I've noticed in the last few ones I've been to, I think in the beginning we were hypersensitive about a lot of the over hopping and the canceling stuff. Right, that was kind of like what the referees looked out for. I feel like they've lightened up on that but it's starting to allow back to a lot of grabbing and pushing and kind of stuff that lingers and kind of makes the fight messy for me. I think, for where we are now in this sport, I think Europe probably has the best referee core in my head, the way that the game's kind of a little bit played, sometimes a little lighter, but I think now they're allowing for it to be just rough enough where everyone can kind of still be there without it becoming like a full-blown wrestling match, you know.
Speaker 1You're talking about the pushing and the shoving and the grabbing.
Speaker 3I think, obviously, again, I think the Pan Am region just was a lot of punches. I think it gives us a little bit of a false sense of success because all of a sudden we go to you know world-level events and Grand Prixs in Europe and you start punching and they don't push the button and that kind of sets up our game for our inside kicks, our face kicks and stuff like that. So I think that some of the things that are scored and rewarded and not rewarded in the Pan Am region kind of hurt us when we travel abroad. But is it me or do you feel like their referees they break you really fast or for no reason, like something happens and they're like I'm like why did he stop that match? The guy was continuing to attack, like did you see this a lot in President's Cup?
Speaker 2A little bit. I've seen it like a lot recently. I don't know why it's. I mean, I've seen some crazy stuff, but a lot of times it looks like I don't know if they're trying to interject before it gets to the next part of the action or whatever. But then sometimes it's the same thing. You watch it go on for three, four seconds too long. You know, like we could have stopped this one, you know. So I don't really know what they're looking for as far as, like, what they stop or what they don't stop, but a lot of times it'll be this weird kind of stop and immediately say go again, and everyone in the ring is completely lost on why, especially for the person that's towards the edge or trying to push the person back to the edge.
Speaker 3You know, yeah, yeah, I mean listen, I think a good referee feels the match like, hey, this is this the flow of this match. You guys are being a little rough inside, let him, let him go, and then if it's too much I can stop it, whereas some of the ones break it right away and you're like you're, you're disrupting the flow of the match. I mean, you're not, you're not helping anybody in. Quite I'm not. You're not supposed to help anybody, but you're not letting the match naturally take its course. You're not helping the game, you're not shaping the game.
Speaker 1So I mean, here's the question. So because the guy, the genius that pushed for pushing no pun intended was Yang Jin-ban and just a self-centered, megalomaniac person, napoleon complex, and so he pushed to have this pushing allowed because he felt if you're allowed pushing, it would stop grabbing. So what do you think about this whole pushing grabbing dynamic and what the solution is, or if it needs to be fixed? You think pushing should be allowed I mean even old schoolondo.
Speaker 2we call it old school Taekwondo before. I mean you push people off, you to try to make space to kick, but it was for the purpose of kicking. You've changed directions, you switched your feet on the inside. I think all the pushing and everybody grabbed in too. I just think that it's become so prevalent, in a sense of we didn't used to get in the ring and like push each other back and forth for three, four seconds at a time. It was like someone tried to make space, someone either responded or they shut it down and then the referee did his job. I think with this five-gum-john thing it just made the game a lot more messy. It allows the I don't know how do you say it Especially with going out of bounds and the aggressive kind of pushing people towards the edge and kind of make it more so about the outside aspect of it as opposed to just the scoring side of the whole thing, you know.
Speaker 3My, my, my, my. My feeling is, you know, I mean right, when they first said it people were like, literally like sumo wrestling, pushing, and they kind of figured out, okay, this was a wrong, the wrong concept. So they said it has to be like a quick push and a follow-up, and if you do that it's okay, and if you have a sustained push it's a come-down for you for pushing. You obviously can't push somebody out of bounds, you can't push them while they're kicking. It's got to be a sharp movement and then a follow-up.
Speaker 3But I think these athletes that get in a clinch and put their head down and start to shove, I think that should be an automatic come job. I mean, because if you just ask me, should you push in a fight, in a taekwondo fight, I'm going to say no. But if you're like over there, the guy comes, we're in the clinch and I push off and kick right away, yeah, but this sustained push, head down and just drive you back and try to kick over the shoulder, I think it's just ugly, I think it's stupid, I think it's it, it's not, it's not skillful, it's just kind of being brute force, weird, you know. And then the guy's like shoot, you're just shoving me back, I'm going to grab you. Am I grabbing? Are you pushing? You know what are we doing here. What are we doing?
Speaker 2the crazy part in those situations, the no call, like someone's clearly grabbing and someone's clearly pushing, and like when they just kind of break it and then let it happen again. Then you're just confused. You're just hoping that whenever they decide to make this call, it's just the opposite way, you know yeah yeah, yeah.
Speaker 1Well, I guess it goes back to if you're looking at and this is something for you guys to think about, because I'm not, you know, training or competing or coaching at this level. I'm coaching, obviously, but not coaching the level you guys are coaching currently um, what should it look like? Like, are you happy with what the game is now? And if you're not, what? What? What is it that you're unhappy with?
Canelo vs Crawford Analysis
Speaker 2what is it that you're unhappy with?
Speaker 3You guys you start first. Listen, I can't say I'm happy with the game. What I really just despise is the changing of the rules so often. I think, just when people get a flow of what's going on from a coaching standpoint, from an athlete standpoint, from a refereeing standpoint, they adjust something for some crazy reason. I don't know who sits in the room and decides it. I think that's a big problem. I think that I watched a match today and when I looked at it I go the wrong person won. The person that won was not good at all and I had to rewind a bunch of times to see what was scoring. I just couldn't figure it out. So from the eye test, I'm like that guy's not that good, he's really good, but he's losing. And it wasn't because he was doing something stupid, it was just like how Like I'm watching American football, I watch soccer you don't see a bad team that kicks the ball out of bounds, that can't pass this.
Speaker 3Very rarely do they put the ball in the goal. The better team usually wins. And when people are kind of closely matched, somebody makes a mistake, somebody capitalizes and you go back. But when you see a clear mismatch in ability, I mean strategy, speed, power, technique, a clear mismatch, and that person wins. I don't understand that. It doesn't make sense to me, and so when I see that I just have to go back to the system, the system itself is rewarding the wrong person, the wrong techniques, and so for me, until they fix that, we're going to be here. I don't know. I don't know what to say.
Speaker 2TJ. Yeah, I'm pretty much on board with that. I think it's definitely the system. I think we're too smart for our own good in certain situations.
Speaker 2The interpretation, like you said, the rules, interpretation of the rules like what's good, what's not good, um, the interpretation, like you said, the rules, interpretation of the rules like what's good, what's not good. It's just, we said we've learned to deal with it, but you'll, you'll see several calls for the same thing called differently by the same person in the same ring in the same match. You know, and it's it's that those are always the issues. I don't know if we I think we said before we have too many rules and it's weird to me that we're going the opposite way. We're creating more rules and then taking more away from the coaches as far as, like, now I can't even say that hit, you know, now I can't even interject and stop a bad call. So it's, it's interesting. I think it's tough, I think it's tough on the athletes, um, so that's why I'm always impressed with the ones that can kind of win consistently in this, this chaos, because it is a little difficult, you know tj you in the wt.
Speaker 3What's up chat?
Speaker 3yes yeah, so you saw that somebody was asking about. Hey, I saw a bunch of monkey kicks inside the clinch of people kicking and then they came back and they said if you, if the points score, they should give the come john, if it doesn't score, they should let it go. I'm like I didn't understand that if they do it, they do it right, whether scores, or they should let it go. I'm like I didn't understand that If they do it, they do it right, whether it scores or not, they should be penalized for it, if that's the rule. If that's the rule.
Speaker 2It was like that for the kick after Cali. I remember it had to make contact. So if you kicked after Cali and didn't touch, it was okay. Now when you see people call it both ways, your leg will go out hits. I think you just make a decision, your leg comes up. But I don't even think that should be. It should be up to the referee to go. Okay, it kind of hit him a little bit, but you got two people fighting and you're seeing matches dictated off of someone being a little aggressive before the referee says start because they halfway moved their arm and not all the way. Like it's. We have too many rules and it's just like I said, it's backwards out there.
Speaker 3It's kind of changing, but along the two-way rules, young, you know like I'm winning, tj's losing, and you're the referee, you're about to say go, and I know TJ's going to come at me and kick right away. So you're about to say go and TJ goes, like that, like he kind of flinches, and I kick. I kick because I'm trying to defend myself and the referee didn't say go. Yet I get a come john, and also I lose the match because tj was trying to get me and I'm like I got to protect myself and I pick my leg up but then I kick before the referee said go. It's things like that. They're like don't decide the match like that have nothing to do with the game nothing has nothing to do with the game well, this is an old.
Speaker 1This is an old thing that you know. It's been a been pet peeve of mine for a very long time. The korean culture in general has been a culture of punishment and not reward. And when we change the system back in the day, we changed it because we pointed this out to them that they had 295 warnings and deduction points and they spent 95 of the referee seminar and how to teach people to give those warnings and how to look for those warnings, and they spent zero I literally mean zero percent on what a point was and how to how to score a point, and this is part of the problem. So what you're seeing is that's the rationale back in place. You know, yeah, let me punish the guy who did something, as opposed to find out what the causation is and reward the guy who didn't do something. But such as, such as life, what?
Speaker 3do you think about, like um, why I? I had two things. They had a philosophical question for you guys later. But, like tj, like like, uh, it's interesting because you know, going back to the president's cup, you know, I, I know that that at one point it was told to at least the American population of Taekwondo that the Pan Am region didn't matter. That wasn't the measuring stick. The measuring stick was Europe and Asia.
Speaker 3And you know, it doesn't matter if you win over here. And I was thinking to myself. I couldn't help but think to myself, like okay, if that's the case, but like we're not winning over here. So what does that say? You know, I don't know. And then you got like you know coaches going in the back area and talking to referees and talking to officials, and I don't know if it's lobbying or complaining or whatever, but I'm kind of like interested in that, interesting that Yo or whatever, but I'm kind of like it's just interesting that. Interesting that yo a little loud, interesting enough that they're they said that the level was so bad, but it's so bad that and you still have to go back and complain.
Speaker 2You know what I'm saying I mean, like I said, I know we talked about it a little bit earlier, but when I was thinking about it, like it's hard for me to believe that we took that many people there and then come back with a gold medal, finish Like I don't know if that it can't be good. You know what I mean. It's not again, it's never about the athletes, but like the overall result of having a lot of our national team members there, a lot of our high-profile athletes there, and not being able to end up at the gold medal spot is a little bit weird. You know, when you have smaller countries and different divisions and you know, granted, some are world divisions, some are olympic divisions, but I I mean, if it doesn't matter, you still got to win it. You know what I mean. It doesn't matter, we still should be finishing ahead of everybody else. That's the only. That's.
Speaker 2I guess that's my biggest feel and I think brazil has always historically had a tough national team. It was always USA, mexico, brazil, canada, obviously the bigger countries. But this is, it seems to me a little bit it's lopsided right now From all aspects. It just doesn't make any. You know, it's one and then it's the other, you know.
Speaker 3I mean having at the Pan Ams the under 20, we talked about that a couple of podcasts ago. That same thing, you know, you haditi finishing in front of the united states, that's not good. I mean good for the haitian girl because she happens to be a peak performance athlete, so that's kind of cool. But hey, how about a little philosophical question for you? Young, you'll probably like this. I don't know how to. Just let me see if I can put this right for the people out there. So me and TJ are friends, me and TJ are good friends and Herb, you're my enemy. We just don't get along. Tj knows it. Tj knows that me and you don't get along and TJ goes and befriends you, good or bad for me and TJ. Did I explain that right? Try it again. Me and TJ are friends, me and TJ are friends and I got beef with you over there. Me and TJ are friends. I got a beef with you.
Speaker 1I got to draw it.
Speaker 3For some reason, tj all of a sudden becomes friends with you, got it? If we were all three friends together and all of a sudden I have a beef with you, tj could be like yo, man, I mean you and Herb got a problem, but, man, I've been friends with Herb for a long time. I mean I'm not trying to get involved in it, but you're out there, you're nobody. Me and TJ are friends and TJ knows that I got a problem with you for whatever reason. And all of a sudden TJ goes over there and makes friends. Cool or not cool?
Speaker 1I just have a personal philosophy, that's.
Speaker 1You know. I think that men and women I use the word man because you know it's my point of reference but I think that you have a fundamental responsibility in your friendships, depending on the relationships that they are, that you maintain that level of friendship. And that means that if you and I are friends and TJ, you have a problem with TJ and I don't have a friendship with TJ, I still don't have a friendship with TJ. I don't get involved with TJ because I have a value not just in your friendship. I'm going to assume that you as an individual and I share the same moral value and same ethical value, and so I don't have a need to have a friendship with the other person because that there's no reason that I would start it knowing that and this is that's just the way I look at it there. If the three of us were friends, right, yeah, um and tj went to walmart and bought a shirt with an upside down p and then, okay, you know, and then I decided not to be his friend.
Speaker 1you could still be his friend, right? Yeah, because that you guys had a pre-existing friendship and and most likely that's okay too and you'd be like, yeah, you know, I get it, but that's between you two because you guys have your own issues. But I've been friends with him for a long time, but yeah, I mean, that's my feeling on it.
Speaker 2TJ, I mean.
Speaker 1TJ watched Friends.
Speaker 2You already admitted to watching Friends, so Like I said, it's not too hard to figure out. I mean, it just makes sense. It's hard to create that type of relationship with someone knowing that there's already an issue with someone that you already know, you know to. To even to go out of your way, to put yourself in the middle of something like that, to me is always strange, because it's definitely a choice you know, yeah, I mean it's funny, cause I was thinking about it recently and then talked to.
Speaker 3I was like man, am I being weird? But then I remember actually an MMA guy, khabib with Daniel Cormier. Daniel Cormier was being friendly with Conor McGregor and Khabib got really mad because him and Cormier are like brothers and he's like your enemy is my enemy. You can't go across that line. And again, I know there's different degrees and stuff like that. But anyway, I was just thinking about it because it's even like that politically, you know. I mean you know there's a lot of things that go on and stuff like that.
Friendship Loyalties and Current Events
Speaker 3And in light of you know, I know maybe it's not proper for us to talk about it, but like, obviously there was a huge tragedy in America and I don't care what side of the fence you're on left, right, blue, red, I mean when somebody gets assassinated, when somebody gets shot, you know, by a sniper rifle, I mean it's a sad time in the country, it's a sad time for humanity. You know, I mean, dude, I have so many I mean I'm just speaking from personal experience I have so many friends that may not agree with what I agree with politically or economically and stuff like that, but I'm still friends with them and we can agree to disagree. It doesn't mean we've got to hate each other and shoot each other. I don't know what's happened in this life that we're at. It's a little scary, it's a little sad, it's rough. I'm seeing's a little sad, you know it's rough. You know I'm seeing people on both sides of the fence nowadays just celebrating somebody's. You know death.
Speaker 2It's weird. Weird to me, you know. You know what's crazy for me.
Speaker 2I mean, I know we live in a time of like media and a time, you know, social media and news and public information and all that stuff like that. But I remember turning my phone on and just seeing video after video after video after video of that like that shot over and over again just on public platform. No, no, like a graphics warning, no blocking, and again, I don't think you should block it. But there's kids there's, there's, there's people that those aren't like mature audience. You know, instagrams, it's just out there. And I, when I, those aren't like mature audience, instagrams, it's just out there. And when I tell you, every time I flicked up, it was another angle, another video, another, this, another.
Speaker 2That that's what was sad for me. Obviously, not that his death is not sad, but like the overall, how I don't even know where we are, how far we've, I say, fallen, how we've normalized bad things and we allow, like you said, the negative talk about someone's death. Like that's the core of it. Someone died, someone was shot, you know, and I can never be good or bad, you know me, I'm not a big political person at all Like I just I can't with any of it, but it's just sad and I said that that's where we are in the world, where we just can flick through our phones and see that over and over again. You know.
Speaker 1I think you know, for, whatever it's worth, the only reason I knew of the individual and the rhetoric associated with is it would come across my TikTok feed right. And I'm one of those people. I'm not afraid of information, I listen and I watch and I listen to a variety of viewpoints and stuff and so, um, I don't think that anyone and I I'm not sure I would use the word assassinate, because then it assassination makes it a political, a political thing based on well, I see I can say that either, because it could just be one person and his political views. So if the end of the day you come up and you figure out this is an assassination, it means they thought by taking this individual out they would change the political climate based on a politic, and so there's no doubt that this person had an agenda in what they did and why they did it. So it's probably not an inappropriate use of the word assassination, but I think that word becomes pregnant with a lot of other meaning where you assume that the individual that did the act was representing a community or a bunch of people that disagreed with the individual that got shot. I think it's I get, without getting into all those philosophical conversations and certainly not any of the content of the individual who was speaking and got shot. I think it's a bad time and a bad place when we resort to violence as part of the dialogue and the diatribe.
Speaker 1As far as earlier, just to put it in perspective, um, a girl was sitting at a subway, just sitting minding her own business, like, walked into the subway. Yeah, that's scary, that's just, you know. So, like you know, I always joke. You know, if you want to assassinate me or kill me, you got to come to my house and get me on my couch, because that's where I go. I don't go outside, because I go, I go. But like there are people listen, in this weird little city that I live, you know, we had a lot of crazy people. So what if these crazy people that didn't like the way I handled the public business? Um, one of them decided they were going to shoot me, which they could have right, because these people were crazy, they lied, they were cheaters, they were all they horrible, yeah, and so I was, like you know, I just decided okay, I'm going to exit the public because I did it to help, I didn't do it to to hurt people and I definitely didn't want to get hurt as a result of my service.
Speaker 1And in a weird way, you know, in Taekwondo back in the day I had a. I had a couple of Korean guys try to take me in a weird way. You know, in Taekwondo back in the day I had a. I had a couple of Korean guys try to take me in a bathroom and rough me up Like they. They didn't know who I was. They they obviously mistook me for one of them and it's a funny story Cause I went and told John Holloway and Holloway, uh, wanted to find them and help them with their pain. I just laughed cause I was with uh. I think I might have been with Steve Kaepner.
Speaker 1And when the guy kept going, it was a guy from Washington, a little, little puffy haired dough boy, and he kept talking to me. So I finally realized he was trying to intimidate me and I said Hmm, sounds like you have a personal problem. You have a personal problem with me. You don't have to like my opinion, but I didn't ask you if I'm head of the athletes advisory committee. I don't really care what you think, but if you have a personal problem we can handle it differently. And then all of a sudden, you know, he changed his demeanor. But that was even. That's taekwondo.
Speaker 1You, you, you can remember back in the day in chicago. In chicago there were guys that brought guns to tournaments. There were tables thrown over. There were, you know they were. They cared so much about whether one of their students won, lost or went to a tournament. They pulled out guns and that was an American, by the way the Koreans ran across the gym and kicked each other or took guys out into a parking lot, right. So violence of any sort in those kind of discussions. We come from a violent sport, so to some degree you can expect there to be violence in our sport in the sense of just physical confrontation but, not guns and stuff, but in this particular situation I don't think anyone.
Speaker 1regardless of how you don't like their message, don't listen to them.
Speaker 3Yeah, that's true.
Speaker 1You know the justice, supreme court, justice, not this group of clowns, but the one in the past who made the rule on it. He says to sit the this the solution for bad speech is more speech. So his thing was like that's why we have free speech. If it's bad speech lies, more speech cures that, not censoring the speech. So it's bad speech lies, more speech cures that, not censoring the speech. So it's an interesting thing to think about.
Speaker 1I listened to some of the rhetoric of the individual who got shot and I didn't agree with the rhetoric and I hate the kind of argument that kind of individual does, because it's a very childish sort of argument, and so I don't agree with it. So I don't pay attention to it. I discount the content. But on the other side of it, there were some times when the individual said stuff where I was like okay, well, all right, that's true, yeah, all right. So you got to like not even individuals that you may not agree with, they will come up with speech that makes you think about your position, right, because we get so caught up.
Speaker 1One of the problems in American politics these days is the silo mentality. You're a Republican, you're a conservative. That's the problem right now? Yeah, and I'm not any of that. Yeah, exactly that's the problem.
Speaker 1There are things. I'm a person, I have things and thoughts about different things and I have different thoughts on that. You would be like, really, and you'd have other ones where you go. Oh, I could see that, like most people that know me, they see me as a freedom fighter. I'm a freedom fighter. I fight for what's right in Taekwondo. I fight for what's right in my city. I fight for what. They would be surprised to know some of the other views I hold, which are very dogmatic, and and and, because I think it's a more pragmatic way, if you want to watch a political documentary, there are two things actually. I tell you guys. Today. You want to watch a political documentary on, and it's a, it's a fiction. Watch the Handmaid's Tale. The Handmaid's Tale. It's a long, six, six seasons of it to get through it. But when you watch that, it's a commentary on the current political affairs. But if you want to watch something for pure enjoyment and see the future of TJ in a podcast in the future, watch the Charlie Sheen documentary, the 2.1.
Speaker 3I didn't see it you saw it.
Speaker 2Did you see it? No, I heard it was good. I heard it was really good. Dude, you got to watch it, it's fascinating because it talks to.
Speaker 1Unfortunately, it's a precursor for one of our current athletes. This athlete should watch this documentary because it's what happens when everybody around you tells you your shit doesn't stink. And it's what happens when you believe it doesn't. And it's what happens to you when you lose yourself in the process. And that's going. It's a little too extreme for the athlete. I don't want to mention that for the athlete, but it's not untrue. Look at what happened to Mike Tyson. Look at anybody that goes down that path.
Speaker 1So in this particular documentary, it's fascinating because Charlie Sheen, who's become the butt of many, many jokes, for different reasons yep, yep, yep, but when you watch it you can. He kind of explains the last part of it's extremely shocking. The last five minutes.
Speaker 3I gotta see it. I just posted a podcast with that. He was on. He was explaining all that stuff. It's in the documentary but I didn't see it yet, so I'm gonna watch it have you, have you?
Speaker 1have you seen the, the tiktoks of nick nolte, butter sausages. Just after you get off the phone, go, go, go to any any platform type in nick, not nick nolte, um, gary bucey, gary bucey, close, yeah, close, it kind of the same to me and butter sausages, and then you'll see a guy who's lost great actor for 10 seconds yeah lost his mind.
Closing Thoughts and Farewell
Speaker 1All right, okay, I think it's. I think it's gary bucey. He's the guy that was in all those. He was in a couple of steven seagal movies he was. He played a really good bad guy. He was and he's a. He's an interesting guy, but you know interesting, interesting, interesting times. Well, we've got, we've come up on an hour. Yeah, we've covered. We've covered some politics, we've covered the philosophical musings of coach.
Speaker 1We have done the D which is now a P, which I think is a D again. Diamond available at your local Walmart and the discount bin for $5.95.
Speaker 3I'm going to, as soon as I get off this thing.
Speaker 1I'm going to go look at like you're going through the store. I just want to understand your fashion.
Speaker 2Are we watching his shirt?
Speaker 1You're going to the store and I'm trying to figure out. I am so behind at times I don't know what diamond is, so I'm trying to figure out. I am so behind at times I don't know what diamond is, so I'm going to have to now go look up this brand.
Speaker 1Dude, I got to invite you out for a seminar. I keep forgetting. I'll charge you for it. I got to bring you out, I'll go, why wouldn't you? Well, you know, that's the whole part. We're supposed to be in this cycle of seminars where we take care of each other. So, yeah, that's what we're doing. Well, we got, we got, uh, we got a podcast coming up. Thank you, gentlemen. As always, this has been the warehouse 15. Let me send out.
Speaker 1Sorry, not sorry goes sorry, not sorry to go to love and the peace. Gentlemen, we are out. Good work.