Blair Morrison Owns 5 Gyms | CrossFit Anywhere | Affiliate Series

Sevan Matossian (00:03):

Bam. We’re live. Good morning. Where’s the mouse? There? It’s, how’s everyone doing? 7:00 AM. Friday. Friday. Friday. Friday. Chris, Bier, field. Rambler. You’re slacking, bro. Wow. Yeah. Not first today, huh? Slater. What’s up? Good morning, dude. Sabre and Kelly. Good morning, Sabir. Good morning, Marissa. Happy Friday. It is Friday. That’s killer, right? I dunno why. Usually I’m not that excited by the day of the week, but for some reason I’m excited today. It’s Friday playing tennis today after the show with the boys. I know they’re going to protest. I’m going to drag ’em up there. Anyway, Matt Burns. Good morning. Matt Burns the husband to Mrs. Burns, the founder of Sabbath Essentials. There it is. There’s the website. There’s the website there. It’s Sabbath Essentials. Pure, natural, small batch, bio appropriate beauty care products created with love to give you the Sabbath. Your soul needs. Too bad. I don’t know what Sabbath means. Can you guys hear me okay? Is my mic good? It’s a nice website. Good morning, Devesh. Maharaj. Good morning. The hammer. Augustus. Good morning. Y’all missed the last two days due to work travel. So excited to be back. Can’t you just put it on your iPhone? You know what I mean? I mean, even when you’re working, can’t you just tag it along, Paulina? Hey, good morning, Paulina. Someone wanted to meet you, who wanted to meet you?

(02:05):

I forget someone wanted to meet you. If I remember. I’ll tell you how. Helping Good Morning

(02:11):

CrossFit games. Update show today with special guest Tyson Bejan quarterback for the Chicago Bears. Kind of excited. Haven’t had him on in a bit. He’s busy. He’ll only be on for 15 minutes. Don’t miss that 15 minutes. It’ll be helping Young and Mr. Howell. And it’s a fun mix of characters. We have our own little drama behind the scenes. The games boys we’re such idiots, but in a good way. Dorks would be better dorks. It’s going to be a fun show today. I like it. I think it was helping on last week or two weeks ago. Two weeks ago. I think John Young is now, it should be called the CrossFit Games update. John Young’s CrossFit Games update Show. It’s basically his show. Talk it a bunch tonight. Yeah, you and JR will be having a word spoke competition. Blair Morrison coming on owner of five CrossFit gyms. I can’t even believe it. I don’t even know if I heard that right. Don’t quote me on that. What I think is, oh, speaking of Travis Bayt, before I go off about Blair Morrison, Blair Morrison will be here a little late because he’s teaching a class today. That’s why we haven’t seen ’em. This is the c e o shirt over at indicate. I don’t know if I have one of these yet. If I did, I’d be wearing it all the time.

(03:56):

But I think those are the Chicago Bears colors, right? That’s cool. A new c e o colorway. He says colorway. Colorway is like fancy talk for. That’s like people in the industry. But this is what I really like right here. This is so, Nope. Not that you sent me that. What am I supposed to do with that, Colton? What is that? I have that Colton Merton’s This. This is what I like, right?

(04:32):

Look at that dinging on my nose. What the fuck is that? I remember I used to think what kind of idiot would have a shirt with his picture on it? Well, there you go. This kind of idiot. And I have this shirt. Of course, this is my favorite shirt. Even I look buff in this. I really do. It’s kind of cool. C e o jersey. Oh, that white one’s nice. I have this one. indicate.com. V N D K eight. Clothes are fun. I used to think clothes were stupid when I was a kid. Now I like clothes. I’m a little more sophisticated. Mrs. Burns, it’s my favorite shirt so far. Oh, that’s cool.

(05:32):

Good. Harry Potter reference. Oh yes, of course. I have no idea what you’re talking about. Okay, back to Blair Morrison. Blair Morrison’s coming on owns five CrossFit gyms. I knew Blair. I knew of Blair back in the day. I think I saw him at the 2008 and 2009 games. If I’m not mistaken, we’ll find out. And I remember he was good. And back then, not everyone looked like a piece of steel. He always looked like a piece of steel. He always looked amazing. And he was kind of a staple. I want to say maybe for, I’m going to guess he’s been to five CrossFit games and then he, I dunno, started a family. It looks like he has three kids, five CrossFit gyms. He has this program that’s called the Anywhere Fit, and they travel all over the world working out. It looks pretty cool. Jake Chapman se if upon ejaculation you blew powder like a flower, do you think it would put you off doing it more?

(06:40):

No. Nope. Nope. Maybe even I would do it more because it would be less messy. How about that? Huh? You think of that? How about that? Great way to start the show. Thanks for just putting me straight into the gutter. Appreciate it. Rambler. Close. Suck now. I gained 70 pounds in two years. Oh yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah. That’s not fun. Got to get that off. Whatcha going to do to get that off? Whatcha going to do Even the days I’m fasting when I’m just losing water weight and losing inflammation. I can’t tell you how much better I feel my clothes. I just love clothes that fit. It’s crazy. Nice. Mrs. Burns. This chat is literally going to get us killed. Matt cannot resist chiming in while driving. Well, shit, that would be weird. Project mythology. Blair used to compete with him and FBO on their online challenges in 2010. Oh, you used to?

(08:01):

Justin Zibo. Oh, I saw Justin again. That was cool. Doesn’t Justin look like from this side profile picture, like Jason Ackerman kind of. Justin’s a big dude. He’s not little like Jason or myself at all. Justin is a big man, but it looks like a little Jason Ackerman little buff dude right there. Blair’s a good dude. First time at the N C C Northern California Championship this year, and we loved it. Yeah, that was a nice setup. They got there right on the water. Justin owns Salty Hive CrossFit in Salt Lake City, and we’ve talked about the importance for name change. Wad Zombie. My gym used a program through CrossFit to accept F S A and H S A, which can be huge at cutting the cost for members. Fs, I don’t know what that is. F S A. Let me see, but I like where you’re going. F S A is a federal student aid and H SS A is health savings account. Oh, that’s interesting. I have a runny nose this morning. Hey Janelle. What’s up? How are you? Good morning, asymmetric ears. Dear Sevan, due to all the crazy shit that’s going on. Have you thought about making more of a push to really begin the migration to Rumble? YouTube is terrifying what they’re doing. Tell me what that means to make the push towards Rumble. All of our content is on Rumble. We’re streaming right now, live on Rumble to believe it or not. You want to see, and I’ll show you, I’ll pull it up and then we are streaming live on Twitter and Facebook. Just no one goes over there. That’s the issue. Let

(10:15):

Lemme see if I can show you our Rumble account. I know. It is kind of crazy. How about the UK Parliament asking Rumble and YouTube to pull down Russell brand even though there’s no charges against him? That shit is fucking crazy. The Avon podcast, the thing with, oh look, I just typed in the Avon podcast. I’ll show you guys. And it doesn’t even say that I’m live over there. That’s the problem over there. Their shit’s just not together yet. Let’s see. Most recent. Most recent. It says six days ago, which isn’t even true. We are live there right now.

(11:02):

Video date today, no videos found. Relevance. Yeah, it’s weird. I dunno what to say, but we are viewed, yeah, I don’t know. Lemme search again. The Avon podcast. There was some stuff there from six date. I mean, yeah, here it all is. We got 64 views, fluffy Duck, nine views with Chris Master. John. There’s even a show over here that we don’t have that show with Jay. Oh, look. Matt Torres, Katie Heger 17 Views. Josh Bridges 72 views. Two comments even. Oh, look at this one. What is this? Oh, this one has 333 views. A blade Police breakdown. This is with Officer Blade. Oh wow. Isn’t that interesting? Police breakdown gets a ton of views over there. Maybe I should do. Wow, interesting.

(12:17):

We have that clips station too. I was just talking about with the guy this morning. Who runs our clips station. I was like, Hey, we got to get that over on Rumble too. Yeah, fucking, it’s a trip. What’s going on? You should be on the a hundred plus on YouTube. What about Bite the Bullet now and abandoned YouTube Completely. The options over there for live and I can’t even pull up live chat. I wouldn’t be able to interact with the audience anymore, and that kind of sucks. I enjoy that part. I wouldn’t even be able to be talking to you right now. That part. So that part sucks.

Blair Morrison (13:00):

Yo. Hey, seven.

Sevan Matossian (13:02):

What’s up, dude?

Blair Morrison (13:03):

How’s it going, man?

Sevan Matossian (13:04):

Good. You got a haircut?

Blair Morrison (13:06):

Yeah, fresh.

Sevan Matossian (13:08):

So fresh and so clean.

Blair Morrison (13:09):

Yeah. You’ll be here one day.

Sevan Matossian (13:14):

I actually cut my hair for the first time at 51 years old. I thought it was like a rite of passage. I was like, how could I call myself a man if I’ve never cut my own hair?

Blair Morrison (13:23):

What did you do to your hair? Did you use scissors?

Sevan Matossian (13:25):

No. This friend of mine, this lesbian friend of mine, she has this cut, she calls it the Viking Dyke cut where you just shave the sides.

Blair Morrison (13:34):

Oh yeah, that’s pretty popular. I could see that.

Sevan Matossian (13:36):

And she told me to do that. Dave Driscoll has that. The Bali dude.

Blair Morrison (13:39):

Yeah.

Sevan Matossian (13:40):

Yeah. You really have to have a nice body to do this. I don’t really have the body quite yet. If you’re going to go with the Asia Barto, Dave Driscoll, you’re going to do fancy shit with

Blair Morrison (13:52):

Your, and you’re going to wear it up and

Sevan Matossian (13:56):

You better have a body that

Blair Morrison (13:59):

Go ahead. You have to be an artist,

Sevan Matossian (14:02):

Right? Yeah. Well, thank you. Yeah, maybe I could slip into that realm. It’s like those girls who wear their pants pulled up Urkel so high, and you’re like, the only reason why you get away with that is because you have this insane body, but you’re dressing to be ugly, but you still have the most incredible

Blair Morrison (14:19):

Yeah, I don’t get fashion when they’re deliberately trying to look. They’re like, how ugly can I make it and still be attractive? But it’s a thing. So I guess it’s impressive.

Sevan Matossian (14:35):

David Weed. You’re almost 60. Cut the stupid hair.

Blair Morrison (14:41):

That’s not

Sevan Matossian (14:41):

True. Hey, Blair, were you at the 2008 games?

Blair Morrison (14:45):

I was not, no. My first year was 2009.

Sevan Matossian (14:50):

Okay, so I did see you at the ranch.

Blair Morrison (14:52):

Yeah, I was at the ranch that year. I was living in DC at that time, so I actually came out of the Mid-Atlantic. Yeah, coming back across the country was pretty cool. It was an excuse for me to come home and see friends and family. But yeah, I was not there in 2008. I heard about it in 2008.

Sevan Matossian (15:12):

And where were you born?

Blair Morrison (15:15):

I was born in Sacramento.

Sevan Matossian (15:16):

Okay, so you’re back home.

Blair Morrison (15:18):

Yeah, I’m back home.

Sevan Matossian (15:20):

And what were you doing on the East Coast back then? What were you doing? Did you say dc?

Blair Morrison (15:25):

Yeah, I was in dc So I went to school at Princeton. I played football at Princeton from 2000 to 2004. And one of my best friends from Princeton was doing a med school post-back program in DC at George Washington. And after I graduated, I didn’t have a clear career path, so I was like, screw it, I’ll come, I’ll go to dc. So I lived there for three years. I was, had personal training, kind of bumping around, and one of the places that I ended up at had a CrossFit affiliate that rented space two or three nights a week. And I would see, and I had had exposure to CrossFit from when I was in football. I would come back to Sacramento and one of the first affiliates out here, I would do some off season conditioning there. So I knew some of the named workouts and I knew how to Olympic lift.

(16:17):

So I saw these guys coming into this gym and they were all just tearing their shirts off and falling on the ground and making a huge scene, like real original CrossFit. And I was like, man, this is lame. These guys were total, but they started talking about the CrossFit games and a bunch of ’em were going out to watch in 2008. And so I ended up catching up with them when they got back. I was like, man, that sounds pretty cool. This is something I used to do. And so then I went and tried to qualify that next year when they had it out in Virginia Beach and Jeff Tincher ran it. So I went out there and I was with Ben Smith, and we qualified out of that regional, it was like me and Ben and Pat Sherwood and Tonya Wagner and bunch of OG people. So that’s what I was doing out there. Just happened to bump into this CrossFit affiliate. And then I got to go to the games. So it’s cool.

Sevan Matossian (17:21):

You had more of a athlete heir to you than most of the guys. I mean, it was more of a motley crew back then. I feel like there was a more variety in the bodies. There was the guy who was the giant fireman from California, Jeff something or another. And then there was another fireman from up north, and then there was you, I guess, who used to play collegiate football. And then there was Sherwood who was a military guy. It was kind of like the early days of the U F C where it’s like the sumo wrestler fights the boxer kind of shit, right? I mean it was this

Blair Morrison (17:56):

Yeah, for sure. That was Jeff Leonard was the firefighter

Sevan Matossian (17:59):

You’re talking about.

Blair Morrison (17:59):

Yeah. Yeah. And then Mokel was the guy from Washington. Yes. And he took third that year, which was, so you look at those early games, and it was the early definition of CrossFit. You would see these different specialists and who could be decent at everything, but nobody was great at anything. Whereas you see guys that are legitimately great at multiple disciplines, and it was kind of cool. You’re like, Hey, what’s the ideal body type for CrossFit? People didn’t really know yet. And so you would see these different, you had the podium that year was Mko Salo, Tommy Hacken, Brooke, and Mo Kelsey, and Mo was the soccer

Sevan Matossian (18:46):

Player, the football player and the firefighter,

Blair Morrison (18:48):

Right? Yeah. It was just totally different athletes that you get this really broad test and that’s who ended up on top because there wasn’t years of training to kind of hone the skills at that point. So it was pretty raw, but it was also kind of cool. You got to see, it was more like it was the pure test. Okay, well, everybody works out differently at this point. Who’s working, whose method is working the best? So I mean, that was pretty cool.

Sevan Matossian (19:20):

And Kevin brings up a good point. You can’t forget Rob Orlando coming from Strongman. That was a fucking bizarre entry. But man, wasn’t that fun to watch, to see him in the mix watching him in the mix.

Blair Morrison (19:31):

Yeah, Rob was great. And you had Josh Everett, you had Chris Beeler, you had these guys that were kind of, and you had O P T who was almost like the definition of a CrossFitter at that time.

Sevan Matossian (19:46):

And his brother was almost too tall and didn’t fit the mold,

Blair Morrison (19:52):

Right? Yes. He had all these different body types, all these different guys from different training backgrounds that were trying to just see how their training methodology measured up to each other. And I mean, that year, everybody was just blown away by Miko, just the insane ability for him to win the run or come in second to Speer by a step in the run, that’s seven K Run, which was grueling, and then go ahead and clear the deadlift ladder at five 15. Be able to do those two things to us at that time was mind blowing. How could you be that good on endurance and that great on pure strength. So

Sevan Matossian (20:33):

Within minutes of each

Blair Morrison (20:34):

Other, within minutes of each other. Yeah. I mean, KPA was back getting an IV after that trail run. He was so destroyed and miko just like he just came in. It was nothing.

Sevan Matossian (20:50):

And then also not to forget people like Dutch Lowey, who is very small also, but then Matt Murky who had walked off the football field and then even John Wellborn and kudos to him for throwing his hat in. Yeah,

Blair Morrison (21:03):

It was awesome.

Sevan Matossian (21:04):

That was ridiculous how big he was, right?

Blair Morrison (21:08):

Yeah. I mean, Leonard won the snatch that year. I think he got two 40 that was the winning snatch at the snatch event, and he probably weighed two 40. So it’s like it’s come a long way.

Sevan Matossian (21:20):

Hey, did Jeff Leonard, he also won Fittest Firefighter in the World or something like that that year, right?

Blair Morrison (21:26):

Oh, I don’t know. I wouldn’t be surprised. I mean, guy was a tank

(21:30):

And super cool. That was the other thing too that I shared that when I was with that CrossFit affiliate, I was in dc. I was not that impressed with all the theatrics of it, but when I got to the games, that’s when I was really sold on the community of CrossFit because all these people that we’re talking about, and the female athletes as well, were really intelligent and really thoughtful about how they competed, how they were training, and everybody had their own ideology or opinion, but everybody was very, very cool. There were no villains. I feel like that’s kind of been the story of CrossFit as a sport. I probably could use a couple more villains to be honest for the storytelling side. But most of the people are in the sport, are good people.

Sevan Matossian (22:23):

Dude. The events are, that’s the thing I kind of trip on. I don’t know if you’ve ever been to the Mr. Universe or the Arnold Classic, but they have a completely different vibe than the CrossFit Games or the NorCal event that you just threw, or Waterloo or any of these events. They’re almost like, I wouldn’t take my kid to the Mr. Universe or the Arnold. It’s more like, oh really? No, no, no, no. It’s more like a freak show. I kind of wouldn’t want them to be around those people. It’s kind of how far people can push things in every fucking direction by any means necessary. You know what I mean? I would say 50% of the people there don’t even look human. They’ve sort of taken fitness into this pathology space. It’s fun to go to, but it’s more like a circus. Whereas your event was a bonafide, I mean, everywhere you look, there were little kids playing in the water. There were dads sitting on tree stumped with their kids eating sandwiches. You know what I mean? If you lost your kid at your event, you wouldn’t have to worry at all.

Blair Morrison (23:25):

Right.

Sevan Matossian (23:26):

You know what I mean? And your event didn’t look like a retail outlet. You know what I mean? Whereas strictly the Mr. Universe and the Arnold, that’s what they are. And I’m not saying that they’re bad, they’re, they don’t have that community piece, the CrossFit games. I can’t imagine there ever being a fight.

Blair Morrison (23:47):

Right. You know what I

Sevan Matossian (23:48):

Mean? You bump and both people at the same time can’t say sorry, fast enough.

Blair Morrison (23:54):

Yeah. No, you’re right. You’re right. Mean, some of that I think is just the discipline of everybody. There is a CrossFitter, right? You don’t get a lot of random people walking into the CrossFit games or to NorCal Classic or Water Palooza, any of these places. They’re all there because they do CrossFit and they relate to the athletes. And that gives them a little bit of humility probably with each other or maybe kinship with each other, where you’re not really going to want to fight as much your brother. There’s not as much tribalism within CrossFit. And I mean, I’ll be honest, I think as a spectator sport, it probably needs a little more of that. There’s no team Rich versus whoever team Josh Bridges or everybody’s like, yeah, maybe I prefer one guy or the other, or I’m really rooting for Annie to have her come back after being a mother. But nobody hates anybody.

Sevan Matossian (24:56):

The closest

Blair Morrison (24:56):

Thing to someone being hated was probably Neil Maddox.

Sevan Matossian (25:02):

And everyone still loved Neil, and everyone still loved

Blair Morrison (25:05):

Neil’s, not even though he’s not a bad guy. But that was the closest thing that I remember to anybody. People rooting against somebody and that went away. So I don’t know.

Sevan Matossian (25:18):

We got a little fun thing going between Roman and Adler. I don’t know if you heard, but there was some pushing and shoving during the run. Adler was, I’m exaggerating a little bit, but he was bragging about his tactics of getting in Roman’s hair and his head talking to him. And then Roman posted back saying like, fuck, you didn’t get in my head. So they got a little back and forth going. And then even Roman said, he goes, I thought me and Adler were friends. Unlike basically me and Maderis, me and him haven’t said a word to each other in two years. And so maybe there’s a little bit of, hopefully there’ll be a little bit of tension and posturing. And this rogue thing is kind of fun too, because you got Laura who won the games, and now you got Miss New Mama Tia coming out of retirement. But you’re right, it’s not look over and Hey, fuck you. I hope you choke. I mean, if we could capture that some audio of

Blair Morrison (26:18):

That, that would

Sevan Matossian (26:18):

Fucking amazing.

Blair Morrison (26:20):

Right? Yeah. No, that’s cool. I didn’t know all that about Roman and Adler. That’s some good drama that could build into something. I mean, it’s

Sevan Matossian (26:29):

Allowing the fans to pick a side that’s allowing them to be like, Hey, Adler talked too much shit. Or Roman, to quit being a pussy. And it’s good. It’s allowing people to pick sides.

Blair Morrison (26:37):

I guess you had a little bit of that with Ricky too, coming back from his suspension. Some people were against him. He got popped and some people were for him. Like a redemption story.

Sevan Matossian (26:49):

Yeah, that’s what I like. Yeah. Yeah. Ricky’s such a good dude.

Blair Morrison (26:55):

I don’t know him at all. Yeah, I’ve never met him. Yeah.

Sevan Matossian (26:56):

Hard to. He’s a horrible villain. He’s too nice. He’s so laid back. Yeah. Yeah. He’s a shitty villain. Hey, when I saw you at the NorCal Classic, right,

Blair Morrison (27:11):

Right.

Sevan Matossian (27:12):

I keep wanting to call it NorCal Championships. NorCal Classic. How many years have you been doing that?

Blair Morrison (27:18):

So we started that event in 2019, right when Greg went away from the regionals.

(27:27):

So we started it in Sacramento. The whole purpose was to bring an event to the West coast that we could all go to. Waterloo was already huge. Granite games is huge. And most of the athletes that didn’t get to go to regionals or were going to regionals were having to travel to these other venues, which was fine because regionals was still a thing. But as soon as regionals was not a thing, Ben and I decided, we’re like, dude, somebody’s going to put something out here and we should do it because we know what it ought to be. We wanted to have an event that was high profile, that had big athletes that wanted to come to it so the spectators could get a chance to see those people in person. But also we wanted to have a vintage event, an event that was more like the ranch we were talking about, where people were very open to each other accessible. It was

Sevan Matossian (28:23):

Very ranch. It was ranch on steroids. You’re killing the vibe. The vibe with the lake and the dirt paths and the tents. Dude, it’s dope.

Blair Morrison (28:35):

Yeah. That’s what we wanted. So we wanted to, it’s

Sevan Matossian (28:37):

A festival. I think it’s what Greg wanted for the games.

Blair Morrison (28:40):

Right. Okay. So there you go. That means we’re kind of getting there. But yeah, I mean, we miss that. So when you go to these big events mean you go to the games now, you don’t only ever get to see the athletes, not brushing shoulders with the athletes. You can’t walk by the Invictus tent and see their team. But that’s where it is at our event. So

Sevan Matossian (29:01):

Although I did see Dave Castro get kicked out of the athlete area at your event, I really enjoyed that.

Blair Morrison (29:08):

That’s so great. I love, that

Sevan Matossian (29:10):

Was so great.

Blair Morrison (29:12):

I mean, because that girl, she didn’t know him from anybody, and he’s

Sevan Matossian (29:15):

Trying to talk to her and she’s like, no, no. And just putting a hand on him and shoving him back.

Blair Morrison (29:22):

He was a good sport about it though. Yeah,

Sevan Matossian (29:23):

Totally. But I’ve never seen, I was even surprised he even tried to talk to her. Usually when that happens, he would just walk away, but he’s like, nah, nah, I just want to watch. And she’s like, no. And all the athletes and all of us were dying laughing. Yeah,

Blair Morrison (29:36):

Sir, you’re not an athlete. You don’t have the athlete wristbands. You cannot be in here. No, that was great.

Sevan Matossian (29:41):

Okay. Sorry, I interrupted. So you wanted an event to fulfill regionals. You wanted it to have the festive ranch feel? Yeah.

Blair Morrison (29:49):

That

Sevan Matossian (29:50):

Shoulders with the athletes.

Blair Morrison (29:51):

Yeah. The first two points was like, okay, we’re going to bring this original style CrossFit event back. We want it to be high profile and give our athletes that are.

The above transcript is generated using AI technology and therefore may contain errors.

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