Will Branstetter (00:02):
What’s up everybody? Episode 14 of shut up and Scribble starts, right?
Speaker 2 (00:14):
So keep the political commentary to yourself, or if someone once said, shut up and dribble,
JR Howell (00:35):
I love for someone to tell me to shut up and fibble again.
Taylor Self (00:38):
What’s worse, JR turning into a meth addict after taking one bite out of some stale dried mango or me Sydney welling myself in the forehead? You can’t even see
Will Branstetter (00:52):
It that way. What does that even mean? I don’t understand that reference.
Taylor Self (00:54):
She hit herself in the forehead with the barbell snatching.
Will Branstetter (00:57):
Really?
Taylor Self (00:58):
Yeah. And that’s why she has that thing right there. It looks like the world’s biggest boil.
Will Branstetter (01:02):
It’s permanent.
Taylor Self (01:03):
I don’t think it’s, I don’t know. Apparently I was telling somebody at the gym as what happened to my head today, and they’re like, oh, I just saw Sidney Wells posted on her story that she went to Boston to get it fixed.
Will Branstetter (01:16):
Oh, you got to go to Boston,
Taylor Self (01:18):
Dude, I’m going to have to go to Boston to get this fixed.
Will Branstetter (01:20):
Wait, have you seen that video of the guy that has the giant pimple thing on his forehead and it’s just a video of him? He has sunglasses on his head. Sunglasses just sit on his giant. Oh my God. And Jared doesn’t have a tooth.
Taylor Self (01:37):
So look,
Will Branstetter (01:40):
I’m there. Hell
Taylor Self (01:42):
Dude. So I
Will Branstetter (01:43):
Did this yesterday. All right, guys. Let’s H programming. What are we waiting on?
Taylor Self (01:48):
I felt it and I was like, oh shit. And I didn’t think it was that bad. I didn’t even think I cut myself and then I just B blood all in my mouth and it was just gushing. It was crazy. It was everywhere. Second thing is I cannot tell you how hard it is to sell a fucking iPad on Facebook Marketplace, dude, but I
Will Branstetter (02:07):
Got this. iPads are like 2018, dude,
Taylor Self (02:09):
Whatever, dude, I got this guy coming to cop it today. So two 30, we got to be off this joint. He’s buying my iPad. Fuck. It’s been a ride. This 14 year old tried to troll me in Facebook. Marketplace message. Dude, can I read it?
Will Branstetter (02:25):
Yeah.
Taylor Self (02:25):
All right. He goes, this little fucker. He goes, where’s this? Hey, I’m a high schooler. Who needs it for schoolwork? Would you be willing to trade for Apple Watch series seven? I said, no, I don’t want to trade, but I take 300 bucks. And he responds and just says, Nope, no punctuation. Nope. So I was kind of pissed and I said, good talk douche. And he goes, mad question mark. Just call a 14 year old a douche. Get a life old head,
Will Branstetter (02:55):
Dry face. Well done, well done. That was
Taylor Self (02:59):
Well done. So I said,
Will Branstetter (03:01):
Would you trade the iPad for a t i 84 Calculator theory?
Taylor Self (03:05):
Yeah, literally
Will Branstetter (03:06):
I did do my
Taylor Self (03:07):
Homework,
Will Branstetter (03:08):
Dude, I don’t think he was trolling you. I think he was being mysterious. I
Taylor Self (03:12):
Know. I know. He wasn’t trolling me, but just his response. So then I said, Nope. And he said, L o l, and I didn’t respond. And then 30 minutes later he goes, Taylor hi with multiple eyes. And he goes, are you still mad?
JR Howell (03:25):
You guys are like best friends now, dude, just checking
Will Branstetter (03:27):
In.
Taylor Self (03:28):
Holy shit. It took me back to Xbox Live group chat, dude, the live chat.
Will Branstetter (03:31):
Jerry, you should do the briefings with your tooth out at Crucible.
JR Howell (03:36):
I did it crescendo because the prosthetic that they made me post-surgery did not fit, and it was digging into my sutures. So on Sunday, I briefed all the athletes with this and they were all, you could tell, just like I said, guys, when I say squat standards, it’s okay if you like.
Taylor Self (03:53):
Wait, so are you never going to get that thing actually like
JR Howell (03:57):
I am. I just got the call for the first follow-up. Had to wait. You have to wait four months on it to completely heal. No way. It’s nuts.
Taylor Self (04:04):
It’s crazy.
Will Branstetter (04:05):
Welcome to Spartanburg.
Taylor Self (04:08):
You lost it behind fud. Rutgers little funny business going on, dude, if you know what I’m saying. All right.
JR Howell (04:18):
So rogue leaderboard. It looks like it might be finalized.
Taylor Self (04:22):
Put that thing back in. Dude, you can put it in now. You can’t
JR Howell (04:25):
Take me seriously. It feels good. It’s comfortable not to worry about it.
Taylor Self (04:29):
Really? Yeah, rogue leaderboard finalized.
JR Howell (04:34):
I mean, I don’t know if it’s a hundred percent finalized, but it’s changed a lot.
Taylor Self (04:44):
So is it too soon for me to text Jason and ask him if he’s in for that race now?
JR Howell (04:48):
I think it might be a little too soon since he’s one point out.
Will Branstetter (04:53):
Him and Chris fell one point out.
Taylor Self (04:55):
We’re supposed to do a 80 mile bike race in October, and he’s like, just wait, wait a week before you register.
JR Howell (05:00):
Well, I’ve heard a lot of, I mean, you could just call ’em rumors, right? Some people have said, ah, they’ll, if they backfill anybody that declines from the games invites, they’ll backfill from the games leaderboard. And then other people have said that they think they’ll backfill from the queue. I think it would be cool if they had more than one person that declined and they took one from each. And obviously it’s easy for me to say that like a homework in sixth, but it would be cool to see them backfill someone from the games that barely missed out and then backfill someone from the queue. That’s obviously back to training Hungry is going to show up in shape. I mean, I don’t know. You tell me, Taylor, if you just finished 17th at the games and you didn’t have any plans on doing any off season competitions until December or January, would you be in any kind of shape right now? Or would you just be like, dude in a month competing at Rogue, could you be ready in a month if you really haven’t been doing anything and you’re just kind
Taylor Self (05:59):
Of chilling? But what do you mean by not doing anything?
JR Howell (06:06):
I’m saying you’ve just started exercising again. You took a full month off after the games. What
Taylor Self (06:12):
Does that mean? A full month of not a single time sweating.
JR Howell (06:14):
Yeah, just a full month off. Yep, full month off. And you were like, Hey, I’m going to try to do Waap Palooza. That’s my next competition. I didn’t qualify for Rogue. I don’t want to compete in the fall. I’m just going to wait until Waap Palooza. And then you get a backfill invite. Is it even questionable or are you like, whatever, I’ll do whatever it takes to get be ready? Or do you almost just say, no thanks, my mind is not there right now. Because I think that’s something they have to consider.
Taylor Self (06:44):
I think everybody and their brother is going to say yes to Rogue. It doesn’t matter who it is, they’re going to say yes to Rogue. There’s a lot of money there. And then also I think I hate, I just hate hearing, oh, I took a full month off. I want to know what that exactly means. Did you actually not do a single workout? Anything that could be considered any type of fitness? And did you eat whatever you wanted for a month? Because if that’s the case, your ass better not be trying to show up to Rogue.
JR Howell (07:15):
Yeah, I just think at least the people who are on the leaderboard want it have intentions of competing this time of year. So I think in a lot of ways, taking anyone from the top 10 of the qualifier versus backfilling from the games leaderboard, you might get a way fitter individual there in person.
Taylor Self (07:33):
It takes a lot of time for sure. It takes a lot of time to lose fitness, to actually lose fitness. You could take two weeks off, come back, the first week’s going to hit you a ton of bricks, and then pretty soon you’re back into the swing. But that extra two weeks of a full month off, that is a whole different story. That’s like, okay, it’s going to take you a month to start feeling like yourself again, at least.
JR Howell (08:00):
And then people can say what they want about someone like Jason not completing the full weekend of tests. But he took a couple weeks off and came back and I worked out with him his first workout back and I was like, geez, you’re fine. But last year he took a month off and it was comical working out with him for the first week or two. It was like you could just tell that you’re saying that extra two weeks of just chilling, your body just goes on vacation. Yeah, yeah. So we see pull back up a leaderboard shift. I mean, a lot of people got penalties. I think Victor was first after the first scores were put in. So now Ricky’s in first Travis I believe stayed at three tutor, I think was in sixth and moved up to fourth. Garrett Clark now in fifth. Tyler and Jason both move up. Jack Roseman move up. Yeah, I mean there was a lot of movement. I want to say James was in maybe 18th, he can correct me or one of you guys can, but now he’s all the way up to 12th. So was I thought
Taylor Self (09:01):
He was in 19th or 20th.
JR Howell (09:02):
There was a ton of movement. Yeah,
Will Branstetter (09:04):
Colton was on the second page. He, Colton was in 24th or something.
Taylor Self (09:07):
Dude, it’s crazy when you move. Well,
JR Howell (09:10):
Yeah, it’s cool to see all these people move up. Obviously for almost all of them it’s barely missing out. But
Will Branstetter (09:18):
What’s the storyline behind the qualifier for you looking at the leaderboard with games athletes so far down? What do you think? Are there different causes for that or what does that tell you about the qualifier?
JR Howell (09:28):
Well, if we really wanted to analyze it and go through the top 15 people, clearly we could look at the scores and see which one hurt them and which one kept them out. But off of the initial set of programming, I mean at least when I looked at it, it looked very rogue to me. It looked very robust. There was a lot of weightlifting, there were a lot of grind, tight movements like the Devil Press with the suitcase, lunge, the sandbag clean with the box, step overs. It looked very much like a rogue qualifier to me.
Taylor Self (10:01):
My opinion on it is that anytime we have an open quarter vinyls, rogue qualifier, guap Palooza online challenging qualifier, I feel like it’s safe to say that 50% of the people that show out in online qualifiers never are able to put it together in an in-person competition. So it’s like, oh, okay, these names that you’re seeing up here that are just knocking it out of the park, you’re going to see that in any online competition. And half of the time it correlates to them doing well in person. The other half it’s just like, well, they do well when everything is just exactly the way they want it set up exactly how they like it in their gym with all of the controllables controlled outside of that. It’s just an online. It’s just an online qualifier.
JR Howell (10:45):
Well, and then when you look to the in-person competition, at least for me, and obviously Jason’s a friend of ours, so it’s going to sound biased, but you look at Spencer, I think he’s maybe in the next qualifying spot from the games leaderboard. So if someone declines or if multiple people decline, they’re going to go and we think they backfill from the games they’re going to go to. Spencer Spencer showed up at the games. He did his work. He had a solid finish for Rogue specifically. Do you think that programming lends more so to you wanting to see a certain style of athlete? If you look at Jason, Jason’s won three events at Rogue the first year. He won the Echo Bike thruster last year. He won the trail run and the strict deficit, parallette handstand pushup. So do you want to see someone who you think would do well backfill into Rogue to cause a shift in leaderboard? Look at Chandler last year. He got in through the queue and crushed it.
Taylor Self (11:40):
Do you want to
JR Howell (11:40):
See someone like that or do you just want to see someone who proved it at the
Taylor Self (11:44):
Games? No, this is what I hate about Rogue is it’s so subjective and that’s their prerogative. They fucking own it. They can do whatever they want, but I hate how there’s no process in place. I want to see the most deserving person go to Rogue. I don’t want to see who they feel like fucking inviting. What does
Will Branstetter (12:06):
Deserving mean? Des
JR Howell (12:07):
Deserve or Earned?
Taylor Self (12:11):
Earned, I suppose So I guess six off the Q leaderboard. I don’t want to see the fucking backfill from the invite.
JR Howell (12:17):
So they didn’t earn it through their games performance.
Taylor Self (12:23):
Where’s that rule book?
JR Howell (12:24):
Exactly? I’m just That’s what I’m
Taylor Self (12:26):
Saying. No, that’s what I’m saying. If they had it written out that, okay, we are going to invite the top 15 from the games and then the top buy from the queue. And when we backfill because the games get the first 15 spots, they’re going to get the first opportunity to backfill. Cool. Without any of that. I’m just like, how do we fucking know who’s supposed to be there?
JR Howell (12:45):
You just wish the Spectation
Taylor Self (12:46):
Wasn’t there. Invite Hunter McIntyre for all I fucking care.
Will Branstetter (12:49):
So you’d rather have the structure in a rule book than have Tia Claire there maybe this year, or Annie Thor’s daughter there last year?
Taylor Self (12:56):
No, if that was in the rule book that they could invite Tia Claire to me whenever they wanted from now till 2032.
Will Branstetter (13:02):
But how does that make a difference?
Taylor Self (13:05):
It
Will Branstetter (13:05):
Just saying that they can do whatever they want versus doing whatever they want without saying it.
Taylor Self (13:09):
I just don’t like knowing what the process is. I don’t like knowing what
JR Howell (13:15):
You don’t like. Not knowing.
Taylor Self (13:16):
Yeah, I don’t like not knowing how it’s supposed to work. I don’t know. I mean, call me crazy. I just don’t like sitting in the dark being like, well, who gets the first backfill invite? Because then it makes me question, well, who’s most deserving of the first backfill invite? I don’t dunno. There’s so much in this sport where it’s like there’s so much that’s just not set in stone and it’s so ever changing. It makes things like this difficult and kind of fucking dumb to a degree when it’s like, when is it just going to be set? And people learn how to play by that rule
JR Howell (13:50):
And a lot times a year
Taylor Self (13:51):
Before you change it.
JR Howell (13:52):
And a lot of times too, the argument’s going to be, oh, it doesn’t matter. Whoever they backfill is going to finish bottom five. That’s not the case at Rogue. It’s so exclusive. There’s only 20. You take someone that finished 16th or 17th or 18th from the games, they could have just gotten a string of tests at the games that weren’t suited for them. They could show up to Rogue and Rec. You could backfill Jason or Tyler Christoph. They could show up to Rogue and do really well. So it is a big deal how they
Taylor Self (14:20):
Backfill it. And this is the truth too, not just about Rogue, but about the games as well is with the exception of four people total individual side men and women, the programming matters so fucking much. And the placement of one movement or not having one movement and the games is the difference between a top five and a top 15th potentially, or something along those lines, or a slight bias towards one thing versus a slight bias towards another is a huge difference in placing at the games. It’s the podium. And maybe those four to six people can say, okay, I’m going to do really well, but I wouldn’t even say podium. I would say they can guarantee themselves a top five regardless of the programming. They’re not who competed this year is going to guarantee themselves a win regardless of the programming, but they can guarantee a top five or podium and then everyone else, it’s like, oh, you could be fifth based off the programming or you could be fucking cut.
JR Howell (15:15):
Yeah,
Will Branstetter (15:16):
I guess to me it just doesn’t make, for me, it just doesn’t make a difference until rogue’s actually a part of a season under CrossFit. Then it’s like I hope they invite Tia Claire, even though she didn’t compete at the games, and I don’t really care if they tell me what they’re doing. I understand why from an athlete coach perspective, it’s frustrating. You don’t really understand, okay, well should I do the qualify if I’m in 16th in the likelihood of someone not doing rogue in the top 15 of the games is pretty high. So I figured I’ll get a backfill. But I understand that’s frustration. But I guess from my perspective, I just don’t really care unless it’s going to be contributing to some season long. We’re going to crown a season champ for 2023, regular season whatever, and rogue’s actually a part of contributing points to some overall point scheme. Then it’s just like, well, I don’t know.
JR Howell (16:10):
Yeah, I think Katie said when she went on Seon show recently, she’s like, this is a showcase. That’s what we want it to be. We want to showcase the athletes. We want to showcase the legends. We want to showcase the strongman community. We want to celebrate the iron game. So with that outlook of it being a showcase, and we can get into the programming of it, what we think the programming is going to be like, what it’s been like in the past, but take something like a handstand walk for instance. It’s something that we’re accustomed to seeing at most high level CrossFit competitions, whether it’s unbroken requirement, whether it’s over obstacles, whether it has pirouettes, whatever. The movement has never been programmed one time at Rogue, never. But that’s their style. So to me, do you just stay with that? Do you say, Hey, we’ve never done this before. Doesn’t mean we would never do it, and you shift the programming. I mean last year we got on and talked about how it felt more like a CrossFit game style programming, like the number of workouts, how aggressive they were, the loading that it was just like, dang, dude, this is nasty. Everyone’s going to leave this weekend being pretty messed
Taylor Self (17:20):
Up. And it was a lot of pressing. So much pressing.
JR Howell (17:22):
Yeah. So it’s like do you make it four days and you make it nine or 10 events? Do you make it three days and you make it six or seven? I mean, like you’ve said, they can do whatever they want, but when you start to think about rogue, you have this idea in your head of it just being a standalone type thing, maybe the most exclusive competition in the world as far as CrossFit goes. You want to know what it is and you want to know how you get there. To your point,
Taylor Self (17:49):
I think it would be really cool for them to invite Tia.
Will Branstetter (17:55):
It would be cool.
Taylor Self (17:56):
Yeah, that wouldn’t upset me one bit. I’m just saying I don’t like not knowing where the backfill is supposed to come from and I don’t really give a shit who I care who it goes to in the sense that because it’s so exclusive, I don’t want to see a single fucking athlete there just taking their licks and moving through events. I want all 20 athletes on each side throwing haymakers.
Will Branstetter (18:21):
So what if they said, we’re never going to backfill from the queue. Maximum we’re going to ever take is the top five that qualify, and if we backfill, it’ll either be from game spots or invites outside of that. Is that kind of what you’re looking for? Something like that?
Taylor Self (18:34):
Yeah, just tell us what the process is so that people know, but at the same time, I understand why they’re not, because then they don’t have to be nailed down to a process and feel like, oh, well, I changed my mind. I’d rather do this. They can just do whatever the fuck they want, which is again, that’s their prerogative. I do think that Bill and Katie both care about finding the fittest athlete there. I think if they’ve ever made a statement that is, I believe at one point in time, one of them may have made a statement that’s saying our primary concern is showcasing the athletes. Then we care about finding the fittest there. I’m hard pressed to believe that that’s not bullshit, that they’re okay with giving away 250 grand to a person who’s not the most deserving, who’s not the fittest in the field. I mean, what do you think Jr?
JR Howell (19:29):
I don’t know what they would say to that, but I can assume that they would say if the right people are in place to write the programming that takes care of itself, that that should happen without trying to make sure it happens.
Taylor Self (19:44):
And I agree to a degree, I think that rogue programming in comparison to Dubai or Waterloo or the games in the past has shown more bias than anything else.
JR Howell (19:59):
And this goes back to the argument of these competitions that aren’t claiming the fittest on earth. Should they be concerned with the most well-balanced tests or should they just have their own biases? And should you know that as a fan and as an athlete going into it? If it’s
Taylor Self (20:18):
A CrossFit competition, then it should be the most balanced, well programmed, and it’s clearly a fucking CrossFit competition. These are not bodybuilders signing up for the Rogue Invitational. These are not strong men signing up for that particular competition stage at the RO invitational. And if it is, then it’s just different. But if it’s CrossFit athletes, CrossFit games athletes, give ’em a CrossFit test, make it fucking balanced. I just don’t get Why do you have to fucking try to reinvent the wheel? Why do you have to try to put your own? Oh, when you go to Rogue, you’re going to go heavy every event. I just don’t like that. Make it CrossFit.
JR Howell (21:02):
Well, I think every programmer has biases, whether they know it or not. So even when they get to the games, Dave and B have tendencies. When we program competitions, we have tendencies. When Josh and them program, they have tendencies when whoever programs Dubai does, I mean everyone’s going to have that. So at this point, maybe we’re just talking in a circle because what you think capacity across broad time and modal domains is, and what I think it is, is subjective to our events.
Taylor Self (21:32):
I just think they should care. I don’t think it should just be this flippant like nah, it’ll take
JR Howell (21:35):
Care. I’m sure they care a lot and I’m excited to see what they do this year. If they incorporate some of the other parts of the iron game, like strongman last year we saw with the log clean and press for load, they did the tiebreaker with the Jerry can carry. I mean there’s always some pretty cool things. Obviously the hill, I hope the hill is just something they always keep. Yeah, that’s sick and it’s always there. And when you go to Rogue, that’s one thing you have to deal with. I
Taylor Self (22:02):
Hope they have to put fucking that Seesaw bin at the top of the hill and you have to carry fucking 10 sandbags up it and make it tip over
JR Howell (22:10):
Until it gets
Taylor Self (22:11):
Over. Yeah, shit like that is so cool. Cool. I hope they continue to involve strong man implements and things that the athletes are just not going to touch anywhere else. That’s super, super cool. My last point in the programming is just that it’s pretty easy to balance that out with anything. I mean, even RO could come up with implement body weight wise or gymnastic or skill that perplexes athletes
JR Howell (22:35):
Or Well, and last year we saw the log muscle up, which I still think is one of the most creative programming things that I’ve seen in the competition.
Taylor Self (22:42):
Yeah, that was sick.
Will Branstetter (22:44):
Do we want to look at the female leaderboard real quick?
Taylor Self (22:47):
Yeah. Did we look at the men?
JR Howell (22:49):
Yeah, we
Will Branstetter (22:50):
Looked, yeah. Oh
Taylor Self (22:50):
Shit. I don’t understand how this girl score didn’t get invalidated. Didn’t Danny have that? Yes.
JR Howell (22:58):
They released a statement that basically said,
Will Branstetter (22:59):
Hey, you muted yourself. Not jr. Go ahead, Taylor.
JR Howell (23:05):
Yeah, I’m pretty sure they put out a statement that basically owned the discrepancy between the sketch and the drawing and the description. So one said it was the outside of the tape line. One said it was the inside of the tape line. Yeah, so I’m pretty sure they kind of said, Hey, this is a wash. As long as you’re, go ahead. Can you hear me?
Will Branstetter (23:28):
Yeah. Before we go to the leaderboard, how about what are your guys thoughts on that? They came out, they said we had,
JR Howell (23:36):
I think you have to
Will Branstetter (23:36):
Do it. We had tape lines that were wrong in the graphic and we said something else in the text. We’re going to allow both. What are your guys thoughts on that?
JR Howell (23:45):
I think that’s the next right thing they could do. That’s all you can do at that point is to own it and say, yeah, it was a mistake, and here’s the deal. If you showed your measurement and you showed it from the inside of the tape line or the outside of the tape line, we’re still going to count it.
Will Branstetter (23:59):
How big of a difference does that make the tape line the two inches?
JR Howell (24:05):
For someone like me, it makes a huge difference being 12 inches away or being 10 inches away.
Taylor Self (24:09):
For someone like Danny, I’d sure it makes a pretty big difference too.
Will Branstetter (24:13):
You think even though her arm short arms,
JR Howell (24:16):
Fred,
Taylor Self (24:16):
You got all that counterweight trying to pull you over on the other side
JR Howell (24:20):
As good as she good as she is at snatching, I don’t think it would’ve made any difference.
Taylor Self (24:24):
It probably would not have taken her out of the top five. Was that the only thing that happened that was,
JR Howell (24:31):
I don’t remember seeing much controversial stuff with the females at all. I know. I think Cindy Ian, I think made a post that said that she didn’t think measure the 30 inch tape line length, and that’s why she was invalidated.
Taylor Self (24:46):
This is what I remember, and it’s that her video was like a hundred feet away from her handstand pushups where you couldn’t see if her hands were on the line at all. Who’s that? Danny Spiegel. That’s That’s what somebody sent, and I just reminded me of that old Brooke Wells video of her doing Diane
Will Branstetter (25:07):
All the way across the gym
Taylor Self (25:10):
Like, oh, is that Brooke over there trying to do her workout? I
Will Branstetter (25:14):
Feel like that’s going to be, that’s normal though on handstand and push up workouts. If you’re having to film from that far away to see on that plane on the ground tape versus where your hands are at, it’s pretty hard, especially if you’re having to be out in front of the rig to do movements and then having to have a view of the floor. It’s going to be a pretty difficult view to get. Yeah,
JR Howell (25:32):
Depending on the hydrogen’s laid out, there might not be space where the R not in the
Taylor Self (25:36):
Way. No, I think there’s space no matter what gym that you have, it’s just that, do you have seven other athletes also trying to film their qualifier performance at the same exact time and go at the same time? And if that’s the case, that’s just stupid because look, if Danny Spiegel is doing a qualifier, the other six ladies that are doing it, odds are they don’t fucking matter. Just let Danny do her shit alone so she can do it correctly. My humble opinion, I mean when me and Jason do qualifiers to crash, it’s not like me and him go, two people is the max. You can run more than that, and it’s just a shit show.
JR Howell (26:11):
If you go back to the women’s leaderboard though, it is cool to see some people
Taylor Self (26:15):
Like Dick Simon
JR Howell (26:16):
Trying to break through Lauren Fisher, Kyra Milligan, Elena, she’s competing this weekend at Madrid, so I mean that’s pretty,
Taylor Self (26:26):
Say that again.
Will Branstetter (26:31):
That was good.
JR Howell (26:32):
Two, our dude, you got to roll ’em hard. You threw
Taylor Self (26:35):
Will for a loop there.
Will Branstetter (26:36):
I was like, wow, that’s
Taylor Self (26:38):
That’s better than his Smeal impersonation. No, I dunno about
JR Howell (26:41):
That. But no, I think seeing Lauren Fisher and Kyra in there is really cool. I mean, those are two. Think about how OG Lauren Fisher is, and she’s been competing again individually for the last couple of years, but seeing someone like her qualify for Rogue I think is really cool. I mean, I remember her being somebody who is considered like barbell specialists years and years and years ago.
Taylor Self (27:07):
I think Kyra Milligan’s pretty excited. That’s exciting to see someone super new. I’m not really excited by any of the other four athletes out of the
Will Branstetter (27:15):
Queue. Is there a deal going on where, what’s the deal with women competing versus men in off season competitions? I feel like generally the men’s fields have way heavier top. Even at Waterloo last year there was a bunch, maybe not a bunch, but there was a big handful of guys that did both individual and team in the women’s division. There was almost none of that. Here we see even the pages of people that did the qualifier. It’s double, at least for men. What’s the deal?
JR Howell (27:45):
I mean, I think this is just an issue with the entire sport, but the male depth of talent is so much greater than the female depth of talent. I mean even the difference between top half at semifinals comparatively to the guys is huge. I mean, Brian’s talked about it ad nauseum about this point that when you get to any competition, the top half or the top 10, the levels to this stuff is completely evident on the female side more so than on the male side,
Will Branstetter (28:23):
But even a hundred percent even.
JR Howell (28:27):
You’re just talking about them even wanting to compete in the
Will Branstetter (28:29):
Office, even games, qualifiers. There’s only one individual games qualifier on this entire list, but you look on the mint, right, with women from this past year,
Taylor Self (28:39):
No man and And also
JR Howell (28:42):
Colin Brander. Colin Brander two and then no, keep going. There’s one at the bottom stir.
Will Branstetter (28:48):
No, she didn’t qualify this year. No.
JR Howell (28:50):
Oh, sorry.
Will Branstetter (28:52):
So I just feel like even the top heavy, even qualifiers from the games. You look at the men’s leaderboard on the front page, you got six qualifi, six of the bottom 25 men that didn’t get a spot or whatever. Automatically
Taylor Self (29:05):
My take is that the women don’t feel the need to fucking S slang it around and measure it like the guys do. I feel like a lot of women play a smarter game where they train and build for the open quarterfinals semifinals in the games where a lot of guys are like, nah, I got to fucking compete again. I got to get back out there.
JR Howell (29:22):
You think it might be an issue with partnerships and how financially set up the females are comparatively to the guys.
Will Branstetter (29:28):
That’s kind of my thought,
JR Howell (29:31):
Like that if you have strong representation and you’ve got a good team and you’ve set yourself up with partnerships that you don’t need to compete as much. That’s a very good point. Maybe the social media monster is a lot more conducive to females than it is to males, and that’s why they have to compete more simply to earn a living. Makes sense to me. Will steering us in the direction that.
The above transcript is generated using AI technology and therefore may contain errors.
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