Masters Alliance
9th Dan BlackBelt and Olympic Gold Medalist Herb Perez visit with the best and brightest to bring clarity to the future of Martial arts.
Masters Alliance
Sorry Not Sorry: Your Ritual Isn’t Magic, Foundational Work Is
A few jokes about shirts and travel fade fast into a sharp conversation about what really creates champions: coaching lineage, foundations, and the mindset to break another person’s will. We talk about why great coaches rarely emerge alone, tracing the tree from mentors to protégés and how culture transmits the skills that outlast any ruleset. Fancy drills come and go; repeatable movement, distance control, and conditioning keep winning. That lens reframes today’s game, too—less about flash, more about pressure, and knowing when to keep feeding the one thing your opponent can’t solve.
We also confront two uncomfortable truths. First, not every win is a win. In must‑win moments, take the W. But scraping past a weak opponent is a red flag, not momentum. Second, rituals help—until they own you. The best athletes build reliable routines and stay flexible when chaos hits. Along the way, we name the two loneliest moments in sport (the walk to the ring, and the walk back after a loss) and why short memories and honest analysis matter more than hype.
Then we zoom out. If Taekwondo wants a real leap, it needs incentives: sustainable funding for developing talent, event purses that matter, and a professional league structure fans can follow. Imagine small, capped rosters, cross‑national recruitment, consistent storylines, and prize money that keeps athletes training full‑time. That shift would attract better athletes, extend careers, and turn sporadic brilliance into sustained excellence. Until then, foundations and culture carry the sport; with real money and a league, they could carry it further.
If this conversation got you thinking, share it with a coach or teammate, hit follow, and leave a review with the one barrier you think Taekwondo should break next.
Sorry, I'm sorry.
SPEAKER_02:Sorry, not sorry, that's not good. Stop it, not stopping.
SPEAKER_00:What is that time again? We're coming to you from beautiful California, where the world is getting ready to wake up and start. And then we've got Mr. Miami himself, Juan, Coach Juan. And then we got, as always, Bronze TJ. Today he has changed and opted out of his blue shirt for some sort of pastel y. What is that? Fast. That's a nice shirt. Well, welcome to the warehouse 15. That's a nice shirt. And as sorry, as we say sorry, not sorry, especially for TJ's shirt. Welcome, gentlemen. Mr. Coach Moreno, what's going on today?
SPEAKER_03:Oh no, man, you disrespected my shirt over there, Perez. You know, they keep gobbling up those. Do you know why? I don't have one. I gotta wear this. Oh my gosh, man. Look at this. What is that? Would you get that at the thrift store?
SPEAKER_00:No, it was one of those, honestly, it was one of those things I sent to Fiverr. And I said, Can you make me a logo? And they came up with this. I said, Okay, you're fired. But anyway.
SPEAKER_01:And then you put it on a shirt. Got it.
SPEAKER_00:I had to do something with that pay for it.
SPEAKER_03:No, no, I'm good. I'm just uh here. Just uh actually, I gotta travel tomorrow. I think you gotta travel tomorrow. Two teachers, I gotta travel tomorrow. So uh just uh getting ready for that, but excited uh you know, I I uh we've been talking a little bit off air and stuff like that. I think it's kind of cool that we're trying to branch out to some uh some interesting topics and stuff like that, you know. I mean, trying to give some some of our ideas. So I kind of I came up with a bunch and some of them kind of run together um today, but at the same time, I mean, if we have to break them off and talk a little bit longer at another date, I think that'd be cool too. But yeah, always happy to be here with you guys. And uh yeah, that's it. Trigger my special. And we got Braun's TJ What's up today. Oh, wait, hold on. TJ, you gotta talk about what you with that the Crawford uh thing, uh the hashtag on Crawford.
SPEAKER_01:Oh yeah, no, there was this thing on um, I think it was Instagram or Facebook. It was some some video uh Terrence Crawford, but at the bottom he was saying uh he how he is and stuff like that, and then the hashtag was sorry not sorry. Oh, really?
SPEAKER_00:Yo, yeah, I imagine. Sounds like a copyright violation.
SPEAKER_03:I said that uh this is one one gentleman I know just got tested for a black belt or a six-degree black belt. I said, Congratulations. And he's like, Thank you so much, you know, Master Moreno. And then he's like, hashtag sorry, not sorry. I'm like, this is so funny, man. I love it.
SPEAKER_00:I gotta get these shirts gone. I gotta get these shirts gone.
SPEAKER_03:I got it. I got it. I'm gonna do it.
SPEAKER_00:I'm gonna give you a pressure I it was so hard to get it off the athletic. That's why they give it to it. I don't know if it's worth it.
SPEAKER_01:That's what I give. Anyways, like he said, I'm here in North Carolina, beautiful North Carolina, North Kakalaki. North Kakalachi. North what? North Kakalaki, where all of the famous people live, some of the best individuals.
SPEAKER_00:How do you spell that?
SPEAKER_01:Cat C K A K Lacy Kakalaka. Yeah, I'll send it to you. Kakalaka. Um, but like he said, I'll be traveling this week and I get to go to New York this weekend to Grandmaster S place, um, high performance martial arts, do a seminar out there with those guys Saturday and Sunday. So looking forward to seeing everyone out there.
SPEAKER_00:And then no, seriously, can you spell can you spellaki? Yeah, or is that some sort of Ebonics?
SPEAKER_01:That's definitely Ebonics or meetup words. That's not actually where I live. I live in North Carolina.
SPEAKER_00:Not kakalaki.
SPEAKER_03:All right. Hey, before we start, hey, I uh TJ knows again. I think we talked about a little bit last time that uh you were officially named the uh director of the AAU uh trip uh for the national team this year, going to where are you guys going to Croatia? Croatia Open.
SPEAKER_01:So you're the you're the director of that.
SPEAKER_03:I noticed uh the U AAU. I know you were joking last time there's a lot of Asia on there, but I also saw the USAT. I don't know if they put out their their staff for the world championships or somebody else did, or somebody put like four or five different people, but I don't know. I'll throw it out there. I'm gonna put the AU staff up against them. I think the I think you guys got a you guys got a pretty good staff, you know. And uh, you know, I don't we're gonna get into some pretty cool topics today, but one thing I'm gonna say about that once again because I've you know I've kind of chimed in here and there about national team staff. I'm just curious again, because when I look at the lack of experience of people that are on this trip, like I just wonder how they get there because they keep talking about merit, they keep talking about whatever. There's one guy that's from South Florida here. I like him a lot. He's a nice guy. I I've talked about his son before, how how much I think how how cool I think it is that he's doing well, and I think he actually has a chance to medal at the World Championships. Um, but I just I just question like how does how does how does that dad slash coach get on the staff when when there's other coaches that have like two people on the team and have done it for many, many years. And they just they don't get uh they don't get an invite. I just it's it's a little strange to me. I I don't know, I don't know about that. You know, it's uh it's one of these things again, it's you know, I guess maybe it's who you know, you know, versus you know what you know or who you know you know what what you've done for the for the sport when I see this. Again, this this program has two people on the national team right now, and they've been very successful in the cadet and junior level and in the senior level. They had a Pan American Games person, blah, blah, blah. So they're not new to the game, they've been doing it for a while, and they don't get a sniff on the national program when they got two athletes who went to the world. It's a little weird for me, you know. Again, no offense because I, like I said, I like the gentleman a lot. But if I'm being real, if I'm keeping it 100, what's right is right. You know, these these other coaches should be there. So, I mean, that's exactly what AAU did, right? They whoever had people on the national team, they brought these coaches on the trip. So just uh, but congratulations.
SPEAKER_01:Like, you know, I I don't know. I like I said, I always tell you, I'm used to it. I mean, like you said, there's no knock on anyone, it's just always uh a call for transparency, a call for how and what and why. And you know, but there's usually no explanation to follow that. It just kind of happens and people rotate in and out depending on what the who that person is at the moment. But um, like I said, like you said, I think I think it's a it's a huge benefit to him as far as like being there with his son at the World Championship, if he's coaching his son at the World Championship. So that puts him in a little bit of a better pocket, I guess.
SPEAKER_03:Yeah, I mean, listen, and we all we all know that nowadays you can have many, many coaches. And even if you offer you know you know, you present people the opportunity to be there as part of the delegation and maybe coach your individual athletes, as long as they follow certain protocol and all that kind of stuff. I get all that stuff. Why not? Why not? I mean, do the best for the athletes, you know. But again, my point is it's weird when you do it for one, but you don't do it for somebody else that has multiple people on the team. That part doesn't add up. Like you said, transparency part of that is a little awkward for me. I don't know. Here or there. But nevertheless, let's get into it. Um, so I came up with a bunch of topics, and I thought we started, you know, we were talking about athlete development. I think we got into a little bit of program development, but I was talking about uh thinking about like great coaches and more more specifically the mentors that they've had, and is it important to have a lineage of of coaching mentors for someone to be successful? Because I mean I'm gonna put it out there right away when I look at professional sports, even in the I use the NFL because to me that's one of the most competitive um sports you can look at because of the amount of games, the limited amount of people, the limited amount of teams, and it's just so condensed where you know so much is riding almost all the time. But when I see some of the successful coaches, they all come from a coaching tree. And not all of them work. I mean, some of them are great coordinators that get their chance and don't pan out. But the ones that when I'm looking around, the ones that are successful, I I don't know any of them that did it by themselves. Like zero. I don't know anyone that's so unique that they just came from their own tree, they started and went down. It just seems like they they all came from somewhere, and that person ahead of them wasn't a nobody, he was a somebody and really successful. I I want to get you guys' initial thoughts on that. What do you think about uh what we talked about what makes a great coach, but is it important that the lineage not important, but do you see it as a factor? Maybe that I don't know if I'm explaining that right.
SPEAKER_01:I'll I'll start first. I I I definitely think so. I mean, I think I was talking to you last week at some point about how like the the NFL still, no matter how many years deep, the um the athletes on the on their team are always connected back to their colleges. They went to Penn State University, they went to Notre Dame University, went to this university, and I think that's kind of like the NFL's way of connecting the lineage back with the players, which came from the coaches. And I think that stuff's important because you know how it goes, you're you're pulling players from a certain organization because of the things they've learned from the coaches they work with. But from the coaches aspect, for sure, I mean, even for me, I only could talk from experience from my side of it. I mean, like I think I've said since the very first podcast, I've been able to be around some of the best coaches in the world and be in a room with them as they conducted their team, as they traveled with team, as they disciplined people, as they rewarded people, as they put their drills into place. And I think that kind of that kind of all lines up and puts you in a position to kind of do great things for other people. Um, I I know we always try to recreate the will with uh new coaches and new drills and changing the source, but I think the culture is what's important from the coaching lineage that you get. The culture of what the sport is and where it came from and what are the the most important parts of the development of it.
SPEAKER_00:There's no doubt that well, there's no doubt there's a couple of things. There's no doubt that coaches come from anywhere. And there's also no doubt that good coaches come from, can come from anywhere, but they're outliers. So that's a person who's done the work, somebody who's studied their craft, and they've done it by themselves in a closet with a tape or something, something of that nature. Good coaches can come from anywhere, but great coaches usually come from a lineage of great coaches. So I'll give you um one example. So the most successful coach in the history of the sport of taekwondo is from Korea. Um and he came from the most successful coach in the history of the sport before him. So Koe Min was the computer coach, they called him because of the way he saw the game and how he invasioned it. Kim Sayuk was his direct student. And as a result, if you look at Kim Sayuk's lineage and Koim Min's lineage, and the people that have come from Koim Min, you see only excellence. They understand the game differently and better because they were coached by, trained by. Same thing goes with competition. So um, and this is not a comment on me or anyone else in the world, but you know, my my competition lineage came from a Korean national champion, then an American national champion. And then obviously my record is what my record is. So I have at least had to step up to become better at my sport because of who I trained with and what I did. I made an effort to become a better coach. And then I think we could think of some other coaches. It would be interesting to have the conversation about the I don't want to, I mean, we'll talk obviously about the current coaches, but um, some of the coaches we think are good and where they came from. So Iranio Fargas, for example, he was one of the first non-Koreans to have sustained competitive excellence across a broad swarth of the sport in different countries. You know, Juan Moreno, you know, Brazil, um, obviously America, Mexico, and and um the basement in his house in Miami with Guatemalans that aren't being deported in St. Salvation El Salvador prisons. So your lineage is clear as well. What are those was the jokes and the philosophy?
SPEAKER_03:Now listen, I I you know I like that you use the word outlier because I think that's a problem right now. Everybody wants to try to become that outlier instead of looking for a true there's nothing wrong with having a mentor. Sometimes it happens naturally, but I don't think there's any any uh uh mistake, you know, looking at successful athletes that come from successful programs. Successful coaches provide, you know, build successful coaches. And it's not a it's not an easy thing to do, but I mean it's there's no surprise that, like you said, we're talking about that Korean lineage. I mean, uh, you know, I looked at you you mentioned Aaron Of Argus. Let's talk about him. You look at Juan Ramos, came from his program. You look at Rosendo, came from his program. You looked at Brigitte, came from his program. You have three of the most prolific coaches in Europe came directly from his program. And that's not even to talk about when he went to France, and that's just from Spain. That's not to talk about when he went to Mexico. So you see it and you see, you know, his handprints all over the place. But you mentioned something you said, you know, these people that are in it right now, that's you know, TJ, you'll you'll understand this. That's uh a Mike McDaniel of of the Miami Dolphins, right? This hot name coach, and he comes and he's had three abysmal years here in Miami. You know, you see this a lot. These these people just try to come out and they try to be different and unique and quirky and come up with a new mousetrap versus what's what's proven over and over and over again. I'm not saying stop trying to be innovative. We'll talk about that later. But some things work and some things don't. You know what I'm saying? Sometimes I think there's a reason why there's an Andy Reid, an old coach. I think we talked about this a little bit last time. So I don't know.
SPEAKER_01:I just I uh I think that's I think when you're trying to be so innovative at the cost of, I don't want to use the word tradition or uh um I say of the basics of the basics that work consistently for the fundamentals that work for every other person in the world that kind of gets you that point of being the having the constant uh constant excellence and all that stuff like that, you know, sustained excellence and everything like that.
SPEAKER_03:I'm gonna say something and we can kind of wrap this one up because I know it's a difficult topic to talk about. But I just this was pure look. I was listening to a Joe Rogan podcast and I listened to Mark Kerr. I didn't realize who Mark Kerr was. It's that new movie that just came out, The Smash the Machine with the The Rock is doing it. So I listened to this podcast first, and I just heard him as the guy right now. And then after I listened to it, I was like, wow, that's interesting. So then I went back and watched the real documentary. So it's cool to see all this stuff. Now I'm curious to see the movie. But one thing this dude kept on talking about, because he was a he was a great wrestler. He was a very good MMA fighter early on. He turned into a lot of substance abuse, abuse problems, stuff like that. But one thing he kept on saying was foundational. Everything in the world is foundational, whether it's in wrestling, you have to have foundational principles of shooting like this and doing like this, but all the other little intricate things are unique to yourself. But there's a foundation of a way to do something. There's a foundation of a way to build a house, there's a foundation of how to become educated. And then, of course, there's little nuances here and there. And when I heard him say that, I'm like, that's to your point, TJ. There's some things that are just right, some things that will stand the test of time, conditioning, basics, uh fundamental ideas of concepts of how to fight something comes here, you can't hear, something comes here. You these are these are not going away. But I think the best mentors, the best coaches never stray from those principles. Their foundational elements are just I don't even want to say they're unique, they're just core values, and that's why they're good. I don't know.
SPEAKER_01:Yeah, it's it's hard to especially when it comes just like coaching or developing. I guess that's what kind of what I where I am now, like developing and working with my guys in my gym and getting them things like sometimes we'll do drills, and I spend I try to spend very little time doing the unique stuff, the the tricky stuff, the the changing stuff, because some kids can do it, some kids can't. I don't think you can build an entire system off of that. I think if that's our goal, then we're we're screwed because it it takes away from the development. And once again, like you said, once the game changes, if and when it changes back to something different, we're not able to uh to adjust or change that because we're so drowned in the this could work, this could work, this could work as opposed to what will work 95% of the time. What what what changes the match 95% of the time, you know?
SPEAKER_03:I'm gonna give you guys both a compliment, TJ. I've always loved because you know how important it is to me, how you never skip motion and movement, how you just believe that in your heart, that that's the that's one of the core things as a fighter needs to have. And I love that you never straight from that. Young, I went to your school, I know that you know Olympic sparring is not the focus, but I told you, I and I I don't gotta I don't have to blow smoke up your ass. I told you the way your kids kick, the way your kids move, their their fundamentals are very good. And if they so chose to transition into Olympic sparring on a real serious level, they would be fine because of their fundamentals. And I'm not I'm not saying that just to you know blow you guys up, but I I I truly, truly believe that when I've gone to both of your places. So, you know, that's uh that's what I love about your fundamental. And I've been to other places. I you know me, I travel all the time, and I get to people and they go, oh, watch this guy, and they do all this stuff, and I'm like, pretty good, but they can't move, they they don't have to balance it, and I'm just kind of like I'm not interested. So that's that's being honest, that's being real.
SPEAKER_00:Uh appreciate the kind words. I I think you have we have to remember, um, and I did this, and you did it when we were training, we all did it when we were training. There is the core athleticism, agility, and understanding of the sport as it functions that you have to have in order to function in the sport. Then there are the things that you can add to it that are unique to you or unique to the game that you can do to score. So, even talking about the modern game, if you do all the core values of what it takes to understand the sport, how empty and full space works, in the words of Dr. Capner, you understand how technique works, how distance works, how those fundamentals work, and you practice those, then you will have the raw physical skills and the talent and the ability to manifest it. No matter what you choose to do, that's additional to that. So if you want to lift your front leg up and do whatever you want to do with your front leg, you'll have the balance, the power, and the understanding of the concept of distance, speed, and how the pieces fit together. So I think that you're better served if you're coaching and you're teaching with that understanding and then and working from that starting place as opposed to doing it the reverse way, which is, you know, let me let me take a ballet dancer and teach them how to do this thing that I do, and then they can actually win because that's possible, right? You can take a ballet dancer who's incredibly flexible, has reverse stretch. I'm not talking about 180, I'm talking about, you know, negative, and let them leave their leg up there and they can do the and then teach them how to, because they can already do it, move with their bottom foot, and then teach them the fundamental tricks of the sport. That'll only get them so far. And so I think I think that's a good observation. It it dovetails into, you know, as far as the conversations coaches go and where good coaches come from or where great coaches come from, you know, there's a whole other aspect of the technical understanding of how to coach. And then the other aspects of coaching is how to get your message across. So watching those coaching styles, um, understanding the game, we've been, I think we've been talking mostly about good coaches come from, being able to come from a place where they were explained the fundamentals of the game in such a way that it translates into their coaching. So they understood how it worked, why it worked. And when you understand how it's like a chess master. If you're if you understand chess, you understand it in a different way than I understand chess, because I don't understand. I play chess, but I don't I don't think at that level. Um but if you truly play chess, you're playing a different game.
unknown:Yep.
SPEAKER_03:Listen, I I mean I'll wrap that up. I I think that's well said, and I think again, you know, these new age coaches that just come up with these ideas and they skip these fundamentals, you could tell they have no lineage. You could tell they have no ideas of of what really makes a a a great you know combat sport athlete. And so you could tell their lineage is weak and they're watching what's on YouTube and they're just trying to piece it together, and they can talk the talk and they can kind of act like it, but um, you know long term they're not gonna produce anything. And you know, we talked about programs and stuff like that last week with you, TJ. And I think that's where these coaches, you know, their their emptiness kind of kind of uh shows. Which let me let me transition into this because we talk about you know coaches, we talked about athlete development. What's the true this is a loaded question? What do you what would you guys say the two uh the true goal is in combat sports? And I know young you're gonna say, ah, our sport is not real combative anymore, but let's just say, let's say it is. What let's go let's go individually. Let's not say holistically. Uh TJ, you you go into the ring with your as an as an individual or as an athlete, what is your goal? What what's your objective? Ultimate, like best, best, best case scenario.
SPEAKER_01:In a in a in a in a particular any particular match, correct? Just like in general, I walk into the ring, I'm gonna compete.
unknown:Yeah.
SPEAKER_01:Probably to figure out the person's motives and kind of control them. I I think it was a lot for me, was um understanding, like when it came to understanding a fighting that way, almost trying to break their will a little bit. Because when you break someone's will, everything opens up. And I know that looks a little different these days, but we watched it from the beginning when you could run up 30 points. Think about back in the day when GB, before we went to the round by round, and they come back and they're up by 17, 18, 19 points. That's a tough place to get someone up, but they were just breaking people's wills to fight. And they know, okay, I gotta try to fight out this hole. So I would think my goal would be to break their will, break their will and make them question everything they know.
SPEAKER_00:Yo. I mean, I come from a different place just because of the nature of the individual I was. So I don't, I never worried about my opponent. What I what I worried about was how could I, what could I do in the ring to the individual that faced me at that moment so that the next person feared for their life? And that the person that I just finished fighting quit the sport. So when I would when I fought with people, that's the way I looked at it. And I was very similar to Patrice in that sense. Patrice had a thing where he would talk about it and he'd say, I might I didn't go in there to win matches, I went in there to kill people. And C Fu Visio, who I've talked about before, his thing was anytime I fought somebody, I'd say, Oh yeah, I got another match coming. He goes, Against two. I said, Well, the guy fought three weeks ago. He goes, He's coming back? And I'm like, Yeah, he goes, then you didn't do your job right. He said, When I fought somebody, I think in his entire career, he only fought one guy twice. And the reason he fought that guy twice was he lost to the guy in the first match, Cliff Thomas. And the guy he got um elbowed in the face and a broken jaw, and then he went back and beat the guy and knocked him out. That's the only time I think he ever fought anyone twice. Nobody ever came back to fight him. And so that was more my mentality of um, and I'll leave one other, I think it's worth mentioning, Steve Capner's way of looking at this. While he had my sensibilities, his thing was my job in the ring, and this is where he would always be frustrated with me, he says, my job in the ring is to show the beauty of the sport. In other words, if I can do something, why not do it? So if I can do a double kick instead of this, why can't I do that? And so he would use the full palette available to him, and that's what he felt like his job was.
SPEAKER_03:Yeah. I mean, listen, it it is interesting because I know it's a game nowadays and we're trying to you know put up points, and you know, sometimes people say, you know, they have trying to you know put as many points on there, but I would have to agree with you, TJ, and I kind of maybe a little bit sideways with you, young, is that for me, I I just believe that if you can break somebody's will, their their rational thought or reason to being in the ring to fight, um, you you own them. I mean, and that's a very barbaric, mean, tough thing to say and very difficult thing to do nowadays because the the way the fight is. But, you know, for me, I think in my ultimate goal, and even in the ultimate mindset of athletes, you should just tell them that you're trying to break somebody's will. Is that even like if sometimes it could be you know self-mastery, like I'm just want to be, you know, beautiful, technique, and and and fast and strong. Uh, but I think if you could just again take their ability or reason to be in that ring, woo, it's over, right? I mean, they lost before they got in.
SPEAKER_00:Well, think about think about Patrice, right? Like, and I always use Patrice because, you know, as good as some people were, you know, when you went in, when you went in to fight Patrice, you weren't worried about winning a match. You were worried about not getting knocked out. Like you hoped to survive the match. You didn't go in to try to win that match. You tried to get out of the ring alive. And I think that's, you know, like as we all get older, our stories get better and what people say about us get better. But I knocked out one guy in every tournament. So if you were in that arena, you were in a place where you were like, I hope it's not me. And I I mean, people fought us differently because they knew that that reality was there, that you could be knocked out. And so they didn't like I fought Korea a bunch, and Korea didn't fight me the way it fought everyone else. And I take that as a compliment because it wasn't about the knockout thing, but they knew I could fight. So I think that when you set the tone when you have a match, then that's that's what happens. And that that was the one thing that I I wasn't the I don't ever feel like I was the best technical fighter, but you didn't come in the ring. You you were worried about getting hit by me. You weren't you weren't worried about losing a point.
SPEAKER_01:Yeah, you knew it was coming, you knew it was gonna happen. I think it's I think one thing we used to have in my bag or in my generation when I was competing a little bit more was that that sense of unknowing. Like people didn't know everything about you. People didn't know when you were injured, people didn't know if you were a happy guy. Everyone tells me I was the meanest person in the world in the holding area. I've heard this story. I don't remember being that mean in the whole thing. I remember I remember minding my business and just getting ready for my match. But to everyone else around me, they tell me, Oh, you were mean in the holding area, you were this in the whole area, you you you did this. And maybe that was the the vibe I gave off, and that's the vibe I needed because they were paying attention and clearly I was focused.
SPEAKER_03:So listen, I think I think also obviously, you know, if you ask me as a different, we all have different things in our life, but if you're asking me as a competitor, as a fighter, if if I would rather have been, you know, feared or respected, 100% it's feared. I'd much rather have you fear me because I think it lasts a lot longer. If you respect me, you'll stand in there and and and try to exchange with me. But if you fear me, you don't want to do anything. I'd kind of break your will. But I also think it's it's important that you're intelligent enough to be like, all right, I'm not gonna break this guy's will. And because not everybody's will is is easily broken. Some people you could you could take their body, you can bang their body up. You see it a lot in MMA where guys just don't quit and the referees have to have to have to wave it off. Or, you know, you heard Khib tap, tap. I don't want to break your arm. And like the referee has to step in and do it because these guys are so strong or so tough that they, you know, somebody has to save them from themselves. And I think as fighters, sometimes you get that dude, you know. I mean, I get a hard Perez, I get a Terrace Jennings, and they're equal to me uh mentality-wise, and I'm not gonna break them. So I have to kind of how do I transition into taking away what they do technically or imposing my my dominance of skill on them. So I think there's obviously unbalanced, but I just think of it's interesting because again, I was listening to you know some another fighting podcast, and and they kept on bringing that. Well, you you you you you nailed it, TJ. They said, I want to take the other guy's will. I want to break his will. Even if I can't get his body, I'm gonna get his will. I'm like, wow. It was very barbaric. And I I don't think that that can you, TJ in our in our world right now, do you know anybody? Can you name any one fighter that's that you can say, dude, he's going out there to mess you up? Do you know anybody?
SPEAKER_01:Nah, I think we're too, I think our sport where it is right now is a little bit too gamified for that. I guess I get the one thing I get on my guys about a lot of times during training is um, well, we'll be doing a drill, whatever. Let's just say regular fighting drills, and we consistent, like you're consistently scoring something. Like there's something this guy can't deal with in front of you. And they have this eagerness to change and do something different. I'm like, why would you ever, if he can't deal with this, I'm not gonna change. And I think that goes into identifying someone's weakness or or what they're bad at and like being willing enough to stay there. Don't you're not fighting for the crowd, you're not fighting for the people. It's like, I know you don't like this, I know you can't handle this, and until you figure that out, I'm gonna stay right here and make you deal with it.
SPEAKER_03:That's like a way to say that's like a being like almost like a like a vicious mindset. Like, you don't like it, you don't like it? I'm gonna keep going, I'm gonna keep going. I mean, man, that's I I used you say that, and I can close my eyes to just see you know my past and people that used to fight. I'm like, dude, there's nothing they can do about it, and they're gonna keep getting hit with it. That's cool. That's a great comment. That's a great comment.
SPEAKER_01:Yeah, and that's that that's the exploding their weakness a little bit and their insecurity. So everybody knows what they don't like. And the moment you start feeding that to them, they don't like, and that's when they go away faster. Whether it be from, I think that's what we have to get. This game is a little obviously we don't see big, big, a lot of amazing big shots, but you watch some guys get walked down and like maybe they win the first round, they lose the first round, and then the second round they put it on them, and then by the third round, you're watching a lopsided match. You're just like, holy shit, where'd this guy from the first round? Yes, but you know, but their will's been broken, their their coach's will has been broken, their their connection with their coach has been severed, and you you watch these these top guys sometimes fall apart in those situations. But I think that's kind of what's happening and what it looks like in today's tech window, you know?
SPEAKER_03:So what if I what if I said this, like you know, since we're talking about matches and breaking people's will and stuff, is it my man? Two questions. Is there such a thing as a must-to-win situation? And is a win a win? We say people say that a lot, right? A win's a win. Win's a win. Is win always a win? Yeah, and is there a must-win situation?
SPEAKER_01:A win is always a win when it's a must-win situation. We'll take we'll take a win and any kind of win in a must-win situation, we'll take it because sometimes, you know, it'd be like that. You know, we gotta get we gotta muster and fight through those, it'd be like that, you know. And if you that maybe it's a bad day, but you were able to do it. Um, but saying if there's a if a win's a win, no, some wins aren't wins. Some wins are just, and I think we I think again with when we switched over to the points and everything like that. And I'll I'll I'll go with uh Grandmaster Disaster on this one. No one cared about second or third or third. Oh but it just wasn't even like if you got second, you went home and you were like, you were furious. Furious, you you lost, you lost. That was it, you lost, you didn't meddle, you lost. Everyone has I lost. I never remember saying I got second, I got third. What happened this weekend? I lost.
SPEAKER_03:It don't matter where I lost, I lost. Yeah, you lost, yeah, yeah.
SPEAKER_01:So I mean, I think I think uh, like I said, I think a win's a win in tough situations, but every win's not a win for sure.
SPEAKER_03:Well, young, I can see you. You're your your wheels are turning.
SPEAKER_00:Yeah, no, for me, it's like, you know, like when you we had that kind of conversation, you know, it was just a different mindset. Like I thought, you know, to just touch on one point before we move on to that is you know, I think it's interesting that there's no one that neither of you who are very astute and very knowledgeable about the current game can talk about one player, any player that currently fights, that has the met that mentality of like you're afraid of them and they beat people down, right? And so when you talk about wins, and then I'll let me I just wanted to say that, but on the win thing, you know, uh a win, we we if we didn't win first place, we didn't really talk about second and third. Um, I mean, I could like I've said I don't have any silver or bronze medals. I think I got a couple of them, I just never took them home. And I didn't talk about it, I didn't put it in the newspaper, I didn't do anything with it. The there were times when you win, and your job, and this is one of the frustrations Dr. Caithness had with me, there would be times where I knew I had to get the win, so I wasn't fighting a beautiful game, I was fighting a game to win a game. And so I I definitely have had matches where they weren't like amazing matches. Um and so while they may have been a win on the scoreboard, they weren't a win for me personally because I didn't execute. I was pretty happy with most of my Olympic matches and um the World Cup matches I was extremely happy with because I implemented my plan. Um and the Pan Am games, those were those were big wins, obviously. But there were things that I had great performances and didn't win and ended up with a bronze. And I, at the end of the day, if I didn't win, then the tournament as a whole was a failure for me. So I I I think it's just a mindset, but that's a winner's mindset. So yeah, it's hard to, you know, can you can you train that? Can you help somebody understand that? I watched, I don't know if you guys watched soccer, but there was the Champions Cup on last night. It's between um, it must be between some teams in Mexico, or maybe it's just a one-off between LA Galaxy and uh a team from Mexico. And LA Galaxy was winning 1-0, and then the other team put the ball in the net, and then LA Galaxy got the ball in the net again. Um, and actually the team that got the ball in the net, the catch up to Galaxy, um, did it by a penalty. Well, listen, they go into the last four minutes of the game, and the team from Mexico scores the final goal like with 10 seconds left. Because they're just, you know, the coach got the put in perspective, the coach got thrown out, then the coach's son got thrown out. You know, they got red card during the one guy got red card during the the halftime conversation, and then his son got thrown out in the middle of the game. And then, you know, they were like 12, but that's today, and they're pushing the ref, which I don't I'm not a fan of that. Um, but that's how hungry these guys were for a win, right? It's a mentality of winning. And so, you know, just to circle full back to the thing about winning and what does that mean? You know, I think it says a lot about a sport that's supposed to be a martial art, and that's a full contact martial art that used to be a knockout sport that you can't think of a single player that you're afraid of. Or that scares people.
SPEAKER_03:I can't.
SPEAKER_01:It's just too much inconsistency now. I think I think when I I'll go one generation before, I think the you knew who all the big guys were, and you kind of could predict the finals just from seeing the brackets. I don't think we're in that era anymore. I just think it maybe it's a system thing, maybe it's not, but I mean, I I think there's just too much inconsistency.
SPEAKER_00:So you either you're either but I don't understand what you're saying. Either you're saying it's it's either the game, the system, or the scoring system or something of that nature. It's it's one of those things. Because in any sport, there should be if the sport is judged fairly and it judged accurately, there should be guys that win pretty much a lot. Unless it's swimming, where the there are just so many people swimming, it's hard to produce somebody who's going to win multiple Olympic gold medals and it just doesn't happen anymore. Um and staying on the U.S. team for a long time is very difficult. So if that is the case, then that would make sense. But what does it say that you can't predict with any certainty? I know when we were on this, just before we got on the on this meeting and podcast, we were talking about predictions somebody had made for the U.S. team results. And I I can't put any stock in that. You can because you can't predict you can't predict how accurately the system is going to score, how accurately a person's gonna understand the system, they need to score. And so I think that's an interesting comment. And that and I think that's that that's somewhere else that you we have to think about. What does it say? If do you remember who your Ray Faber was? You guys anybody remember him? Yeah, heck yeah. When fight when Faber was fighting, it wasn't the qu and the the other cat, like the guy from uh Ubekus and whoever he's from the Kabib, he fought, or Conor McGregor when he was good. Those guys fought, and you knew what the outcome was gonna be because the rules worked, and so you knew based on the rules what the highly likelihood was until somebody figured out how to beat the guys that they were gonna win. And what does it say that you can't do that now?
SPEAKER_03:I think, you know, listen, I I like that that's a good point, TJ. Must win is a win, you know, when you need that win, right? I I I get that. But I I don't know because listen, I I oh I'm a I'm a realist, you know, and I know that at the end of the day, results speak for themselves. But I will say this, I mean, you know, uh football again, real fast. I mean, the the Miami Dolphins beat the Jets 27-20, right? The Jets are the worst team in the NFL. And if you want to say you guys did good, well, they turned the ball over three times and you still almost, if they still had a chance to beat you guys. Like, yeah, you got a win. I get it. But at the same time, I don't think that's I don't think that's a win. If I'm really looking as a coach, I'm like, man, these guys ran the ball for 180 yards on us and we got by. If I'm a top rate, top-rated fighter TJ and you'll know where I'm going with this, and I'm in a match, I'm in a three-round match against some small Caribbean island because I gave up the first round, had to come back the second round, and I, yeah, I won the third round. Okay, hats off. A win's a win. But there's no way that you can feel good about that win. There's no way that you build off that win. So in those situations, I'm a realist that I gotta look at my athlete and look at my team and say, we didn't, we got the W. Okay, but that is not good enough. That's not acceptable. I could be honest, we were lucky. Um, the team isn't that good, they're not as well coached, they're not as well trained, and somehow we got out of there. Um, but I think I was leaning more towards Herb Perez, Terrence Jennings, Olympic trials. This is a must-win situation. Like, did you have a must-win situation in your life? Herb, you did because you were in your second Olympic trials. That was a must MF and win, right? TJ, I mean, I I think in your life, you were like, I got two times that I'm gonna put this as a must win. And if I don't, it's all for nothing. You you're the main man going and you're at the Olympic Games. You're a must win.
SPEAKER_01:I'll say three times then.
SPEAKER_03:Well, no, yeah. I'm gonna say I'm sure you had it many times, you know, that you probably put yourself on that line. But my point is, you know, Jung, you you said silver and bronze. I I don't know, unless you can find it anywhere in the history of my speaking. I never say I won two silver medals. I say I got two silver medals. You ask me, I lost. I lost. Two Olympic Games, I lost. Not happy with it, not proud of it. I've always said that. I mean, Jung, you're joking about not having silver. I threw a silver medal away at a Pan Am Championship one time and trying to get people wanting me to go apologize for it. I'm like, that's my medal. I can do what I want with it. I wasn't happy with it, I dropped in a garbage can. That's that's that's for me. But I don't know. I I I I don't think a win is a win, and I don't, and I but I do think there are some must-win situations for individual people.
SPEAKER_01:I I used, and this is just me talking, I used to feel like we had three things. It was the our Pad Am games, are the world championships and the Olympic games. And I know we can talk about every other tournaments, but those are like the three, like those are the scoreboards now. Those were the scoreboards. And I, you know, I think we moved closer to the Olympic Games being the scoreboard. I think I don't know if it was you, you tell me if I'm right or wrong, but I feel like those two back-to-back world championships from Baku to Guadalajara, that messed up the world championship, like the feel for me for some reason. The fact that they were so close, the fact that turnaround was so quick, I don't know what it was. But um I think we've into this realm of comp competing so much that I think like always, but the Olympic Games is the must-win situation. It's the ones that we we have to show up for, and you gotta put your stamp on it because even like talking even about thinking about this year leading into the world championships, and that's what we're talking about, the predictions and everything. I'm not quite sure that any of this stuff was must-win for people leading up to this point. You know what I mean? Obviously, the points for the world championships carry on to next year for the grand prize, but I think I think it's interesting to see. We're gonna see a lot of different concepts of what people did with these two years lead into that day, those days of competition. So it's gonna be interesting to see, I think.
SPEAKER_03:So it must win situation. I because we we talked about this a way back. Canelo, I'm just gonna throw it. I was thinking about this. Canelo and Crawford must win for Canelo.
SPEAKER_01:I think he had, I think Canelo had to win. He had like again, let's let's get forget the money, forget the forget how much you've done before. I think go having someone go up a couple weight classes, you being the big guy, you being Canelo, I think it's a 1000%. Whether people want to keep scoring that, I say it doesn't change his legacy. For me, it's a must-win. If I was in that situation, I gotta win that fight. I gotta win.
SPEAKER_03:You know what? It's funny. I I I've actually dived into dove into this a lot recently and just looking at some stuff. Canelo was an outlier in that weight category. Think about it, he's short, he he was a matchup problem for all the big guys. And so when I started looking at it more, I'm like, wait a minute. Carver was younger than him, taller than him, way longer reaching him, not much lighter than him. I know on paper, he moved up two rounds, two weights, but that was like the more and more I thought about it, that was a bad, bad matchup for Canelo. And Canelo had a history of losing to boxers. Like, the more and more I looked at him like Canelo was silly for taking that match. That had an L all over it. I think, I think he took it.
SPEAKER_01:But he says he always wants the hardest challenges. He said he always wants to fight whoever is. That's what I'm saying.
SPEAKER_03:I think he took that knowing what good and well knowing that, but that's why I don't think it was a must-win because he has the money, he has the good writing. I don't think think about it. The world, no one's changed anything, no one's changed their views on him. Think about that.
SPEAKER_01:I would just want to win. I guess I don't know must-win, but I would really want to freaking. I'm not saying he didn't want to win, but and again, I I know it's hard to talk about boxing because I don't box sometimes and always get. I like boxing a lot. I I didn't feel his intensity in that fight. I never felt him uh lost one. Oh, I got wait. You switched to your voice. Me? I don't I don't see anybody's picture. I see you. Uh we see you. Anyways, okay, okay, I don't know. Um, I I feel like I never I never felt his intensity in that match. Like he never really got after him in those situations that like I thought he could like you know be a little rougher or go a little bit more, like never happened, you know.
SPEAKER_03:Well, I mean, I don't know if it's because he couldn't or this guy was just too good, but again, the more and more I thought about it, that was a matchup problem. I mean, that was a big matchup problem. I mean, it's and I think Canelo was smart too. I'm sorry, Crawford was smart too. He knew that. Like, does Crawford really want to fight Benavides, who's you know, eight inches taller or six inches taller? And you know, a big I don't know. I think it was a perfect match for Crawford and in a in a bad matchup for Canelo. That's why I was thinking more Martana, but I'm like, I don't know, is that a must-to win? I I get what you're saying, him being the bigger guy, him holding the belts, him being the A-side. But I don't know, man.
SPEAKER_01:I would just really, I think if I'm him also, I know what you're saying about all the other stuff. I don't think anything changes in his life. I don't think anything even changes with his. I don't even think I think we stopped talking about this fight in a couple days, you know what I mean? Like it is what it is. That's boxing as the world, but like I I would have wanted to see it be. I didn't think it was gonna be that lopsided. I guess that's my point.
SPEAKER_03:Me neither, me neither. Hey, what do you guys think about we always talk about dominating, taking people's will, uh, all this stuff. How about some pre-ritual, pre-match rituals? Pre-match rituals. Like important, not important, silly. Um what what do you think?
SPEAKER_01:I think important. I mean, I think just for levels of consistency, maybe it's a certain warm-up, maybe it's a certain something, but I think those things kind of put you in the headspace you needed. I mean, that's a little bit more of a general, broader kind of pre-fight ritual thing, but there there is definitely things in that kind of brought me back to that moment, and I think I used a lot of those for sure.
SPEAKER_00:I think you have to learn, you know, and I was having this conversation with my son about some certain one of his things. I think you have to understand yourself and you have to develop in yourself habits that create the right environment for you to be successful. And that starts with the way that you warm up. Um, and I learned that again from C Foo Visio. He says, if you go into the ring and you're not dripping wet, then you haven't warmed up enough to be ready to go into a match. And he wasn't wrong. You don't have time to warm up for your match to get ready. Second, I think it's the way that you eat and you stretch, and you know, post and rhino, you've been around me long enough to see how I warmed up and what I would do before a match. Um and it was always consistent because I knew that if I did those things, my body and my mind would be in the right place to perform. And if I didn't do those things, the times that I lost, to be honest, were times that I didn't do those things, either as part of my um preparation or as part of my getting ready. And I can think of one particular World Cup in Madrid where I didn't do those things, and I had probably one of the most embarrassing performances I've ever had as an international player. So I think you fully have to build those, understand what they are. And sometimes they are just good luck kind of things. They're not necessarily um, you know, I used to, because I won my first national um collegiate championship, and I was staying at Kevin Pabilla's ant house, and we had Platanos Maduro and some Congri. So for the longest time before we fought, I would get some Platanos Maduro and Congri as breakfast with eggs. So, you know, um, and for TJ, that's uh it's black beans with rice. I know what that is. I I uh I didn't want to assume I didn't want to assume that you I I know you know what grits were and you know and uh and and stuff like that, but you know that wasn't a that was what that wasn't a racial comment, by the way.
SPEAKER_01:What of what about you? Grits are amazing, I don't care what you say. What about you, coach? What about you, coach?
SPEAKER_03:All I think about is that movie from my cousin Vinny, like how you make grits, the the instant ones, no good southern note, you don't make no instant grits anymore.
SPEAKER_00:I I I think about ladies, man, where they try to outdo each other. I'll take the pig seat. But anyway.
SPEAKER_03:No, you know what? I again I I I was thinking about this because listen, I was a ritual kind of guy. I had my certain things in me. I have rituals when I get when I fly, things I do before I fly, I have something that I wear, blah, blah, blah, blah. It just makes me feel comfortable. But I think I'm I've also built up a uh resistance that if something is not there or I don't have it, then that's not going to affect me. I think I think we all have anxieties before competitions and we all do something that makes us comfortable. But I think that the the champions, when they don't have that, they don't the sky is falling. The day is is not lost. And I think that's uh it's good to have some comfort, it's good to do some things in a routine, but not so much that if that routine gets messed up for not your own doing, that you're still able to perform. And I think that, you know, I've seen some, I've seen rituals displayed more and more these days. Like I don't know your personal rituals, TJ, but I'm sure you had some. I mean, I know I again I had mine before I fought, how I trained here, right here on what I ate. Um, I've even created some for some of my athletes, my my daughter in particular, um, just so that they do certain things that they can kind of like, all right, this is normal. Now I go perform. But I think that, you know, the difference between like an average athlete and a great athlete is those pre- you know, whether it's just normal anxieties or pre-ritual anxieties, being able to control them so that they can kind of go and still do their job. Um, because like I said, we all have them. I was I was thinking, you know what the two loneliest time of an athlete is? The two loneliest times? I think you're gonna love this. The walk to the ring and the walk away from the ring when you lose. Think about that. When you're walking to the ring, it's such a lonely time. It's so, so like nobody can help you, right? You're you think about your brain, what's going through as you're walking to that to that match. It's only you. Your coach can touch you, they can say, hey, go. But dude, it's all and when you lose, not when you win, that that that that's a nice happy, you're smiling. You have a but when you lose and you walk back and your coach lets you go by yourself, and you're tying your hogo, and every all your teammates are kind of like, I better go to the next match. Dude, that's think about how people.
SPEAKER_01:Because that's that moment. That's that moment you question everything, whether you want to or not. In that moment, you question everything. I mean, if you if you're doing your job at home, I would say. Because good people lose all the time, whatever, but like you question, did you sleep right? Did you eat right? Did you warm up? Did you have your necklace? Did you do this? Did you do that? And like everything is kind of and then it's some, I guess the good thing is I always tell my guys I have a short memory when they win and a short memory when they lose. And like so, shortening that time, you feel like that is the best case scenario, but like, yeah, for sure. Definitely walking away after a loss. Definitely walking away after a loss. That's the especially when the whole denariers like across the room. So long, long, lowly walking. It's when people are trying to talk to you.
SPEAKER_03:Yeah, listen, I always say, I mean, I young I when I coach, I say, you know, live point to point, round to round, match to match. I mean, because if you look at the big picture, I've got to win five matches, forget that. Try to win the try to get this next point and then do it again, do it again, then do it again. And it's the same thing, you know, because I have these kids that they lose, and it's over. Like, I love that they can let it go, but not so much. Like, we need to we need to reflect on that. So there's that, again, like in life, there's a balance. But I was thinking about that. Like, like these guys were talking about in MMA. They said, think about this. You're in a stage with 30,000 people, watching some other guy beat your ass, knock you on content, in in your and you're wearing, and you're wearing a you're wearing tights. You're like, you're in there for everyone to watch you get your ass kicked. And then when you lose, you're you're standing there in some tights and they raise another dude's hand, and you got to do the walk of shame all the way back. And I was like, we're not.
SPEAKER_01:That's the beauty of fighting.
SPEAKER_03:Yeah. I love it. But I'm saying, like, you know, that's a very intimate personal feeling. Of course, we're not in our our pajamas, actually close with this new tight-fitting stuff that people that we have to wear. Yeah, I would love to see you wearing that with your big butt, short legs, long ass arms. They made him a lot more loose though, too. His tombo could be like this high because he got those damn gorilla arms.
SPEAKER_00:I would have knocked a lot of people out because I've been very angry about the outfit.
SPEAKER_03:Come on, man, do you see uh macho libre? Men weighs 20 pants.
SPEAKER_00:No, I mean, you know, I mean the the walking, you know, I there were time I uh there were only a few, I was lucky that there were only a few important things that I lost. Um one very important one that I remember the walk and the time and the feeling. Um and luckily I had some other performances that were good. Um but that feeling of knowing that you could have performed better and you didn't perform as well as you could have was was always hard. If that makes any sense.
SPEAKER_03:What about what about what about okay? You guys help me on?
SPEAKER_01:No, no, no, no. Nothing. No, no, not anything. Go ahead.
SPEAKER_03:Do you think there's any barriers in our sport that we could break? You know me, again, I keep I I feel bad. You know, I you know, I'm a sports dude, so I'm always comparing and stuff. And I was thinking about when people broke the the five-minute mile, nobody could do it, now everybody does. You know, I think about this pole vaulter dude that's breaking the world. He broke it like, I don't know, like 15 times. He's just crazy. You know, that guy David Goggins that runs you know 100 miles, you know, a couple times a week. Like, like people break these barriers all the time, but I'm like, is there anything is there anything in our sport? Any barrier that we could break that like which again I think is a scary, sad thing because I don't know. I'm trying to find one. What's the barrier we can break? Maybe stringing wins together. Maybe stringing, there hasn't been anyone to win three Olympic gold medals. Nobody. And we've had some dominant people. We had that, you know, the Chinese bro.
SPEAKER_01:When you say barrier, that it changes, does it change so with barriers it changes something after the fact? Like it takes us to another level, or you're just talking about like kind of historical things that need to be broken within the sport.
SPEAKER_03:I think take us to another level. That would be my thing. But yeah, historically, you know, I mean, obviously Steven Lopez broke the world championship record. But you know, how many, I mean, that's 20 years ago? 20 plus years ago? I mean uh actually not 20 years ago.
SPEAKER_01:2000 2009 was the last one? Yes, because he's won World Championships. Sorry, I missed it.
SPEAKER_03:Yeah, world championship. You're right, 2009, so it wasn't 20 years ago, but but a long time ago.
SPEAKER_01:But yeah, that was huge. I um I don't really know. I I I'm not, I would say someone has to be become extremely famous, but like again, uh in this world with sports and everything going on, especially the Olympic side of sports, I think we're always such a small potato on the shelf. You know what I mean? Yeah. We're not it's hard to go, we're gonna get to that next point.
SPEAKER_03:Well, I knew I didn't put this in our in our notes and stuff like that, but what do you think? I I was thinking, like, what if I always if I had to say the one thing that can push our sport to that next level, it would be incentive. It has to be financially incentive. It would attract more people to the sport, more people would say, I'll stay a little longer, I'll do a little bit more, I'll professionalize even more, I'll look past the bullshit. Um, I gotta go over here. If it's not right, it's not right. I'm gonna find the guy that is right. I'm gonna find the woman that is right, I'm gonna find the program that is right because the incentive is so great. If I win it takes care of myself, you know, it would attract more people and it would actually professionalize our sport. I I don't know. I was thinking about that incentives like because we do it for what? We do it for this, and that's great. Okay, it's self-motivation. We do it for the gold medal. I couldn't tell you where my my my medals are at right now. I haven't looked at it for so long. Um like I mean, my family doesn't receive any residual benefits from it. Like, I don't know, I think there was a financial incentive. I think people would actually do more, you know, become more. I think that's the one thing holding us back. I don't know if that could change. I don't know. I don't know.
SPEAKER_01:What's that number? What's that number or the situation of numbers? Like, is there a certain number or is it uh again? Because we can go different. I yeah, is there a number? I'll start there. Is there a number?
SPEAKER_03:Um I'm gonna tell you this. You were a you were an era, a short era before me. But when when I knew I had money to like live every month and not tournament to tournament, that's when I became way more like uh some people that make some lazy, but for me, it gave me security that I knew I can I can train, I can do whatever I had, I didn't have to worry about the bills, this and that. And so I I would think that it would have to be a contract. It's not a one event, it's a contract that gives me the security that I can do this full-time professional, not full-time at the uh National Olympic Training Center, you know, when you're yeah, they're giving you uh training and resources, but where you had something that you could fall back on. Um that number is gonna be different for everybody. You can give someone that has zero and say, here's five thousand dollars a month, go ahead. Good luck. But I think it's gotta be a real number, a real number for somebody, you know. But again, it's attracting that TJ. So not just getting by, but where someone goes, dude, like right now, I was just talking to somebody at my at my gym. The quarterback from Miami is making eight million dollars a year in high school, in college. In college, he's gonna take a pay cut when he goes to the pros. Like that's That's incentive to play football, man. The linemen. This the offensive tackle is getting 700 Gs a year. You don't think that guy feels good, feels comfortable? Like, I'm going to work every freaking day. And I'm going to do more. So I think, like, if I am Camilo Moreno and I say, oh my gosh, I can make$500,000 this year, you know, doing Taekwondo.
SPEAKER_01:That's her life's her life. I don't think that was there before either, though. So what made what made you because you say we talked about it? And we haven't grown. That's true. At all. That's true. Yeah. That's true. And again, I think we talked about it before and always talk about it. We getting into elementary, middle schools, high schools, college, and then have an Olympic level. And so I think that's where it is. It's the popularity overall that's gonna kind of affect everything. League. Because football's getting that NIL money because a league, league's the same thing. A professional league that that uh yeah, exactly. League. 100%.
SPEAKER_03:League. Hey, the UFC got bought because Dana White went to the Farina brothers and said these guys are losing money. And they for some reason, these guys love martial arts, they bought it. Of course, they have a reach money, they had the right guy at the right time. I get all that kind of stuff. But the only thing that turned it into what it is was the UFC brand. They made a league. They made a league. And they did their contender series, which became their farm system. The money was there. The incentive is there. There's some complaining that the low guys make$12,000 to fight. Okay, okay, okay. But the incentive is can I move up the ladder on the card? A pro league would do that. No national affiliation. If you're the best, you got money. And we need we probably need some wealthy individual, some Saudi, somebody from Dubai, somebody from that part of the world that said, you know what? I'm gonna have five diamond league events a year. Come one, come all, take home a hundred thousand dollars, you know, for uh I'm being little compared to other professional sports,$100,000 per division.
SPEAKER_01:You don't think you see some people? They tried that with the they tried that with the Woksie thing, right? Uh what was it, 30, 50, and 70 when it first first first started, they were trying to give a lot of money away. Yeah, they think it was like whatever Chinese money, but I'm not sure.
SPEAKER_03:No, it was 70 grand. It was 70 grand.
SPEAKER_01:Really?
SPEAKER_03:Yeah, yeah. Oh but uh yeah, they they they they renamed that real quick. Now it felt to be like five. That's funny. That was funny. What do you think, young? I see you over there looking at the daisies.
SPEAKER_00:It's not that, it's just, you know, we did a study on this at the Olympic thing. And if it's sustained money, just like sustain competitive excellence, then I think it makes a difference. But incremental money, meaning if I win this, I get X amount of dollars. By the time you get to the highest levels, you're trying to win no matter what. Like the Spanish guy I fought would have got a million dollars had he won a gold medal. And he won a gold medal. And it was a million dollars had he gotten it. Um the Koreans get a lifetime salary and a job. The Turkish guys get half a million dollars, the Taipei guy gets half a million dollars, and his coach gets uh$300,000, and they get apartments and houses and stuff. So when you you said something interesting, which was about um sustain uh something that you know would change your life so you could continue to do what you do, then I think that's they call that bubble money. And that's when you put people that are in the pipeline that can perform and you give them money so they can continue to train. I think that's where the money kind of matters. And then you can incentivize them along the way for bigger and better results. But I think the money's better in the early stages, and this allows that talent to continue to prosper without fear of being unable to do it. Does that make sense?
SPEAKER_03:Yes, it does. And I and I I listen, I always had this crazy concept of okay, just use Olympic weights. I don't care what you want to call it, but whatever. You say, look, you can have four men and four alternates. Of course, your A team is your A team and your B team are getting paid less. They might not fight, you know what I'm saying? They might they might have to be, and if they're good enough, maybe another team will pick them up. You know what I'm saying? Like this is what you do. And you don't have these huge teams because one team can get all the best fighters. Does it make sense? So you say, Coca-Cola, you can get only these four fighters. I know you want these other ones, but you can't, right? You can't monopolize it. And coal gas, you can get it. And uh, you know, just you have these these a coach and a program, and you got four, it's a small team, it's it's it's they can they make money and then they win more money when they win things. I think if you do things like that, you don't, it has doesn't have to be nationalistic. If I'm in Iran and I want to bring in a Korean and a Russian and a Chinese and an American, that's what you do. No different than Barcelona soccer team, no different than uh PSG soccer team, you know, blah, blah, blah. Go down the list. I think it could be awesome. You know, you're in Mexico and you say, you know what? I'm hiring this Iranian coach, I'm hiring this Korean coach, and I'm bringing him in because he can get the best, the the athletes want to fight for this guy. I think something like that, it would take a wealthy person to put these places, you know, these teams in place, set them up, you know, heck, call it the Miami Marauders and the Shanghai samurais. You know what I'm saying? I don't care what you call it, you know, it doesn't have to be a trade name like the Coca-Cola team or whatever, but I think that would be an interesting concept. So if there's any billionaires out there that would like to do that in Taekwondo, I would be your Dana White, uh Master or Grandmaster, Grandmaster, pull out your paycheck. He's the Joe Rogan, he's the Joe Rogan, he's the commentator talking shit. TJ, hey you're with me. Come on, baby. Come on, come up with it. I just want to watch. I just want to watch.
SPEAKER_01:I just want to watch.
SPEAKER_03:Hey, maybe we can get Mr. Don Lewis to give us some of that gold mining stuff that he got in there, boy. He got that Swiss, Swiss account in Nevada somewhere. He's keeping it down on us right now. Don, I love you, man. Come on. Bring that gold, bring that gold out, baby. Bring that gold out.
SPEAKER_01:Well yeah, his he had to he put his predictions out for the world championships too. I saw that. Yeah, yeah. I'm not quite sure. I can't remember exactly what it said, but he had some um, I think some opinions about the world championships and Olympic.
SPEAKER_00:We're gonna take that one, we're gonna leave that one for the next time. I think that'll be an interesting conversation. But as we always do, we say, I don't think this time we really said anything to offend anybody, but if we did, oh well. Sorry, not sorry. This has been the warehouse 15. Both of these guys are on planes tomorrow. TJ's got to make a stop at the local gendarme to have his ankle bracelet removed, but other than that, he should be okay. Any less later, guys.
SPEAKER_01:All right, boys. Later. His wig's gonna blow off. We can have Bernie's.