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
How Brazil Made History While The U.S. Fumbled And What That Says About High Performance
A historic medal haul rarely happens by accident. We unpack how Brazil engineered four finalists and two world titles through clear planning, ruthless scouting, and conditioning that didn’t fade in the final minute. Maria’s long-awaited women’s world crown set the tone; Enrike’s rise from a turbulent home environment to world champion showed what happens when talent meets structure and belief. The thread through each story is the same: know the bracket, know yourself, and perform when it counts.
We also face the tougher side of the sport: when a program with resources under-delivers. The U.S. finished 20th and still blasted “dominance” in a newsletter. That disconnect matters. We talk about the decisions behind the scenes—who sits in the chair, how prep camps are run, how personal coaches and national staff are used, and why accountability at the top shapes everything on the mat. If athletes are judged by results, leadership should be too. Culture isn’t hashtags in the holding area; it’s what you do under pressure and how you represent your teammates when the cameras aren’t rolling.
Rules and tech didn’t help. Referees were told to “let them fight,” but holding went unpunished and video review for head shots disappeared, returning power to inconsistent judgment. That’s not modernizing; that’s muddling. We dig into what fair, watchable Taekwondo should reward and why development pathways must stay open—especially as champions skew younger. Tunisia and Iran offered bright examples of pipelines that translate fast to the senior podium.
If you care about high performance, athlete-first systems, and a sport that looks like Taekwondo again, this one is a must-listen. Subscribe, share with a coach or teammate, and leave a review with the one change you’d implement tomorrow.
But the gold don't stay. That's the file. Didn't the bottom badges the bad stuff body no bad is the dude the ground and did all that? The masgon goals, the crowds constant.
SPEAKER_02:In the words of Confucius and Lao Tzu and the ancient sages, Perez, Moreno, and Jennings. Sorry, not sorry, snowflakes. 6'7, baby.
SPEAKER_03:Welcome to the warehouse 15, and we are back. Not back in black, but back in gold and purple. We got Coach Moreno back from China, La China. He's got the oh TJ, did you get your mail yet today? Did you get your mail?
SPEAKER_06:I didn't have it.
SPEAKER_03:I checked my mail. I didn't see that. Honey, did we get a shirt? Did we get a shirt from Coach Moreno? Looking good, brother. Looking good. And then we got TJ in the house. How you doing, Mr. TJ?
SPEAKER_06:I'm good. I'm good. I'm super excited to be here. It's been two weeks. Two weeks too long. Two weeks too long, man. Here we go with the incense. Two weeks are too long. You gotta start it off. Happy to be back.
SPEAKER_03:I'm trying to clear the negative energy. Clear the negative energy.
SPEAKER_06:I have people to ask me when we're gonna do a podcast. I'm gonna do a podcast. You know, we had to give the great coach Vareno silver one, as they call him at the bottom of the screen, a chance to I think we're gonna have to change that to gold one.
SPEAKER_03:We may have to say it in a Portuguese accent, but we may have to change it.
SPEAKER_06:Nah, you can't switch it up now. You gotta vibe with it. We may have to change it now. It's working.
SPEAKER_03:Well, you know, it's our it's our own reference for ourselves to just kind of chat and goof around about. But, you know, there's no shortage of gold medals on this podcast, gold medal attitudes, but more importantly, gold medal performances. So we are killing it, kicking it, and everybody in the world knows what we do. So let's get to it. A lot to get to. Um, I know you guys have been on the road hitting. I think TJ, you're in the area this weekend, are you coming out to Cal? I I am.
SPEAKER_06:Uh uh Coach High School going to um Living Proof Martial Arts. I'll be doing a seminar out there Friday. You have his test, so two sessions on Saturday. I heard some of your guys are coming.
SPEAKER_03:They are coming. And then um, I heard you're also gonna go to take the other seminar in town. Are you gonna go take that other seminar? Because you need to learn.
SPEAKER_06:Just joking. Yeah, I gotta get I gotta get I gotta get home. I leave on Tuesday for Croatia Open as well with the AU national team.
SPEAKER_03:So I'd love to see you, but I'm in Portland this weekend. My son is, of course, playing soccer. My wife's gonna get up there for a day. We're gonna be back on Saturday. So when do you leave?
SPEAKER_06:Uh Sunday, early Sunday morning, like 7 a.m. 7:25 a.m. Sunday morning. I don't know.
SPEAKER_03:I would love to. Next time you're out here, let me know. I'll catch up with you. But let's get started today. Coach Moreno, what what do we got for today? Oh, celebratory. Savaster. Celebratory. It looks it looks just like my shirt.
SPEAKER_04:Listen, first of all, I missed you guys. People have been asking me left and right. When are you gonna talk about the world championship? Where you guys have been? I think it's been three weeks, TJ, because I was a week in three and two weeks in uh in China. So I'm still a little crazy jet lagged during the day, but so happy to obviously always happy to come home. Uh, quick little update. I always give a shout out to uh three of my kids. My oldest is uh just got her summer earned internship with this giant firm in uh Fort Lauderdale. This girl will be making big money, so I'm super happy for her. My second is graduating, just got her cap and gown from university uh FIU, and my third just got accepted into uh university out here. So pretty big thanks for my my three oldest children. And then uh yeah, so I'm just gonna give them a quick shout-out to that.
SPEAKER_03:Congratulations. That's a long way from the bario of the of Miami, that that beautiful place that you live in, lived in, and and and populated and continued to populate.
SPEAKER_04:Hopefully, uh, you know, trying give them a better opportunity than we had, and let's you know, they have a platform to do bigger, better things that we've done. So I'm super proud of them and excited for their future. But let's talk about China and the world championships. It was uh, I mean, I feel like I keep reliving it, you know, over and over and over. For us personally and the Brazil squad, we made history. Oh my gosh. Um we had four finals. We had two gold medals. We had our first female gold medal, um, first one in 25 years. I'm sorry, 20 years. The last one was with uh Natalia uh 2005 in Madrid. You were there, uh her young when uh we were we were uh you know heading that team, she won her first one, and now 20 years later, um, Maria, she uh you know, Tito, you know her really well. She's been undefeated, literally undefeated this year. And she started us off on the first day of competition, and she had a tough draw. I mean, she fought someone, she fought Spain, she fought the United States, she fought China, she fought the Olympic champion in the final. And I've been telling everybody, it was like going undefeated and then losing the Super Bowl. You know, you can't lose the Super Bowl, and I tell you what, she had a lot of pressure, and uh she certainly didn't show it. I mean, this woman is tough, she's a midget, she's what, right? TJ, she's six inches to a foot shorter than everybody. And it didn't matter if it was European style, American style, Asian style. She shuts these chicks down, she turns out the lights, and she, you know, she won that opening day gold medal for us, and it just kind of like boom, just really, you know, shot us off in in a really uh amazing uh for an amazing competition. Yeah, yeah, the trajectory was crazy. I mean, we are super proud of that, you know. And a day later, you know, I told you guys, I told you guys, I told you that about our 80, our kill 80 kilogram guy, the guy in Hike, who's young and strong, and he matched up with CJ in the quarterfinal. I mean, I'm just gonna say, I don't care if people like it or don't like it, smoked them. When you don't score a point, you you got smoked. You got you got played, you got manhandled it.
SPEAKER_03:Wait it, wait one second. Can you hear that? Oh my god, that's USA Taekwondo's crickets. Oh, that's what I thought it was. Go ahead, go ahead. Sorry.
SPEAKER_04:Listen, I I'm not trying to throw no shade. I mean, it was Enike's day. This boy, his first, second, third match, he didn't give up a point. And for him to, you know, for a guy like CJ, CJ is a prolific score. Like win or lose, the boy can score, the man can score. But and Hike turned his turned him off. Like there was, it was, it was a good match, but it was two rounds to zero, and there was zero answers. There was zero threat, there were no points scored. And Hike, I told you guys, I told you, if this dude puts it together and figures out what he's capable of, it lights out. Everybody in the division better watch out. And then he went off and he ran the uh you know, semifinal final. Yeah, and you know what? I gave you guys a little background. This this kid is, you know, people don't realize there was a a literally a war in Rio last week. A war with the cartels and the police, like hundreds of people slaughtered, massacred. I saw videos and photos of people beheaded, arms off, legs off. Incredible. This kid lives there. This kid is he's that close from maybe being in that kind of stuff. And here he is. He I was telling everybody, he chose his destiny, and that dude now is an Olympian and a world champion. A world change changed his life, his trajectory. So it was uh it was really cool for him to do that.
SPEAKER_06:Like I said, he definitely had a strong day. Yeah, yeah, I watched him. He definitely had a strong day, like you said. I think what's interesting about him and and Maria was um, like you said, not cruise control like it was easy, but in control. In control, up, down, tide, left, right. They just they look unshakeable and they definitely had, I mean, amazing days at the world championship.
SPEAKER_03:Yeah, I mean, it's you you gotta you gotta talk, you got we gotta talk about that a little bit. You know, tomorrow I'm giving this presentation to a uh professional soccer club about performance. They asked me to speak, and I was thinking about it a little bit, and um I came up with this thing which I'll share with you guys later, what I call the Warriors Ethos. And um, and you gotta remember, I don't know if you guys remember that movie Highlander. You remember Highlander? Yeah, there can only be one. That's the ethos, and then there's a bunch of stuff I put around it. But the reason I mention it is um you gotta come to the show, you gotta perform, and you have to perform where the only thing that matters and that's important is winning. That's it. There's no excuses, there's no whatever. Um, and we'll talk about that a little bit later. And at the point where you don't perform, you should be really quiet and go back to the gym and figure out what went wrong. And then then you have a chance, you're a warrior. If you do anything else, then you know, we'll talk about that later, but you become a you become a caricature of yourself. You become a meme, you become what you were. And while your past is not a death sentence or a life sentence, it certainly is an indicator of your future. And so um, there's no the road is littered with great athletes who were unable to perform at the time when they needed to perform, but yet they stole their values and how they were the best and the best and the best and the best. And the amount of people that can actually pull that off are very few. In fact, I can't think of many. But when you think of the truly great champions, and I'll go back to the day with Korea and some of those guys, they didn't talk. A guy like Jung Cook Young, he didn't talk. Jung Miyansum didn't talk. Park Bong Kwan didn't talk. Those guys didn't talk. They came in the gym, they did what they needed to do, they went to the tournament, did what they needed to do, and then even at the end of it, they didn't say anything. They didn't tick tock wick walk, they did what they needed to do. And that's that's something we'll talk about later today. But I am extremely happy for Brazil and you and the the whole coaching. What's that?
SPEAKER_06:No, I said there's still more. You gotta finish telling the uh the rest of it because you got two more medals, yes? Four medals told me. Oh, yeah, you gotta talk.
SPEAKER_03:Yeah, go keep going, keep going. Uh yeah, I mean, like, well, you were number three. Listen, Brazil was number three on the medal table at a world championship. I had to, I had to, I had to, I couldn't, I couldn't find United States on the medal table. I did they were at 20. I can't remember the last time that the United States, I mean, I'm sure there was a time that I don't remember, but I don't remember the time that we were ever not on in the top of the metal table. You didn't have to turn the page, you didn't have to scroll down like I do when I have to figure out what my age is. You know, when you go to I have to scroll now, keep scrolling to get to my birthday. You know, but um anyway, we'll talk about that. But that it's embarrassing, but let's let's talk about the successes and the takeaways and yeah, let's keep going with that because I like that.
SPEAKER_04:I like I said, I mean, you know, for Maria to win the gold, it was kind of like satisfaction and with with Enhike, it was just pure um excitement and jubilation because of of where he's come from and what he's done. You know, I don't know if you guys know Tintey, you might remember in the Pan Am Games last quad, he was he won the trials and he was going to go to the Pan Am uh games. And when they did uh a body checkup on him, they found out that he has some little hole in his heart. And so the Brazilian Olympic Committee shut you off. You you can't train, you can't do anything. They did more testing. It was like a four or five-month process, and he was close to never competing again. Like if this hole didn't get fixed when they did this cauterization or surgery, um, they wouldn't let him compete ever again. And it was touch and go, touch and go, and it came out obviously properly, and it worked, and it was successful, and here he is. I mean, so it's just it's just such a uh a fine line between winning and losing, and for him to win that, it was just you know exciting. Um two days later, we had one of our veteran athletes, Melena. She uh had a difficult draw, too. She made it to the final, she lost in the final. It was uh uh you know tough match, and um you know, it is what it is. But to get a this is her third, her third world championship medals. She's had two bronze and one silver. I'm like, that's pretty good. I think she's 28, you know, so she's older. And for her to have that kind of performance was amazing. Her physical fitness level was uh through the the one thing I could say about all of our medalists, man, it was yes, they had skill, yes, they had tactics, but their physical fitness was crazy to see. It was amazing. Our staff, our our physical fitness trainer, Myra, man, she just did a phenomenal job. It was it was really crazy. And not to be let down on the last day we had our Olympic bronze medalist, Nicino. He had the toughest draw out of everybody. When when we saw the draws, they were like, Coach, did you see the draws? They're like difficult, difficult. And I was like, difficult. And I said, No, man, screw that. I didn't say screw that. I said something else. I said, screw that. It's tough for them, too. You don't think they're looking at the draw, going, oh man, we gotta fight Nichino. But he his second match of the day was his nemesis. He fought uh the Jordan Olympic uh silver medalist, the guy that's like TJ, you know, who smacked him up like two or three times. Like it wasn't close. But Nachino went out there the second match of the day, beat him two rounds to zero, beat Croatia, got all the way to the finals, and came up short in the finals again. But you know, we ended up with two goals, two silvers, four huge finals, the best results ever in Brazil history, made us number three in the world. It was absolutely incredible. But not only that, I think we had three quarterfinal matches, we had two people that lost their third match. Like we went really deep into the tournament. We had I think we had one person that flopped. And it was, you know, it's funny. I'm doing an analysis right now and giving him a grade, and he just he won the president's cup, he won the eight uh Australian President's Cup, and he's capable and he flopped, like he fought bad. But by and large, man, the Brazil team was was good. But I want to say something because you let you you you mentioned something, you know, young everyone's looking at the results and and the performance from the athletes and the coaches, and I don't take any credit for sitting in the chair. I don't take credit for pulling the strings in the match, but there was a lot of work and a lot of buildup over a couple of years, and specifically the last 14 months of traveling to Jordan, traveling to Uzbekistan, traveling to Charlotte, you know, sending people to different tournaments, having pre-staging camps, events, you know, pre-event camps, like meetings in the middle of the camp, making sure everyone's doing their job. I don't want to give all my my programs and stuff like that, but let me tell you, it was it was a collective group, and I think the whole team felt that. Nobody felt felt like, oh, it was you and only you and the athletes. Everybody was just like locked in from the training room to the warm-up room to the you know scouting room to the physical preparation room. I mean, it was just crazy how the momentum started going and it all just came together. I know it's easy to say that when you're successful, but the plan was correct, the the the the coaching staff was proper, and and look what happened. And you can look on the other side, and I think we should talk. I mean, because we we kind of we compare Brazil and the United States, we should talk. Matter of fact, um a lot of people are talking about it because you're right, the performances for for the Americans were not that great, and especially from the two superstars. I mean, neither one of them scored a point. You know, for the females who didn't score a point and lost to a very tough fighter. But to to not score a point and to get beat by 10 or 11, something is off. There's some lack of preparation or lack of respect for the game or lack of game planning to be beaten that thoroughly when you're an Olympic medalist. That's that's for me is really odd. And for you know, our heads up with CJ, it's just it's strange to me that you guys fought at the uh Grand Prix Challenge in in uh in Korea and went two three rounds, two to one, CJ won. And to come back and have that kind of performance, something doesn't add up, something something's not right. I don't know if it's athletically, I don't know if it's game planning, I don't know if it's coaching, I don't know if it's I don't know what it is, but I've never heard of that. I've never seen that with a top-level athlete ever. I've seen losses, I've seen you know, mistakes made. But that was I mean, correct me if I'm wrong, guys. That was that was strange.
SPEAKER_06:Go ahead.
SPEAKER_03:I would no, I just want one quick question. How many likes did it get on TikTok that day?
SPEAKER_06:Um no, I I think it's it's a tough pill to swallow. You know, we always talk on these podcasts, and I'm like, we need to do this, we need to do that. So we're always referring to USA because that's where you know that's where we're from. That's where, you know, that's where where we kind of have to be. Sorry, not sorry. Sorry, not sorry. But I mean, it's unfortunate because uh you we have high prospects going into situations where they're highly ranked in good positions, they were not able to finish. That's just the reality. I know it's not an easy game, nobody says easy, like you just said you can do a lot of things, right? And you can say this, this, and this, but it all comes together and it makes sense at the end. If it does, some maybe it doesn't. Um, but just sitting back and watching for me and all the those matches between those matches, and we'll get to the other matches afterwards. But it was definitely uh hard, hard to watch because we know we're gonna have tough moments at the world championships. But the reality is, like you said, master uh Grandmaster, it's you gotta win when it's time to win. You gotta perform when it's time to perform. I think if I have to have my two cents, uh maybe too much emphasis was put on the Grand Prix challenges and trying to get into the Grand Prix for next year. And I still think the world championships are the world championships. You know, we can talk about levels and participants and all that, but you know, like you said, uh the Super Bowl is the Super Bowl. The Super Bowl is a super bowl. And to come back and end up being in uh I think it was 20th we said it is like absurd. Uh it's gotta be bad. Like uh 20th is uh bad. There's there's really no explanation for the bigger.
SPEAKER_03:There's no, there's no way, there's no I mean, you can say competition's gotten better. You can say um the world has changed. You can say the scoring system sucks. You can say a bunch of things that you want to say. But at the end of the day, we're in a performance culture, we're in a competitive environment, and champions don't make excuses, champion makes results. And at the point where you don't make results, you own that you own that misstep, and you you move on to make better decisions and better things. And so at the end of the day, there's losing, which happens, and then there's just a lack, a general lack of performance where you're 20th on the medal table. When you're 20th on the medal table, and you're the USA, which is 330 million people, amazing amount of money, amazing amount of resources, and hypothetically, the best uh sport support in the world. And you are in charge and you've been in charge, so you can't blame your predecessor. You got to own it. And then the question then becomes at what point do you correct it? And there has been a slow decline, I would say a rapid decline, but a slow decline, with the exception of outliers from time to time in the organization that has now yielded it as a perennial non-performer. And when that happens, it's time to change, or don't change, and that's okay, but get used to watching the quarters and the semis and the finals from the cheap seats in the auditorium, because you have to leave the holding area and you get to go sit up in the stands. Or actually, no, I'm sorry, you can go down into the holding area and uh put on your TikTok outfit and and fight in in the gym and do goofy shit, and and that can be your world championship. So maybe they maybe the U.S. won that, whatever that nonsense was that was on TikTok with these idiots fighting. And I laughed at that because I talked to Coach Moreno about it. If we went to a world championships, we which we did, we'd go to many and as athletes and as coaches and leaders, we went to it to win, we went to it to fight, we used a warming area, warm-up area to warm up in. We fought, and if we had more matches, which we did usually because we won and we were consistent, we then continued to do that. Nobody was fighting in the gym that wasn't from the same country, nobody was sitting there pat ass grabbing and joking around and flying in the air. And if you want to call that the new millennium, well, again, that's not the warrior ethos. If you didn't win, go back into the stands and watch everybody else that's winning. If your teammates are fighting, go back into the stands and watch them. If your teammates aren't winning and they're not on the mat, go in and watch the rest of the tournament because that's where the winners are, not the whiners and the losers. So this nonsense that I saw on TikTok, I'm just gonna call it as I see it because I like to keep it real. Give me a break. I thought that was actually, I thought that was somewhere else at a different time. Then I realized I looked at it, I said, holy Jesus, that's in whatever that place is in China. I'm like, if I were the coach, I would have been like, hey, come here for a second. How are you doing? Everything okay? Yeah, oh uh. I'm sorry. Do you have another match coming up? Oh, oh, you don't? Why, why, and why is that? Oh, you lost. Oh, yeah, yeah, yeah. And and now exactly what are you doing?
SPEAKER_04:Yeah, that's strange. Honestly, I for me, I I know like some people had oh, it was so fun to watch, and they were having a good time, but I just like I can't catch that violence. I'm I'm just like, again, this is supposed to be the best of the best. I can't imagine of the best soccer teams acting like this, the best MMA doing like this, the best judo people. I just I can't I don't know what happened.
SPEAKER_03:You lost. You lost. Let's say you lost. Let's say you lost in the quarters. Let's say that ever happened. I don't remember it ever happening. Let's say you lost. Where would you be?
SPEAKER_04:I'd be kind of pissed. I'd be in the stands. I'd you know, if I if I if I feel like I have one running.
SPEAKER_03:And by the way, by the way, by the way, if you weren't, you wouldn't be able to do, you wouldn't be able to fight anymore because your legs would be destroyed, your body would be broken, you'd be exhausted. You wouldn't be in the you wouldn't be this. I watched that and I was like, if you want to point to the decline of taekwondo, you can you can point to that. A U.S. taekwondo. And anybody else that participated in it, what a bunch of ass clowns, for lack of a better word.
SPEAKER_04:I just, I mean, listen again, it's it's it's you're right, it's a new millennial, it's a new you know generation. I'm not like I'm not even hating on them and stuff, but I just I have to question when you're there, and we can all be buddies nowadays, we can talk afterwards, we could, but like you're at the world championships, you're at the the I was the pinnacle of we've debated this before. The pinnacle of of our sport. You got 98 people in your category. You gotta fight everybody and anybody, you don't know what's gonna happen, and then you're gonna go just playfully train train with your rivals.
SPEAKER_06:I'm gonna I'm gonna take one, I'm gonna go one step past. Let's say it's just the new millennial, and everybody can be friends and and competitors and they can love each other, but computer gets let's just say that. But I mean, you either you won or you lost. So I think there's a little bit of both in the picture in the in the in the thing. A lot of some people won, some people lost. Obviously, if I'm winning, I mean if I lost 1000, I'm not there. But if I've won one billion percent, I'm not there. I'm not in my brain, I'm not about to risk getting injured playing around in a holding area because there are more tournaments, and this was one moment, whether it was a good moment or a bad moment, this was one moment. So I can't I've talked to a couple people about it, and I've gotten a few back and forth, but one person's told me like it would just never, even in my day, they said that would have never happened in our day, and it takes this generation to do it. Like, I I can't picture it happening either.
SPEAKER_04:No, I can't picture Steven Lopez, I can't picture the great Steven Lopez, you know, going out there and be like, oh yeah, come on, let's go light smart, let's jump and do flights. Like it just it's weird. But I I wanna I mean not okay, let's let that go.
SPEAKER_06:Casual question. Casual question question. I know you guys are just talking before we get too far away from it. I know you just said both of you have been on a lot of world championships teams, uh coaches, athletes. But I guess my question is if when you're deciding how to split up who coaches who, have you ever been on a team where someone has coached seven plus people and there's five coaches on the team?
SPEAKER_04:Yeah, I don't see how that I was gonna lead into that. I was gonna say, like, listen, I I I I gotta throw into question. I gotta throw the question to you guys or to whoever else, or maybe it's a statement. I made a statement that you know we we specifically did things to try to build up to give ourselves the best you know possibility at the world championships. When my when my superiors asked me for a medal count, I said, I believe we have two medal chances, real medal chances. We have Maria and Michino, our you know, girl that's been winning everything and our Olympic bronze medalists. I say we have good chances within Hike and Melena. If things go they fight well, they could possibly. And I picked this one uh one boy and one girl for uh of maybe we got all four. I maybe I was lucky or whatever. But I was going back to our plan. I was going back to our coaching staff, I was going back to our structure. If I look on the other side, I think they had one training camp that was thrown together that wasn't really real. Their coaching staff has you know one person that has nobody on the national team, has another person that has one person, and again, I like this gentleman personally, it's his son, one person, and then you had the the three coaches, um, the two national the three national team coaches that are out in in um in Charlotte. But then when I see the composition of the national team and one athlete that has nobody on the national team, never anybody on the senior national team coaches eight people. Am I wrong? Is it eight? Eight people in with one match. Now you can say, Well, I don't work with them, or they don't know me, or they're learning, or they're not, but they won eight fighters, you won one match.
SPEAKER_06:Am I wrong? She's not even my concern. Whoever's in charge that decided that they had no more value to add to some of the people on the national team outside of her, shame on them. Shame on them. And I'll I'm gonna say it, and I know I've heard a lot of talking about it, and I've kind of I'm glad we're taking some time and kind of um.
SPEAKER_04:I agree with you, I'm not blaming her. She did her job. They put her in there what she's supposed to do. I'm not blaming her on this one. I'm just using that as an example. I'm sorry. I'm sorry.
SPEAKER_06:No, no, no worries. I just but someone said I I've never seen here goes, I've never seen our national team be been thrown away so badly in my life. This was it because like this was the most disrespectful thing I've watched. There's no other way.
SPEAKER_04:Five coaches, five coaches, one athlete, one coach that doesn't have anybody in the national team, coach 50%. The other four split the other eight.
unknown:That's
SPEAKER_06:The most disrespectful one was Michael Rodriguez because they've worked with that boy before. Excuse me. They've worked with him before. They've they've been he's been out there to training camps. They've coached against him before with CJ. They they have the most information on him between, let's say, Lambdon and Garrett. They have the most information on him. You're gonna tell me that they said, no, no, no, you go out there with him. That gives him that athlete, particularly, the best chance to win.
SPEAKER_04:He was just out there. He's been on our national team multiple times. A long time. No, and he he literally had test matches with those guys and beat them recently. So they have intimate knowledge of him. And yet they don't go out in this chair. That's you're right, TJ. That's a great one. That's disrespectful. That's maybe some of the maybe some of these new kids, maybe, maybe. But that's disrespectful. That that's unbelievable. I mean, yeah.
SPEAKER_06:Yeah, sorry, I'm trying to adjust my light a little bit.
SPEAKER_04:No, it's just I I I just think the lack of professionalism from that standpoint. I mean, again, if we want to talk about they have a great full uh great facility, they have great strength conditioning, they have great nutrition, they got great psychology, they have all the stuff, and that's the plan that they put together. To your point, young, that's just unprofessional. That's you, that's that's not world class stuff, that's not Super Bowl day stuff. That's so unacceptable.
SPEAKER_06:I just think it's disrespectful. I I I I I just think it's they I don't don't tell me that was the best plan you guys came up with. Did uh I believe what's uh one coach was there. Did he coach anybody? Did he coach anybody?
SPEAKER_04:I think I I think he sat in one round for um because CJ was fighting, and then I think um he had to run over to uh I thought I think you could coach like one round of uh uh the 67 girl. For me, he's gotta be in everybody's chair.
SPEAKER_06:I mean, like I I don't know how you you give eight people to one person on the show. Who's the coaching director? Paul Who? Paul's the coaching director. Paul who Paul Green. Paul Green.
SPEAKER_03:Who does he live in the states?
SPEAKER_04:No. No, he's the one that doesn't.
SPEAKER_03:Oh, but you can you can't. So the cat the head of coaching, the coaching director doesn't live in the states. And then you wonder where your performance is? Who was the one that coached? Who was the one that coached the eight athletes?
SPEAKER_06:That was Nikki, uh the coach from Florida. She's been working with them as far as she's been on a cadet, she went on some cadet trips with them, uh, I think a junior trip. I don't really know. She's at some of the under 21 stuff. It's irrelevant. Like no one's gonna sit here and ever be able to tell me that we're at the point where she's coaching eight people in our national team. You're just you just not you're not gonna convince me. Yeah, and that's the thing. That's been the best uh efforts of our country. That's not that she's good, bad, or good, bad, or whatever, but imagine the amount of pressure coaching at a world championship. I don't, I'm not sure. Don't hold me to it. I think this is her first world championships coaching.
SPEAKER_03:So the the the way coach, the way coaching works, the the way coaching is eight. The way the way coaching works, and I'm gonna assume they were eight women, but the way coaching works, it was it eight women?
SPEAKER_04:No, she didn't coach eight women, she coached no mix.
SPEAKER_03:You had a woman coaching in a man's chair, a man athlete, a male athlete?
SPEAKER_04:Yeah, that's not uh that that happens a lot nowadays. There I'm not I'm not listening my wife coaches uh that's different. Yeah, you're yeah, a lot of Korean coaches coach, but but that's irrelevant. But the fact is, a first-time world championship coach sits in eight people's chairs for the United States. Was it lunchtime?
SPEAKER_06:People that we again, like you said, it's not like we went through prep camps and we could that one coach connected with eight athletes, and she had this strong, they had this strong connection with these eight athletes. We're talking about we only did one training camp, we didn't really invest any time and energy into actual having the team together. It's just so funny. Like I'm sitting here thinking what you just said about all the things that Brazil did to get ready for this event. Like I can all I can only assume that everyone else in the world probably did just as much or something very similar. And yeah, I think we just we threw away half of our national team. And I don't mean that like the athletes has nothing to do with the athletes not saying they didn't couldn't perform and all that, blah, blah, blah. This is simply couldn't have not been the best playing. You can't tell me that made any sense whatsoever to give a person at the world championships their first time, give them eight athletes. That makes no sense.
SPEAKER_03:Let me ask you, let me ask a good question, and it's just I I know the answer, but I like to ask questions. So, can a if you're coaching an athlete is on an and especially if you have that broad of a base of athletes, and this isn't a gender thing, um can a heavyweight athlete who's become a coach or a heavyweight guy coach a fin weight?
SPEAKER_04:Yes, I know what I know where you're getting with it, but I'm gonna tell you that in my particular when uh when we were coming up, I I can't coach a fin weight.
SPEAKER_03:I I couldn't I didn't even understand their game. I couldn't understand the speed of their game and what was I understood what was possible, but in my humble opinion, when you're getting coaches, you can have a coach that can learn to coach those things. But if I were gonna be coached, I would prefer to have a coach who was somewhere in the vicinity of my weight division. That's just me, because I want somebody who understands the difference between speed and power. And I'm gonna tell you, it may not be the same anymore, and I don't think it is the same any longer, but I can tell you that a fin weight and a heavyweight fight different games.
SPEAKER_04:Historically, you're you're absolutely you're no, you're not historically, they do now. I mean, if you you're 100% right, but listen, I coach lightweights, I coach heavyweights, I coach women, and I I think if you if coaching is your full-time profession and this is what you do, and I mean that again, I don't know what people do. I know what my staff does, I know what our our technical staff does. I mean, we I'm telling you, we I feel like I'm in the NFL. We study the films, we have a game plan, we know our own habits, we know what our strengths and weaknesses, what we shouldn't do, what we got to be careful with, what the other people do. Our technical guy is sick. Like he'll break down stuff. Like sometimes he shows it to me before, he shows it to me before, and I'm like, my mind is blown away. It's almost like he's a, you know, he's like a coach, but he's not a coach. Like he's not the guy to sit in a chair, he's not the guy to give directions.
SPEAKER_03:That's your your that's your TD guy, right? So your technical director should have a broad over understanding. So, like, you know, I go back to soccer. When I watch these guys train, um, soccer guys have a defensive coach, they have an offensive coach, they have a goalie coach, because a goalie's a whole different world, right? They have striking coaches, they have coaches that work just with the strikers. Then they have a TD. And I spent a lot of time talking to the technical director. And he was a player, he played with a bunch of teams. And yes, he has a broad understanding, just like a scout does, of the game in general. But I'm gonna tell you that a striker, for example, that coach that works you can't. Yeah, it's a different thing.
SPEAKER_04:I'm not we're not that sophisticated. Tucker wasn't that sophisticated a long time ago. I mean, there's there's plenty of great coaches that coach, like I'm talking in the in the La Liga and in Europe and stuff like that. These guys are they probably have those position coaches, but they have the head coach that knows every facet of the game. He can do everything, he can coach the defense, the offense. And so, I mean, I think the best of the best coaches, we can do that. I mean, that's this is our profession. I mean, look, if someone just comes right out and they're just trying to, a heavyweight is trying to coach a fin weight, you're right, or vice versa, you're right, or a man to a woman. You have to know the female game. You have to know, like, for a long time, I was an expert in the 67 uh kilos because Paige fought there for so long. I knew everybody in that category. Everybody. I knew I knew who was coming, who was going, who was in the mix. I knew, I just knew them all. And so that was the category that I paid most attention to. So I I think you can do it, but again, just getting back to this side. Is this again, I guess, for all the professionalism and for all the leading up TJ, you mentioned maybe they prioritized the wrong things and they they highlighted the wrong things, and to not perform on Super Bowl Sunday, that hurts. That's like the Olympics, right? You you don't perform at the Olympics and you win the next tournament. Who cares?
SPEAKER_03:Nobody cares.
SPEAKER_06:I again I think I've asked before, I just don't know how you keep if if you're there and you're on the team and you're one of the coaches on that staff. How do you how does anyone in that keep you out of that chair? Like there's eight people out there, and there's there's no, I mean, it I'm sorry I keep repeating, it's no possible game plan that we went out there with success to try to be successful with our national team. If there was any other if there was any other uh explanation of what's going on, that's what's going on. Like they showed everybody right now. Like that's why I say it was disrespectful.
SPEAKER_04:I was there very early, and I was there in the in the warm in the training area, and I watched the American team off to the side, and I watched the two athletes that fought the first day. And one of the athletes, a female athlete, her coach wasn't there at any of the practices, but yet sat in the chair when she fought. No, I I don't know why. What else he had to do? But I'm like, in the moments before a huge event in the preparation, you're not there. I was told I won't give my source, but somebody close inside said those coaches don't want to be here with these coaches. They don't really like them. I was like, whoa. And I was like, if they don't like them, why are they letting them there? Because the head coaches are the head coaches. Apparently, they call all the shots, they pull all the strings. So why not just move those people on? But somehow they it was said to me by not to me, someone really close to me from directly inside. And I was kind of like, that's crazy. That's a crazy statement that these coaches don't like these coaches. Yet they're letting this coach, these coaches, work with the athletes leading up to the day. Oh, and they will come sit in the chair. So if they could do that, TJ for that athlete, why couldn't they do that for these new athletes on the national team? Crazy. It is crazy. I mean, I know that's like a little innuel.
SPEAKER_06:I just don't know. I mean, even I know uh I always forget his name. Victor's dead. Um, he's coached people from the the academy before. He's been a part of their trips and and and set in their chairs. I don't understand how he's like, you don't even utilize him. Again, I don't know what the deal was. I don't know what anything. And again, we're all just asking questions. I'm just asking a question. I yeah, we don't utilize him. We give one person, I'm gonna keep repeating, we give one coach eight people. Yeah, you bring him on the trip to give him five.
SPEAKER_04:Give him three, give him two, give him one, let him help help out a little bit.
SPEAKER_06:Like you know, that's why you bought him there, right? That's why you bought him, right? That's why we bought him. That's why we that's why you put together a team.
SPEAKER_04:Good question. If you can bring one coach to coach one athlete, his own personal athlete, why couldn't you do that with other people? You might as well. They don't want to coach him anyway. Yeah, that's they don't want to coach him anyway.
SPEAKER_06:That's the only answer at this point. They they don't they're unconcerned with the it's it's uh it's academy, and then you have whoever makes a national team. I saw a post on uh Facebook, and it was just like the national team should be treated better than the academy, guys, because this is the national team, and some you know, and and but the problem is it's reverse. Like, and again, this has been going on for a while. For a while. When they started writing stuff like the U.S. Academy, National Academy, home of the national team. That's not even true. That can't be true. Our national team is selected every single year, and every single year the makeup of that team changes a certain percent. So you can't be the home of the national team. I mean, we that they didn't even have a majority of the people on the eight and eight. Is it eight and eight even? And that's just what we're gonna Mr.
SPEAKER_04:Mr. Don Lewis said something. He was comparing the academy team to uh a Spanish team, club teams, two club teams. And I'm like, why are we talking about the academy as a club team? Aren't we the national team? Isn't that the United US USA Taekwondo created a facility for the USA athletes? It's a club team. They do what they want, they act how they want, they go where they want, they accept who they want. It's no different than peak performance or gold medal or US Taekwondo centers. It's no different. It's a club team. And that's again, that's that's that should not happen under the USA Taekwondo's you know, umbrella. It should be the USA USA Taekwondo Center. That's what it should be. You know, home of the national team, not the academy. I mean, that's its own and they when they re when they register for tournaments, like Brazil never, we go Brazil national team. That's not you know, it's these guys have you uh was it US Academy or just Academy team? They never put USA. It's just crazy. It's just I I again I know we're we're nitpicking and stuff like that, but they talk about transparency, they talk about building something. You do you've done just the opposite. You've divided, you've created this academy and everybody else, even if you're on the national team, the big Michael Rodriguez of the world. Outside, outside. That's un that's unacceptable. And and look at the results. You're gonna have a shining star once in a while. They got saved at the Olympic Games with the the with Christina getting that bronze medal. They got saved at the world championship with Michaela both girls and come to the peak performance program, too. They got saved with those results. You know, they got saved here by heavyweight John Healy and you know Michael Rodriguez from Miami. They get saved. Like if they don't have, they're lucky they scratch those medals. Because if not, all this money. How much money are these guys getting paid? Coaches, athletes, how much is well the athletes we know how much getting paid, and as they should, they should. But these coaches are getting paid that much money, a premium in our field, in our sport, a premium. And you come home with that kind of result, forget that result. That kind of preparation, that kind of planning. Because you can do a plan, and you know, you know, sports can go wrong. That's that's why I I told everybody I was very humble. I said, listen, we're very lucky, we're doing well, things are going well, but we had a plan, and it's nice that it all came together. And if it didn't work, I would still stand by. We did this, this, this, and this, and we lost. We made mistakes, we underperformed, we got beat, whatever it is. But when you don't do anything and throw shit against the wall and hope it sticks, it's wrong. Because that's what they did. That's what they did. I'm sorry, you know, and people are gonna hate on me for being that direct and mean, but that's what they did.
SPEAKER_06:Tell me, bro. No, and on top of that, here's here's the here's the kicker. I opened one of my the USA tech wondro newsletters, and in that newsletter, there's a chunk that they congratulated the world medalists, rightfully so. Obviously, you know, I know, like I said, I know we talked over it really fast. I know both of them, obviously, they've been in the, you know, been doing tech wondro for a long time. You said one from Miami, one guy that's been up there for a while. Nothing, nothing to do with them. They were congratulating them. And in the same post they write, it shows that our dominance is asserting or something crazy that inspiring the world. No, it was crazy. Hold on, I'm gonna look it up because I I don't wanna I don't wanna butcher what this said. It said, for earning your finishes, inspiring fans worldwide, and proving that T US Team USA is on a powerful path to dominance in 28. Yo, bold letters. Inspiring the world. Powerful, powerful path to dominance in 28 in bolt letters after that performance. First of all, what are we talking about?
SPEAKER_04:What's the arrogance that we say that USA is inspiring the world? You think people are going, wow, look what USA. They might be going, wow, look what Turkey did, because Turkey they stepped up. I mean it's two things.
SPEAKER_06:Either these guys are not paying attention and just letting Chat GPT run away with their posts, or they're delusional.
SPEAKER_03:There's only two options they're either that or they're delusional, because it wouldn't be chat, it wouldn't be Chat GPT, because it would have gotten it right. The mission of the U.S. Olympic Committee and i.e. N-E-N-G-B, which is USA Taekwondo, is to inspire Americans and only Americans, by the way. That's our job. Our job is to inspire Americans by putting people on a podium. That's what the mission statement reads. That I was on the committee that wrote the mission statement. Um, with that said, it's inspiring Americans. And at the point where you think showing up at a tournament and coming home with some bronze medals is inspiring anybody, that's a loser mentality. So I I but that goes, remember who's running USA Taekwondo? He's a schlackmeister from um he used to sell Australian car products on TV. And uh good day, mate. And uh you got your wax here? What's that? He's not from Australia. You sure he's not from Australia? He's got no Australian accent. Good day, mate. Would you like it? Oh, bangers and mash. Well, did they have enough? You know, you put a British guy on a podcast or on a TV thing and you think he knows what he's talking, you know, it gives it credibility, except when you watch a broadcast for taekwondo, and there's a British guy going, that was uh that was a beautiful turning punch and devastating, you know. I always but with the British accent, I guess it sounds better. Um, but you know, you that you hired us, let's be clear, and this is not to cash shade on anybody in particular. When you hire somebody for the head of a sports performance organization, it should somebody who's either been in sports performance, educated in it, came up through sports, or ran a sports team. If you're running a PR agency, then you should hire somebody who's been in PR. The guy who's currently running taekwondo for USA was a PR guy. He had nothing to do with sport performance, not educated in it, doesn't know anything about it. So that's why you get posts like this. The irony of it is even guys in PR know not to chat back or clap back. This guy can't help himself. He always claps back when somebody says something and then threatens them. Um he's worse than um some other people. Um then your second in command, who may be truly pulling the strings now, was an underperformer on the U.S. team and has been trying to recoup that and is basically running around on the U.S. dime, drinking the drinks and sitting next to Cho carrying his bag. They call him in Korea Chogi Boy, which means he's his bag boy. He carries his bags, folds his clothes, and when he goes to the bathroom, he shakes his weenie to get the pits off before he puts it in his bag. And now he's vice president of the Cho train, which has driven Taekwondo into the toilet. So between those two ass clowns, that's why that you have the results that you have. And so I don't want to call it any differently. Now, why would you expect performance from the coaching ranks? Leadership comes from the top. And in the mafia, they have this saying, the fish stinks from the head down. So when you the fish stinks from the head down, why would you expect the coaching thing? Where's the team leader of the team? Where's the head of team saying, you want to do what with the coaches? Where are the athletes standing up for themselves and saying, you want to put who in my chair? Give her a water bottle. She can hand me the water bottle, tell her not to talk to me. I'll I'll do the rest myself, apparently. And it's an athlete for it's supposed to be an athlete first organization. But I don't know why we're expecting performance from non-performers at the highest level, empowering uh a head of coaching that lives in Great Britain and never shows up in the States. And then when he actually shows up at the event because he wants to go to Chinese, because they have bad Chinese food in in Great Britain. So, and then he sits there and doesn't do anything. And then his his uh his bag boy, Mr. Brown, same color as what comes out of my butt, and his same ability. Then when they don't perform, the question is what happens next? And apparently nothing happens, except TikTok has been awfully silent. That that much I'll say. Um, but when does America, when do the Americans, when do the athletes say enough is enough? I I don't know. I but maybe they don't.
SPEAKER_06:I say after this, that's up like again, the most disrespectful thing I've ever seen. Like, and I know people feel it, I know people see it. There's no way you can make that make sense to anyone that watches the sport that's been a part of this organization that has has a child on the national team, has someone that was at the team trials. You can't tell me what we just watched made any sense. We we've been told that we have two of the best coaches in the world. That's what I've been told. I've been told.
SPEAKER_04:And so where you you've been told that you've been told, you've been told, and you got a third protege that thinks he is too. I've been told, and none of them sit in the chair.
SPEAKER_06:I don't know. He's talking, he's talking about land. I'll say names. He's talking about Steve Lambden. He he coaches on a national team again. Not again, this has nothing to do with the individuals, this is the whole system. You could take everyone's name away, leave it faceless, leave it nameless, put everything that we've everything that's happened at this point.
SPEAKER_03:What's the what's the name of the day? Tell me the name of the day. My wife knows it. What's the name of the day when the NFL coaches get fired? What is that called? Black Monday, Black Tuesday? Black Monday. Black Monday. She's telling me from the background. And in apparently in USA Taekwondo, they have sunny Sundays because apparently there's no Black Monday. And and at some point, we're, you know, and this has been, and I've said this before, but it's it's worth reiterating. Um, and it'll make a good clip. Number one, when you're an athlete and you're expected to perform or you're exited from the stage by virtue of your competition record, you don't win, you don't get to go. And you expect them to perform, and you blame them when they don't perform. Why do you not hold the coaching staff to the same level? Why do you not hold the leaders to the same level? I'm going to tell you right now that I'm I'm looking at an academy team that my son is on. They're winning, then they're not winning. And at the end of the day, the coach is like, we need to win. Because, you know, he doesn't say it, but you know, I don't win. My job is on the line, right? So, and and because there's a lot of coaches that want to coach. And that's why you have Black Monday in the NFL and you have whatever you have. But apparently it's always sunny in North Carolina, Sunday, and nobody gets exited from the building. At what point, though, does, and this is where I blame the U.S. Olympic Committee because it's so fragmented now, they're apparently not paying attention. Because if you have a high performance, if you have a high performance plan and you don't perform, you come back. In other words, how well you're in North Carolina, so it takes a little while to get that mail from on the ponies from after that result.
SPEAKER_04:How do you get how do you go back and say that? But how do you go back? That's my point.
SPEAKER_03:In other words, you go to the world championships and then you show up back home, and they're in Carol, North Carolina. It takes a while for the ponies to travel to Colorado Springs to get to the whatever. Um, the Pony Express finally goes because they don't have telegraphs or electricity in Carolina, and you and you send the message back to headquarters. Number 20. What? I'm sorry, you're breaking up. Did you say number two in the world? No, no, no, number 20. What did your high performance play client say for the number 20?
SPEAKER_06:I was in W. I was in WCAP when they used to write the results. We sit around the table, they talk about the results. And for the runners, they'd always say, in 25th place, they got 25th place, they got 10th place, they got ninth place. Yeah. When they got to Tekwondo, it was only first, second, third, and fourth. They wouldn't even, I had to start like interjecting, meaning like, hey, we we got eighth, or we got 16th, only because everybody else was doing it. But that's what we're talking about at this point.
SPEAKER_04:It's listen, it it's it's a failure. It's it's you know, again, and they will they will even say um uh you know, we can only be responsible for who we train and stuff like that. But who you train, TJ, I'm gonna I'm gonna say there was three new recruits, three new recruits out to the to the to the academy. And again, I you know TJ, I like all three of these kids. You know that. And two of them, if you just look at their performances and how they competed, there was there was a regression because I know those first two, and they're they're scrappy, they're good, they're active, and and they were none of that. So that's that's training and coaching. What's wrong? What did we do to them that messed them up? The other one was further along. Let's be honest. The guy from Miami was further along. He's won in Europe, he's won the Pan Ams, he's won on a senior level all over the place, and he had a pretty good day, and he got to the semis and almost made it to the finals. But think about that. If if we got the greatest coaches, how come these performances were lackluster? And I love those those two kids, and I love I can't say I love their parents. I know their parents, and they're they've always been good to me. If they sit in their room and look at that match and go, we're on the right path, or they sit there going, and something is off. What what what was wrong? I I would love to have that conversation with them because I I and I can't believe that they're sitting there going, Yeah, that was awesome. I think they're probably going, something is not right. That's crazy.
SPEAKER_03:I think there's do you actually think I think you are too optimistic. I think you're giving them too much. Do you actually think that there's anybody in the leadership currently that's sitting there saying something was wrong? In other words, you can't I say I say this all right. I'll talk about Paris. I'll talk about Paris. Oh, okay. Because I'm just gonna tell you I'm not an organization. Because at the end of the day, and I'm gonna say this and I'll get canceled, but you know, whatever. The if you're fat and you look in the mirror and you don't see your fat, and you go back in the refrigerator, that's a problem. If you're fat, the very first thing you gotta do is look in the refrigerator, look in the mirror and say, I'm fat, and then don't go over to the refrigerator. I'm telling you, taekwondo is the fat girl at the dance leaning on the wall and and not dancing, and the realize realizing she's not dancing, it's not because she's big boned, it's because she's fat. Now, taekwondo, they have a magic mirror. They keep looking at themselves because they've been sold to them by the PR director. Oh, I'm sorry, CEO, that they're on the right track. And don't worry, just give us three more years. We heard that four years ago. They're worse than most political parties. Give me eight years. I don't have enough time. Give me, you know, whatever. Uh at what point do they open up the three letters? And I told you guys that story about the CEO. You get three letters, yeah. All right, and he he's on he's on his fourth letter.
SPEAKER_04:You're right, TJ. Like we talked about this, I mean, a number of times ago. Seven years. Seven years. When do you start winning? When do you start winning? Just no, no, definitely not better.
SPEAKER_06:Definitely not better.
SPEAKER_04:If we had a let's say we got a gold medal, let's say they got a gold medal, let's say got a silver, but is your program like nipping at like there are some good countries that lost, you know, but they're they're deep into the tournament and they lost to another quality person. How many rounds? I mean, I know Mr. Lewis, I love to give him a shout-out because he does some good work. How he I forgot what he said, but how many rounds of 64s did we lose?
SPEAKER_06:You know, I mean, that's that's you know, normally I I think I think it's they're trying to rationalize as a multiple medal world championships, and we we're way past that point to be a successful national team or successful national program. We're way past that point. I don't think there's no realist.
SPEAKER_04:You know I'm a realist, and and when people fight, I mean with my own personal people or even world championship people. When you beat Venezuela because of a bowout, um, and then somebody, and then Kazakhstan in the quarterfinals, you didn't necessarily go to Iran, Korea, Russia, Ukraine, uh, Uzbekistan, you know what I'm saying? Like, and again, you can only do you can only do what you was put in front of you. I'm not blaming that, but let's not act like we're close. You know what I'm saying? Let's not act like it sounds bad to me.
SPEAKER_06:Definitely don't say it. Don't don't put it in writing and send it to the whole the whole you know membership.
SPEAKER_04:Like, yeah, you know, but I'm happy for that kid because I like him. He's been plugging along for a while. He's the guy that keeps his head down. You know what I'm saying?
SPEAKER_06:He keeps his head down. Always been respectful, always been nice, always said hello. There was a time that a lot of them they stopped saying hello, but he always said hello. He always said, How are you? Always, always Always.
SPEAKER_04:I walked right past him and I said, Hey, congratulations up. Well done. He's like, Thank you very much, sir. You know, like super, super nice, you know, and so I don't know. I mean, I I know we're we're I think we we spiraled down into from uh the good of Brazil to the bad of these guys. TJ, I don't know how much others you watched, but did you have any favorites? Like, I tell you what, to me, the badass of the tournament was the Iranian uh 58. That boy was something nasty. He was just he beat Olympic champions. He beat, I mean, he was just that dude, he was not playing because Iran had a bad tournament, young. They had a bad tournament.
SPEAKER_03:Yeah, they're good, good clutch, good country, yeah.
SPEAKER_04:They they're good, but you know what they haven't done? They haven't fought outside of Iran since the Olympics. This is the first time. So they looked, they looked. I mean, if you watch them in the gym, you're like, geez, they're phenomenal. And our kid, oh no, they got a bronze medal because uh you're um the chino beat their lightweight in the semifinal. But that that guy was really, really, really good. I mean, he was nasty. He was messing people up. He had an answer for everything.
SPEAKER_06:I always mess up his name. What's the 58 from uh the Korean 58? Jun is it Junzob? Jinzhabi. Jun Zo Bang. I watched him, he lost, correct? Just so I'm yeah, I'll tell you what.
SPEAKER_03:I thought you talked about the Chin the Chinese guy, one hung one hung one hung low, not him. No, not not that guy.
SPEAKER_06:Um there was I I've never seen a worse holding match in my entire life. I actually I'm not a hundred.
SPEAKER_03:Hold on a second, hold on a second. Then you didn't see my match against Korea, against Egypt at the World Cup in Madrid. That guy, that guy held on to me like I was a like a baby. I couldn't, he couldn't escape his clutches. Go ahead.
SPEAKER_04:TJ, how many, how many, how many, how many, how many, how many technical meetings have you been to? A lot. Average. What's the time? How long do they take? How long do they take?
SPEAKER_06:Two hours. Maybe an hour, hour and a half, maybe. Sometimes they're really long, but they're saying hour. Five minutes. So what I heard. So what I heard, I know I may hear a lot of stuff from you, but what I heard outside of my normal source was that it was said that. You guys are like the CIA.
SPEAKER_03:I got a source. I can't talk about it. It's just like the mafia.
SPEAKER_06:My source. My source. So who told me what was going on?
SPEAKER_03:I heard from a guy, a guy next to the guy.
SPEAKER_06:That they were gonna be more lenient and let the fight happen and not make so many calls. I I I struggle, I get it. I understand, but you can't tell someone who people who train in a system with the the number of deductions and how the rules are set that oh, yeah, we're gonna be lenient. Imagine if it was the NFL and they were like, hey, coaches, come here. We're not really gonna call off size that much today. So you can it's all good, it's okay, but it's okay. It's good, you do your thing. Yeah, but you can't tell people that. When I watched, I watched the Korean 58k uh guy um listen, I felt bad for him. Obviously, me too. He's a gas, he's a gas guy, he's gonna outgas you, he's gonna keep kicking, he's gonna push you, and it normally works for him, and it should have worked for him this time. I I don't even have an issue with people jumping in, holding, and kicking. But when I watch the the is it Niger or Nigeria? Niger Nigeria, Niger. Yeah, jump in and just like to stop the action over and over and over again, and we're not making any calls. You you have to make a call. You you have to affect the fighting.
SPEAKER_04:You're you're 12, you're a foot taller. It's not like the little guy trying to hook hold on.
SPEAKER_06:You're giant, but his arms are like visibly around the body, around the shoulders.
SPEAKER_04:I felt bad.
SPEAKER_06:Why do we but that's what I'm saying? You know, you we talk about conditioning. Conditioning matters in fighting now. We can we can label one thing, you gotta be conditioned, you gotta be conditioned, and you gotta be willing to throw 50 kicks around if it if it has to be, especially in 58. I think it was a yeah, like it's it's a it's close to 45 to 50. It's a lot of kicks to be thrown.
SPEAKER_04:But so whatever for them to say that, for them just to come out there, they were like, didn't go, any questions? We were like, like, it's everything is gonna be the same. We we're gonna no, she's the the referee chair didn't say anything. The technical director, he's like, we told them the referees to, you know, don't call unless it's very blatant, don't call, just let the athletes fight. And we're like, okay, and then you see that thing for Korea. Look, I'm never trying to help another country. I just kind of like saying it is, but you feel bad when you're getting grabbed, you feel bad when all this stuff is happening. We're like, what are we doing? And let's go talk about what was passed. They passed the rules, young, that there's no video replay. People got smacked in the face like big ones. I I I I agree with you. I hate this little stuff, but I'm talking big shots, nothing on the board. They're gonna take that away next time. Next year? There's no you're gonna see people get lit up and just keep fighting. It's crazy.
SPEAKER_03:What what so it's gonna be the ref, so I get that there's no video replayed. I don't really uh they they never understood the rules to begin with. So explain to me, can the if the ref sees it, could he stop it and then ask for the points to be put up?
SPEAKER_04:Only if they give it a count, that's a mandatory check. But you know what they said? That's I mean, I heard from the national team coach from the United States said he asked somebody, and they said they're only gonna do that if they see blood. I'm just like, this is like I it's scary because listen, we don't complain when we see big body shots, and we don't complain when we see little touches. So we probably shouldn't complain for the head if we're just being logical. Yeah, but but I don't know, it's gonna suck and you're fighting and you're down by a point, and you decapitate somebody and you lose.
SPEAKER_06:It's gonna be karate, it's gonna be karate at the Olympics.
SPEAKER_03:It's been it's been karate. It's actually it's actually been bad karate.
SPEAKER_06:Somebody's gonna get knocked out, and there's not gonna be a few things, and it's not gonna score, and then you know what I mean. It's gonna look like that. That's what I mean.
SPEAKER_04:But the referee should have to uh at that point, the referee should make outright. Maybe.
SPEAKER_03:Maybe, yeah, but you gotta you gotta understand, you gotta understand what the you know, in them trying to avoid the referees because they they're cheating and lying or incompetent or all of it, they're gonna take away that too, because understand how a referee can now affect a match. Guy gets touched, yeah, gets touched in the head, gives him an eight count. Decides not to give him an eight count. That's the difference between a point and no point. So the manipulation comes back. And the referees have proven only one thing over the years. They continue to be inept, corrupt, or unable. And neither of those are successful.
SPEAKER_06:But before this, they could also they can also eight count before this, by the way. They can eight count before this and and uh go to the video replay. So they always had that, but now there's no chance for us to to replay it to see if it hit if they decide not to eat count. So to your to your point, it's even worse. Yeah.
SPEAKER_03:Uh the scoring system doesn't work, nor does it, nor do, nor will it ever work. And and there's a whole bunch of just, you know, I'm I'm going to Korea in um a couple of weeks to make a presentation on this exact thing. So Dr. Capner is doing a presentation on um taekwondo, and I'm doing another one um on my subject, which continues to be the electronic scoring thing. And it'll be interesting to see how it's received um, because I had it translated into Korean, as well as I'll be delivering it in English and taking um questions. And I did this before at Hong Kong Chede. And at the end of the day, fundamentally, the people that created the scoring system, Dr. Capner and I and the technical committee, and to be specific, it wasn't the technical committee because they were morons. Philip Philippe Bordeaux was on it, he didn't understand the concepts, and I love David Moon. He didn't he fought it, fought against it. We created the multi-tier scoring system, and we had an ethos around it and a methodology. Upon, and this was without the electronic scoring. Once the electronic scoring came in, they lost the ability. They lost one of the crucial parts of it. And the only the reason I say this is that you've got to imagine you're making a cake. And from time to time, my my wife makes whatever baked goods that she makes, and she forgets a step. Rarely, but once in a while she does. And then you look at the cake and it doesn't rise or it doesn't do what it's supposed to do. And there's just an amazing amount of disappointment. She goes and makes it again. Well, this happened in Taekwondo. They were making a cake and they forgot the crucial ingredient, which was actual technique. And when you do the actual technique ingredient, the cake rises because then you lose all the nonsense and bad scoring things. Once they forgot that part of it and and purposely didn't put it back in, you end up with what you end up with now, which is something that you can't understand, doesn't look like taekwondo. And I and I'll and I'm going to say this just so you can hear it. And this is for Don Lewis, Doug Lewis, whatever his name is, and I like him. He should go back. He should count how many of these crescent willy kicks were counted. Oh, those are good again, by the way. Oh no, it's okay. But count how many of those actually got scored back in the day. And how many of them get scored now, and how many points are actually scored by goofy things that have nothing to do with taekwondo? And how many of those were scored back in the day? There were times back in the day when Taekwondo mattered where you would do something and it wasn't a terrific technique, and it would hit somebody.
SPEAKER_04:But the argument will be maybe instead of it, like you you hit him in the head like hard, but it wasn't. I know what you're saying.
SPEAKER_03:Like listen the referees, you fix the problem.
SPEAKER_04:My point has always been we're always going, we always go. It's not a circle.
SPEAKER_03:It's not a circle. It's a it's an easy one.
SPEAKER_04:We talked about it in circles.
SPEAKER_03:I know. It's really simple. Fix the refereeing, and you get back to the true intent of taekwondo and and what it should be. When you divorce the true intent of what Taekwondo is a martial art, is if you're a quote unquote traditionalist, then you get to this other thing, which you guys all want to call sport. Well, then go play e-game taekwondo. Let me watch one of my favorite fighters, Aaron Cook, go fight a girl in um e-taekwondo in Singapore while they mutually masturbate on TV. Then go do that. Go do that. That's the ridiculous. I mean, I was embarrassed for him. I wish they would have asked me to fight in that. Like, hey, can you put this on? What do you want me to do? You what? I don't know.
SPEAKER_06:What I I don't like, I like the VR stuff. I would I would I I like the VR stuff.
SPEAKER_03:How do I turn my hold on a second? I'm gonna pull a TJ. Go ahead, go ahead, go ahead. Go ahead. I'm still here though. I don't go ahead.
SPEAKER_06:I don't, I guess my issue is like, I don't know why it has to be connected to sport. Like, you play basketball on a thing, you play uh UFC has a fighting game. They probably have um virtual reality. Boxing has a virtual reality version. I don't think that's connected to sport at all. Like, I don't that does that's irrelevant. I don't think they're trying to actually make it a championship or anything. That's just you know, they are getting purposes. I know, I know, I got it. But like it's like Easter. Yeah, yeah. I I I get what you're saying.
SPEAKER_03:They read, they read this is all coming from the USOC trying to make the Olympics more popular, yeah, and they're trying to do e-games. So Taekwondo, and which you don't know, so I'll share it with you. There was a point where Taekwondo was trying to get in the Winter Olympics, and their argument was we can do it at the Winter Olympics. We do it indoors. Chess tried to get in the Winter Olympics. You know what they tried to do? They said we'll play on ice, we'll put the tables on ice. I was in the room, I was on the committee. The guy came in. Dude, I wish I were lying. Chess and bridge case, they were trying to win. Underwater swimming, and chess said, We would like to do this, we'd like to do this. Said, but if we can't get in that, we'll go to the winter Olympics, and you can put us, you can put us on ice, we'll play on ice. And I looked at the guy. I said, How about electronic scoring? But the this is true though. I wish I were lying. The I could tell you games, game prep stories, which are whatever. But at the end of the day, taekwondo has fun fundamentally lost its way. It's forgotten its true essence, it's having a crisis, an identity crisis, and this is what the end result is.
SPEAKER_04:Remember, I told you guys in the Grand Prix Challenge in Charlotte, I was talking to a source, you know, like the young summer say it again. I was talking to my dude.
SPEAKER_03:And all I heard was Let me close my window so I don't get shot.
SPEAKER_04:Yeah, no, you better be careful. Ain't worried, I got guns. Uh, way champ, good PP, day dope. In all the tests, that's how they tested. And guess, lo and behold, the next Grand Prix is way champ. The under-21 World Championships is way champ. Be careful. And if you watch that fight, it's a lot of back legs. I I don't think any front leg score. It's all back leg rosky, which depending who you talk to, it might not be a bad thing, but I'm gonna see it live. And I'm leaving on Monday. I got a camp Friday Sarah and Sunday. Monday, I'm going to uh Equatorial, New Guinea for the Women's World Championships, and then I go straight to Thailand for the Grand Prix um challenge, the last one. So I'm gonna see it over there. You know, we'll you know, we'll be able to kind of talk, talk about it, you know, you know, kind of more educatedly. But I don't know. All the systems seemed bad.
SPEAKER_06:I watched someone uh the Wuxie, the Wuxie Grand Slam, they were using the weight chain. So I watched some of those matches too. Interesting. Did you see I'm gonna get rid of their front? There were two boys that were just playing in the center, just kicking each other. The brothers.
SPEAKER_04:Yeah, but from Bosnia. They were just kicking each other like ding, ding, ding, points going left and right. Hey, go back to the world championship. Did you see this Tunisia girl? She goes to the World Junior World Championships, wins, comes out, and just like smack. She's she beat the girl that uh that beat Christina. You know, in the in the no, not Christina. Uh in lightweight, I'm sorry, in '62. She beat the she beat the Olympic champion Martin from Hungary. And she's good, man. Tunisia, two world champions. Two world champions. Tunisia? Tunisia. Young. And my I say our one thing I'll say we failed at our hotel. Crappy. Crappy. Only good thing is we had a good mall. I had some good Korean barbecue. I went to a North Korean restaurant. Sucked. I got sick. But the Korean barbecue was awesome. Super cheap, good food, the meat was great. But in our hotel, Brazil, Tunisia, Turkey, Egypt, I think like the Czech Republic in Peru. And those four, listen to us. Tunisia, two gold medals. Brazil, two gold medals. Egypt, one gold medal. Turkey, three gold medals. In our little hotel, we had eight of the 16 gold medals possible. How that food sucks. The food was bad. But good Robin. And good.
SPEAKER_06:Yeah, I think you say that's a good story. I think you saying that I was talking, I think I wrote something online too about the same thing. Like, how does that happen? How do you get a girl that goes from one, you know, juniors to seniors? Like, you know, it's happened historically. But I guess my thing is what happens before that. What happens before that? There's development, there's building, there's consistency, there's training, there's mentorship, there's all these things. And when you tell me that the window for the world, the Olympic medalist is getting shorter and smaller and smaller, you can't tell me that investing in the cadets and juniors in America doesn't make a difference.
SPEAKER_04:Hyang, it's it's such a young. I know you were older. My third when I was older, TJ, you were you know not young, but it's a young person sport nowadays. You could you could debate the other thing. I'm not saying it's not.
SPEAKER_03:I'm not saying it's not. I'm not saying it's not.
SPEAKER_04:In our era, it was a little different. But in this era, right now, there might be an outlier or two, depending on weight, but the average age is like 20 to 21 winners. And so let's look at our makeup, TJ. Let's look at our makeup of our our big four. Let's go heavyweight, welterweight men, welterweight women, featherweight women. By time 2028 rolls around, what one's gonna be 25, 26, the other's already 28, 29?
SPEAKER_06:Like that's again, I'll keep it simple. We've they came in with the ideology and told everyone you had to be younger, and told everyone you had to be this, and told everyone they had to be 18, 18. They they they said this. What you're saying is what they said out loud to people, to the membership, to everything. From that point, speaking seven years ago, they continue to not invest in the cadets, not invest in the juniors with this ideology behind them, and now we're confused on on ones.
SPEAKER_04:And they also said that we want to be three to four deep in every division. Am I lying? That's what they said. And because they did invest in the cadet and juniors, we're not there now. Now we have the outliers. We have one good person in every division. Well, and I one above average person, you know. So listen, we're it's a tough state right now. I mean, this world championships is interesting because come June, all the points restart and and the and the race is on. But you can use this as a measuring stick, whether it's for your program or for your athletes. Um, you can use it. And some people excelled and some people didn't. It was a tough tournament for the Europeans, it was a tough tournament for the Pan American region, um, you know, excluding us. And um we're gonna see where we go from here. And even the rest of the year, like it doesn't matter. I mean, this Grand Prix coming, okay, we're going. It doesn't matter. Because the Super Bowl happened already. The Super Bowl happened, the Pro Bowl don't mean shit. The Pro Bowl don't mean shit.
SPEAKER_06:If the again, if the because the the points for this year are for the ranking for next year for the Grand Prix, correct or no?
SPEAKER_04:Yes, yes, yes, yes, yes. Right. So you just needed to get a certain amount of points, and you'll have a leg up when the first one starts in June or whatever it is. But um you needed these points for something, but I'm just talking about I mean, they start to zero. So it starts in the Grand Prix. Listen, it's the Grand Prix, it's the Grand Prix final, it's the President's Cup, it's the Continental Championships, it's the World Championships, it's the Pan American Games. There's a lot to fight for. There's gonna be a lot of points on the line, but listen, this is a I saw the selection procedures.
SPEAKER_06:They kind of put out a uh uh like the selection procedures and said that all those tournaments from the Grand Prix in Charlotte all the way through all the championships will be counted for and and took into consideration when deciding who's gonna be on the Olympic team.
SPEAKER_04:You know what's gonna you know what's kind of funny, young and this made this kind of made sense before. If you were the top six in the world in an Olympic ranking, you're on the national team. And that kind of made sense because it was hard to accumulate that. And it was hard to be in that top six. You had a lot of points and a lot of wins. This year, if you get about a hundred points, you're probably in the top six. You know what I'm saying? Like getting a bronze medal at the world championships, you're 40 open points, which is almost a given. You you're in the top five, so you're automatically on the team.
SPEAKER_03:The Olympic team or the national team?
SPEAKER_04:The national team, you know, the United States national team.
SPEAKER_03:But you don't, you don't, you don't, you don't, there's not a team trial.
SPEAKER_04:There won't be a team trial in that category. Not that category. They'll fight for seconds. But but but I don't know that this is the again, that that that programming may have been good for last quad, but with this new two-year cycle quad, maybe not. You know what I'm saying? Yeah, maybe not. Um, and I again I won't give our you know our selection procedures, but we literally talked about what's the most important? National team? Olympic ranking? World ranking? Like, what is it? Because you can say it's Olympic ranking, or you could say it's a national team, but I have some people that are higher ranked Olympic ranking than some of our national team players, and when our national team players fight them head to head, it's not even close. It just so happens that this person went all over the place and got points in 54, not 58, TJ. And yeah, and they're higher, they're higher ranked. But you think you think that's the right person to send to your Olympic qualifier, your Pan American qualifier? You've got to think these things through. You can't blanket statement them.
SPEAKER_06:And I don't think again, closing up closing a pipeline when we're saying all the kids that are winning are 20 to 21 and 22, closing the pipeline on any division makes zero sense right now. Yeah, it makes no sense. And again, I I was I I think the difference between this generation, even the generation I grew up. I think when we left the country, we had a chip on our shoulder because we had to defend ourselves at home. That was the difference. We had to some of these divisions are uncontested. Some of them are to do that.
SPEAKER_04:It's keep that alive. Keep that alive.
SPEAKER_06:You know what I mean?
SPEAKER_04:Defend yourself, you know.
SPEAKER_06:You you have to. I mean, we have to have something to work with from home. There has to be a reason to go to training. But when you start telling people, oh, because you know, we've paid for you to fly here, fly here, not that you're not good. You are good, and you get the points or whatever, blah, blah, blah. Now no one else gets a shot at that division. Well, that person didn't go to 12 tournaments.
SPEAKER_04:That person listen, you don't have to make them give a walk on. You can say be the number one seed, have a buy to the finals or something like that. You know, I mean, it's uh, I mean, and I don't even want to get started on if you're at a certain program, you're getting why do half the kids go there, not because they go. I I don't think we talked about this a couple episodes. I don't think many people go, that's the place I want to be. I think most go, I need to be there because they're the coaches and they're gonna give me money, they're gonna take me on stuff. And so they get a punch advantage.
SPEAKER_06:Yeah, yeah, that was my point. When you put all those tournaments on a list from all the grand prix challenges, because those are, you know, you put for us in the US, we put in your application, they pick the first five, you get to go. No matter your ranking, no matter if you should go or not go, has zero to do with ability and or trying to win extra spots at the Grand Prix at the Grand Prix and all that stuff like that. So once you you put all those on there, you put every other tournament they get sent to. Can you tell me how it's possible to choose anyone else outside that room? If yeah, those were like, how can you do it? That's a purpose. Someone goes to the world, someone goes to the world championships and gets a medal, then maybe.
SPEAKER_03:Yeah.
SPEAKER_06:Other than that, how do you how do you make the Olympic team?
SPEAKER_03:That's the purpose. You gotta understand the purpose.
SPEAKER_04:Well, I know it's getting long, guys.
SPEAKER_03:I mean, well, we got we got more to talk about on this next one, but it's been it's been a good one. I and I'll get this one up tomorrow. And uh, as you know, this has been the warehouse 15 late edition, after dark edition. And uh, that's a nice shirt. I'm gonna be checking my mailbox for one. But as we say, sorry, not sorry, we are wolves not heat. Wolves wolves.
SPEAKER_06:You can't read.