BTG 88 - Gold Medal Dreams and a Million Dollars

Hello and welcome to Breaking the Guard. I wanted to talk a little bit today about the Aiga, the grappling tournament, which I covered that was going to start on Friday, go through Saturday. And then I wanted to talk about something that somebody wrote me that I've gotten this question several times before. uh about pursuing a professional career in the martial arts or in sports. So, I want to get into that as well. I'll just cover the AIGA thing because I feel kind of bad if I told you to watch it because uh it turns out one production value was really low, which is surprising because you guys saw which I think the other one was in Europe, uh did quite well. The I mean the video was fine. uh cinematography as far as camera work was okay and the the stream wasn't glitching out on me. Whereas the AIA stream which again if you didn't see that there's there was an event called Aiga Brazil qualifiers where they got four teams and AIA does like a mix of quintet ADCC and uh one other rule set. They they're all kind of all over the place but it it when done well it is an interesting format. Unfortunately, the Brazilian one, they dropped the ball and everything. One, the stream on the first day was very unusable. I didn't like after, you know, trying to watch for a few minutes, I just gave up on it. Um, and I just went and saw clips when they were presented. Even on Flow Grappling, the clips are incomplete. Like, it'll be just one minute. I thought, "Oh, it's a quick match." And nope, it's just the the feed cut out. two, what feed they showed the camera work was terrible. Like they would have, let's say, the frame, like right now you guys see me, I'm in the middle. Now, they were so zoomed out from the actual action that it was hard to see, you know, like you would really have to, if you're watching on a phone, have it right in your face or on a on a TV, had to get up close because they were so far from the action, which made no sense. You know, I know sometimes when I film, I will kind of frame out a bit just because I don't want to have like something get cropped out. And usually in editing, I will zoom in afterwards when I realize, okay, I can get things nice. But if you're like a live camera operator, you should be like you playing with your zoom and making sure that the frames good. And the all the frames were really, really wide, you know, so it made it hard viewing experience. And then the third and final thing, oh actually there's a fourth thing. The third thing was they had like a on Saturday yesterday when I was or actually yeah when I was watching it the they put like a hour intermission of Capoa thing which was really oddly placed again I just left and came back later to watch because like a five minute presentation on Capoa okay sure but like it was really long I don't know if it was an hour at least 30 minutes Uh, and not the best cap that I have seen either. So, uh, and then the main thing really, the matches were very mismatched in the sense that team Casai was so overpowered. Like I when I was talking about the lineup like Andrew Take, Henato Can, Pedro Mourinho, they were all in the Tinkasai. these other teams, they just had, again, not to put down any, but I just don't know them, right? Like they're they were probably just Brazilian guys that haven't competed at the world stage and uh Tinkasai out of 21 matches had 20 submissions and I think they said like 18 of them were in the first round or something like that. So like they just blew by everybody, you know? So this tournament format was like a more of a formality to put this team Kasai into like the final tournament. Just weird, you know. Um I I don't not a fan of team formats with a team that never even met each other before. Uh and considering it was supposed to be like a Brazilian qualifier and then you have Andrew Tacket in there is preposterous, right? Don't I mean don't make it a regional thing if you're going to just bring talent from everywhere and like most of those Brazilians are now living in the US you know um just weird I don't know uh so yeah I mean I know a lot of the team things part of it is like drafting people but to me the appeal of teams is seeing like okay the the style that is taught at this school or by this instructor or this coach is pervasive among all the athletes in his team. Let's see how that works against other teams versus this the team manager has deep pockets and recruited every possible person they could that was a world class athlete and then they have nothing to do with each other. It's just who collected all the world champions, you know, doesn't make sense. Although, uh, as far as highlights, I'm sure there's quite a few highlights. I I watched mostly the final match which was Tinkasai versus another team. And again, they submitted just about everybody. So, there was some like highlight moments because you had some flying submissions, some creative uh uh takedowns, big slams, uh but again, mismatched, right? So, not as entertaining in my opinion. And I'm not I don't know why they did the way they did. So anyhows, if you if you tuned in because I I had mentioned in the news the other day, my bad if you didn't like it at least. Anyhow, um now the the question that I wanted to talk about was one that I got from uh Facebook Messenger that I didn't see until now. I was kind of old, but I've gotten this question several times, many times actually over the years. So, what better way to answer it than here. Um, somebody saying that they want to pursue, it's been a lifelong dream of theirs to pursue a career in the martial arts and like just to pour themselves fully into it, but you know, they have never uh done it before. They would just essentially be jumping head in and in the process they might have to move. They might have to give up their career or school or a job or lose their relationships and they want to know if it's worth it or if it's tenable. Right? So, this is where I'll tell you that's a hard thing to ask from somebody because one, there's a lot of factors that go into it. And two, if you're going to put the responsibility on me to determine the fate of your future, that's a bit of a burden to put on a complete stranger. All right? I've never met you. I don't know your character. I don't know your personality. uh or your drive. So, that's going to be much harder. But from a general thing, there's a few things. If you're a young dude, and by a young dude, I mean like you're a kid, like 13, 14, 15, 16, 17, 18, you can take lots of chances without really derailing your life too much. with some exceptions of course, but for the most part you can make those gamles. Once you're in your 20s, again, still have a lot of play, but when we're talking about sports athletically, you're now getting into a point where you better move quickly and with a lot of purpose. Uh, the reason I would say this because let's say you started and you're 28 and you're like, you know, I don't like working an office job. I really want to be a professional athlete, but I've never really pursued it full-time. I just go to train a couple times a week and maybe I'm pretty talented, you know, but uh I've never really given myself to it and I think I will do well and I want to be a world champion. Um, okay. Well, now we have some issues. If you've never really put yourself fully into being a a professional athlete, one, you have no idea if you'll like it. And it's one thing to do something as a hobbyist where you're training twice a week, plenty of time to recover, you're not feeling any physical uh stress or tension really. You're doing it easy, right? When you train like a professional athlete, we're talking about four to six hours a day. uh recovery is at the top of your mind, diet, uh nutrition, the people you hang around as far as the type of messaging that they're telling you, all these things start to matter a lot more. And depending on how serious you're taking it, you're going to have a variety of coaches. You're going to have your martial arts coach, and there may be several because you might have a striking coach, a grappling coach, a wrestling coach, etc. you're going to have a a nutritionist or a strength and conditioning guy. You know, you could have a whole team. You know, probably in the beginning, you're just going to have your one, but as a career grows, you're going to be having more of a council of people looking after you, which also costs money, right? Um, so there's that, but you might not enjoy the grind of having to train that much, right? Because it's not going to be as fun as, oh, I'm going to open mats and, you know, training two or three times a week, you know, and that's all I do, right? That's pretty easy because there's no recovery cost if you're a younger guy. But if it's day in and day out, and you might say, "Well, 4 hours of training, that's not a lot." When I say four hours of training, I mean actual training. A lot of people back in the day would say, "Oh, yeah, I train 8 hours a day." And it's like, okay, maybe when you show up to the gym or you leave your house, it's 8:00 a.m. and then uh you go to the gym, you get there at 9:00, uh you go off a little bit, start training at 9:30, and then you finish, you know, at 11, and then you talk to your buddies to 11:30, get back home at 12:00. You're like, "Oh, that was 4 hours there." It's like, no, no, no, no, no, no. Actual physical exertion is what I'm talking about. 4 to 6 hours, right? So, there's going to be some more time. Additionally, probably another hour or two. Uh because you're not going to do four hours in one block. You're going to do them at least two. And if you're doing like a little more volume, like five or six, then you might be doing three training sessions. So there's commuting and stuff. So it's going to take more overall time, probably closer to six to eight hours. That amount of physical exertion at a high level is exhausting. And you might not have a lot of bandwidth to do anything else. Right? And if you financially are short, that's going to be a challenge because you're going to have to have a side hustle to support the dream and you might not have a lot of energy or time to be able to do that. So, that's going to play a factor as well. But one of the things I was talking about time-wise, I sidetracked a little bit there was that if you're late 20s and you want to start per taking a career in professional sports, you have to realize that you're probably not going to achieve a high level in that sport until at least uh like 7 10 years. And that's being modest, right? Uh so if you're 28, that puts you at 38. You're on the way out at that point. And when I say being at a high level, that means you're doing everything right. Right. You're doing all the training. You're not missing sessions. You don't goof off. You hit every mark, and you're gifted, and you're doing everything perfectly. And being a at top of the game means you're maybe a contender at best, right? So that just puts you in the running to have a chance. Now, yes, you could be a champion at 38 years old, but you don't give yourself a lot of leeway. Like you're statistically you have much less odds, right? So this dream of yours can't have an expiration date for an athlete, right? If you told me I'm in my 30s, I want to be a world champion. I'm like, now you're you're really uh unless you came in with a really good skill set like we see sometimes like world-class wrestlers that switch off into MMA like, okay, they it's not like they're starting from the ground up. Like they have a very solid base and they need some technical work. They already have the mindset. They're already an athlete. They already have a very high skill set that's translatable into the martial arts. They just need to know some submission defense and some striking and they're good to go. So then that even it's like probably three, four years for a guy who's already world class in one sport to move over. But if you have zero world class abilities and then you're trying to make a run at it late in the game and again for sports 30 is getting long in the tooth, right? uh especially late 30s. If you're like early 30s, you're in you're reaching your prime typically, right? And then once you pass those early to mid30s, you're now on the twilight part of your career usually. So, uh you don't want to wait too long to try to pull this dream of yours, right? Like it has to be pursued early. uh you know I have talked about how when I mean I started training martial arts when I was 14 or so. So uh I had a good amount of time to build up and even myself I felt that I didn't reach my like peak output until what like 15 years in. My best performance objectively was ACC 2009. I started training martial arts when I was like in 95. So that's 14 years in and that's when I was now a contender world class level. I took a bronze medal, right? So I was number three. Um and at that point then what I was 28, right? So, uh, me obviously I I had a decision point in 2004 where I could have stayed in a lucrative professional career or I could jump into the martial arts headon. Now, that wasn't as risky as it might appear from the outside because I already had a martial arts-based business at a martial arts school open with my brother, Freestyle Fighting Academy. So, it wasn't like I went from, you know, a very good job to zero job. I went from a very good job to a business that had potential. And fortunately the business grew and now it's doing really well and has been. So um I had something to fall back on, right? Uh I didn't just give up all my financial capabilities to go after this. So I know because some people have brought that up to me in the past about how I could walk away from a a stable career into this and true being a business owner is not uh usually considered stable especially early in our business is only three years running. So again very uh and particularly the business we had the first three years was losing money left and right and I had uh essentially I was paying for the business. 's losses through the career until the business became profitable. And then that was kind of at that same moment uh where I wanted to compete the world championships and the business became profitable that I decided to abandon the the professional career and go into martial arts full-time. Uh I say that because again one of the people that uh messaged me had a very promising career felt that you know it wasn't satisfying to them and the idea of becoming a professional uh martial artist and a world champion was much more enticing to them. Um so like in that situation that's a much bigger gamble they're taking. they uh I don't think they even had really trained martial arts yet. So, they're going off a fantasy of being a famous and accomplished athlete versus uh what I had. I was already invited into a world championship. So I was already, you know, at that level and had a backdrop and I had a, you know, financial support and I was already training like a pro anyways. So it wasn't that big a gamble, right? Uh somebody who has everything established and has no footing in this realm and wants to give it all up to go there, that's a huge gamble. All right? So, um, when you're asking somebody for advice in that regard, you have to really I'm like what I told this gentleman and I I share with you guys is you would have to be prepared for a very difficult road, right? Uh, most people around you are going to think you're nuts. Uh, you're going to not have any much support from most people. And that's not because they're jerks or whatnot. From the outside, it looks crazy. Doesn't look like a smart move, right? It's a big risk and most people are risk adverse. And then you have to be prepared to fully commit and give it everything you have because you have to understand every person who's pursuing this dream of being a world champion has to make that same type of deal that you did. They have to be able to give everything up and have full confidence in self and train as much as they possibly can and do everything right. So if you're if you don't have that same level of commitment or better then you stand no chance, right? And uh especially if you're entering later in the game like you're not a kid, you're a grown-up and you already have a career and you're trying to switch off, you really have to make no mistakes. like you don't have a lot of leeway for error. Like you have to do everything perfectly. So is it possible? It it's possible. Is it statistically likely? Probably not, right? But if you hearing that from me dissuades you, you're probably not ready for this anyways, right? This is might be more of a fantasy, right? like you're daydreaming about something that sounds cool and that you might like, but when you actually live it, you might not enjoy it as much. And I guess the other thing I would say, especially for younger guys or people who are kind of in this phase of life, um, a change that they're not really sure where their footing is, right? Like I think especially as a younger guy, you're trying to find your way and your place in life. And I think men typically look to have respect u the and had the admiration of their peers and the respect of their peers. And you might not feel like you get it from what you're doing, right? Like you might be doing a career that just in your mind is just providing income. It doesn't give you satisfaction or a feeling of fulfillment that you've done something that you feel proud of and as a result you think other people are not uh respecting you for that and you're trying to think of something outside of that that you think would give respect because maybe it's something that you respect in other people and you're like oh you know being a professional athlete that would be something that would garnish respect from anybody Right. The problem with this type of thinking is that you're trying to seek approval now from outside sources rather than finding the approval from within. And getting a world title is not going to give that to you. If I just gave you a gold medal and hung it around your neck, it's not going to give you the respect or solve all the problems that you think you have. that has to come from within. So if you feel like you need to make this major life change to get that type of respect or that confidence, I mean can it work? Of course it can, right? Uh and it would be a very challenging road, but it's not going to be the the gold medal or you know the titles that will give you that. is going to be the road to it that will and it might not be necessary to blow up your whole life to pursue a dream that you have no experience even living right like that's the other thing like if you haven't even uh dipped your foot in here uh in being to a professional athlete or training full-time it's kind of like somebody told you about their dream and you like the sound of and now you're going to go after it. Um, so if I was going to talk to any young man or I was going to talk to, you know, a friend or a family member of mine, I ought to be telling you, look, you should be doing a an apprenticeship first before you decide blowing up everything, which is you at the very least need to start trying to train as much as you can as an amateur while still trying to maintain the your career. that you currently have and see what it's like. Or maybe give yourself a week vacation or two weeks and just train full-time for a couple weeks and see how that feels like because you might not, like I said, you might not know what you're getting. You know, it might look nice from the outside and uh but it might feel terrible once you actually live it. I joke around with my wife all the time. I call this my the mint chocolate chip ice cream story. When I was a kid, my dad took me to I think Dairy Queen or whatnot and he let me pick the ice cream. And I as a kid, I saw the mint chocolate chip cookie, which green ice cream with chocolate. It looked very enticing to me. And I remember the color was what made me want to pick it. I didn't realize it was a mint chocolate chip. I just saw green ice cream. And my dad tried to warn me. He's like, "Son, you're not going to like this." I'm like, "No, no, I want it. I want it. I want it. I want it. And then he's like, "Okay, but you get this. This is all you're getting." And I was like, "Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah." He gave it to me. I started eating it and I hated it. It was awful. And he's like, "I told you." No, that's what you got. And I ended up throwing the ice cream away. I didn't finish it. Uh, so what would have been smart, which I don't know if it was done back in the day, which is ask for a sample first to see if I like it before I actually pay for it, right? Uh similar idea here. If you're going to try to pursue something completely out of your experience, try to get some type of apprenticeship or sample or dig into the life a little bit. Maybe talk to people who are living the life. Ask them questions or for some insight, which again this guy did, so kudos, right? Um so you understand what you're getting yourself into. It's not a decision to be taken on lightly, right? There's a lot of things that that change. You know, becoming a professional athlete is a very difficult path. We only see the famous people who are doing very well at their peak. So, it looks like, oh, you know, like McGregor is living the life. Like, what an easy way to live. It's like that guy had to eat a lot of to get to where he is, right? And all these people that are lucky are also people who more than likely struggled all the way through. I know one of the guys now in the UFC that does really well, Chris Curtis, and he's a little older for as for a fighter. He's in his 30s. He didn't he was I think if I remember correctly, he was about to retire because he was doing well in the mid-level circuits, but just wasn't getting the shot into the UFC. and then he finally got his chance and you know he stamped it through and did well and now he's fighting big but he could have been a guy that with a little less luck not get that shot right and would have never fought on the big time and some of it is uh you know not totally in your hands right you can only do as much as you can um one of my guys for example Jason Suarez is probably one of the the the best product as an athlete. My brother and I ever created, but he never got into the UFC and it was mo mostly politics. Uh for whatever reason, they he never got his shot into the big show, you know, and he beat multiple people who were in there. So, it was crazy. It made no sense. And uh unfortunately, you know, it just never got it. And if you're not willing to like accept that risk, right, that can have a huge drawback. Now, fortunately, like Jason has done really well in life uh business-wise and uh I think I always believe everything happens for the best. And in his case, it definitely seems like that is the case, right? He's got a wife, he's got kids, he's doing well. uh but you know you have to be able to foresee all the possible outcomes at least try to predict them and understand your situation. So, uh, again, I'm kind of winding around all over the place here, but the the basic premise here, if you're somebody who wants to change your life path and whatever it is to become a professional athlete and you're asking somebody for guidance in it, this is it, right? one live a day in the life of right like and not just a day put in a week of training like a professional as much as you can and see how that feels like because you might realize pretty fast I think most people would that this is not for you. You're not cut out for this because most people who have this type of aspiration are probably not going to ask. they're just going to go for it because they're risktakers and that's how they are. Um, but if you are more careful and you find that then you do enjoy this then now you have to I would say make all those questions as far as like what you going to do for finances, what's going to be your support system, how is your training schedule going to be working like? What are your milestones for getting to that next level? you know, um, all these things are going to be important in determining your career as a professional athlete. And you also have to think past the the win. A lot of people, they will think, okay, my goal is to be a world champion. My goal is to be the world champion. And if all the cards fall right and you become a world champion, amazing. Now what? Because life goes on, right? And if you think just winning that gold medal is the end of the story, well, guess what? Then it will be. But then you still have like another 30, 40, 50 years to live. And if you didn't think it through carefully, you end up being one of these guys who just hangs around the sport for too long and you keep fighting. And you know, like I hate to say it, but it's like a guy like Vander Holyfield basically, right? Where he's still fighting and he shouldn't be fighting, right? Uh it's sad to see and it's like to me it's like somebody who didn't really think through or uh as far as what they were going to do post sport because you remember a sporting career is typically very short. You're ending somewhere in your 30s maybe of your 40s if you got good longevity. So if you're planning to live past 40 which I hope you would you got a lot of life to live. So, you got to figure out what you're going to do with the rest of it. Whether that means you're going to open up a school or you're going to become a coach or you're going to move on to some other entirely different career, you should have that already in your head set up so that you know how you're going to move through your life. Uh if you don't have that prepared, then you might end up, you know, not having a lot of good options later in life. Anyhow, I won't go uh much longer into it, but I hope that uh that rambling answer gives you some of the insights that I had as far as the mindset that it's going to take, the type of sacrifices you're going to have to make, the the probabilities, the timelines, uh all these things. Anyhow, I'll let you guys go. I'll be back next week with another episode. And I'll Oh, you know what? There's one last thing we should talk about, which maybe I should have led with, but we'll get into it now. Craig Jones Invitational CGI. I thought this was a joke, then I thought it was a prank, but apparently it's a real thing. And if you haven't heard this, Craig Jones had made it known that he was not going to compete in ADC. And apparently it was the dispute about money. He felt that the prize money for ADCC was insulting especially given the success of ADC in the recent years. and as I guess a testament or not testament but taking a stand he chose that he wasn't going to compete. Now Craig Jones is in a unique position that he doesn't really need to compete to make money. He is probably the number two guy, pun intended, uh in jiu-jitsu that is a celebrity on his own. The guy has been flying around in private jets all over the place. He's like in Bali, Kazakhstan, and then he's in Ukraine and uh Abu Dhabi. So, and he's got some good backers, I guess, or he has some other business I don't know about, but he's doing pretty well, making some big moves. And he had shown that he had like over $3 million in a bank account reserved to fund this tournament idea, which apparently now is more than an idea. It's an event and it's going to take place the day before ADCC in Vegas. So, this is kind of amazing because you have the World Championships, which I believe it's uh it's a Saturday, Sunday in August in Las Vegas in the T-Mobile Arena. And then you're gonna have Craig Jones Invitational Friday, Saturday at um God, I just slipped my my tongue. But it's at the same place ACC was in 2022, right? So it's a it's a big stadium, right? and close by and the dates are crossing over. So to top it off, ACC pays 10,000 for first place. Um and they've paid that since the inception of the tournament in 1999 or 98 rather or maybe 97 or somewhere around there 97 98 with inflation that's obviously not that great, right? Uh, so Craig does have a point there. Now, an extra thumb in the eye there is that he's going to give everyone who shows up $10,01 for show money. Now, this is a big uh statement there because he's going to be paying more than you would win if you won ECC for showing up. Now, there's not as many divisions. He basically has two divisions under 90 kg, over 90 kg. They're also going to be fighting in a pit, which I think is a huge plus. Thumbs up. I love the pit idea. I talked about it with the karate combat thing for striking. I thought it was whatever. For grappling, great. So, they're going to use that idea, and I think that's great. Now they're doing two divisions, 16man divisions. So obviously not as much talent. It's only 32 people. Um although they do have a super fight because they've already announced three athletes which were the Tacket brothers who had just won the US trials. So they're dropping out and then Fion Davies who was I think the champ from the last ADCC. So, those are some big names that they've already drawn away from ADCC, right? Uh, they obviously need a lot more, well, at least 31 more names to fill up all the the super fight and the the matches, but it does raise that uh competition angle. So, one part of me likes it because this is now forcing ACC's hand in that if they don't start offering more prize money, they're going to lose talent uh to Craig Jones. Uh so, I think that's good. And the other thing is if this event goes off and it works well and hopefully they can recover their investment because they're going to I forgot the biggest part. They're paying a million dollar prize for each division. So $1 million for a 16-man tournament with $10,000 to show up or $10,000 first place prize, $0 to show up. From a purely financial perspective, it makes no sense to do ACC. It would be go into Craig Jones Invitational. Not only do you get more money to show up than you would if you won, but you're going to make what, like a thousand times more if you or 100 times more 100 times more um if you win. It's a no-brainer. But there is the idea of legacy, right? Whereas Greg Jones Invitational, just started, the guy's a jokester, prankster, all that. Like, how serious are people going to take the title? Versus ADCC, which has done good in branding itself as the Olympics of grappling, the most important event uh in the grappling world. So, how important is it to you to have that credential saying I am the best grappler because I was I won ACC versus I won the Craig Jones Invitational and I'm a millionaire now, but maybe I don't get the respect for that toughest division ever. I don't know. uh if it was like $100,000, $50,000 maybe like, you know what, I rather stick with ACC is a sure thing. But a million is definitely a big level jump, especially if you're a young dude, right? And and grappling, there's nobody that's been close to being paid a million dollars to grapple. So, right there, you're going to already have a a legacy in being highest paid grappler. And if the event doesn't work well, that might be the last time there's a really highly paid grappler. So, I mean, it does make some interesting things. And now, like the one thing I I I don't like about this as a spectator, I'm like, crap, now I'm going to go to ACC because I have so much connection to in history and I also got front row seats and everything. I'm like, I'm going. I feel like, damn, I would have liked to been able to see this event, especially since it's also going to be here in Vegas, but I'm not going to be able to because of the crossover, right? Uh, so as a spectator, that kind of sucks, right? But, uh, it's an interesting power move by Craig. And I'm not sure how it's going to work out, if it's going to I see online there's a lot of people who who love it because there's obviously people that are not fans of ACC or they're not fans of the the main promoter Mo Jim. So they're taking and they don't like uh Gordon and the New Wave guys and they're all kind of buddy buddy together. So they're taking lots of shots at them saying, "Oh, you know, the Craig Jones thing is going to take over." And likewise the other way around, too. People crapping on the Craig Jones thing, saying it's a scam, that no one's going to get paid, blah blah blah blah. Uh and my take is if both events can go off well, the whole grappling world would do better for it, especially with competition. Uh again, the big struggle in my mind is going to be Craig making the event profitable. Now, uh I mean, I haven't hosted events at that scale before, but I have hosted events and it's pricey. uh and how they plan to recover because apparently they're streaming it for free on YouTube is the other thing. So, I'm curious how they plan on making the money from the event, especially since the fan base that would travel to see this probably already got their tickets because ADC is almost sold out. So, they already have all their tickets there and they paid for their flights. They're not going to be able to go to both events, right? So like it I felt like they could have switched it up a little bit not make that crossover date like just do it two days earlier or something like that where then you're giving people the option of I could extend my trip so that I can see both events right because for example they would have done that I would have probably gone to watch I mean uh that's going to be a historic moment if they pay out a million dollars to to grappling athletes. That's very impressive. And I imagine there's going to be people going into that tournament just because of the money people because you might say, well, who's going to do it? And then you see, okay, well, we got three people already in that are like high level. And then there might be people on the outside like, okay, I know I could take those guys. I'm going to jump into this thing because hell, a million dollars is a million dollars. It's life-changing. So, I don't know. That to me was very interesting. Uh the whole drama behind it, h I could live without that. But at the end of the day, if we could get some good competition, uh just like IBJF, uh we have ADCC now and they're both competing for like regional circuit tournaments. ADCC seems like it's been on the rise, growing in popularity. Uh, and we get Craig Jones Invitational now. And, uh, we'll have to see how far they really thought about this. It's just just like a spite store, right? Like from Kirby enthusiasm. like he's just so mad at Mo that he wants to, you know, try to see if he could just damage his reputation a little bit or damage his event financially by running his little thing. Or is he actually going to take this seriously and grow this into like a real brand? If it's just a one-off, like I said, then it doesn't really I mean, it it won't really do that the pressure because basically, yeah, he will have the highest prize, but then you could easily say, you see, he only did it once because the event's not lucrative, right? And that's why we have to pay less because we're not making enough money off this to be able to pay you guys more. That's the defense for ADCC, which historically was very verifiably true, right? Like when I was competing at ECC, there would be like a handful of people in the bleachers, right? Uh now that's changed, right? So you do have to think there's got to be bigger prizes available uh for them now. How much bigger? I don't know. But definitely bigger than 10K for sure. And I think Mo has kind of alluded that they were going to pay more. They didn't say what though. But you would have to think if they're near sold out with the T-Mobile Arena, they got to be able to do better than, you know, the 10K for first place prizes. Now, mind you, they're also playing second, third, fourth. They pay for the travel. They pay for all the coaches travel. So, there is more to it than just that first prize with that first place prize money, but uh it's still kind of lacking, especially when other events are paying more than ACC. Like ACC is like one of the lowest paying grappling events. Like now there's like $20,000 prizes just like the the event that Brandon McCarron just ran, the PFL, they paid out well $100,000 to the first place team and then another $20,000 to the the athlete that won overall. Uh so I feel like you got to step it up significantly. Like if they went up to like 50k first place prizes, that would be a move in the right direction at least. Obviously, I want as much as they can do to make it profitable, but it feels like for an event that runs once every two years, we can do more in that regard. And hopefully they can. And like I said, hopefully everybody wins uh and the sport just keeps growing. Anyhow, now we'll end the show that I got that off my chest and I'll see you