Top Guys Fight Club (Part 3)

This week on The Top Guys Podcast, we conclude our time in Top Guys Fight Club.

The question is simple: if you could fight anyone — real or fictional — who would it be, why are you fighting, what’s at stake, and are you walking away with the win?

Naturally, the answers are completely unhinged.

We get into fictional rivalries, legendary martial artists, cartoon grudges, public service beatdowns, childhood trauma, government chaos, utility bills, and one man’s highly specific mission involving Destro and a certain someone from Cobra.

It starts as a fight card.
It turns into therapy.
Then somehow, we end up talking about oranges.

Welcome to Top Guys Fight Club.

Transcript

SPEAKER_01 0:09

I want to fight my seventh grade algebra teacher.

SPEAKER_00 0:12

Oh. Oh.

SPEAKER_01 0:14

Yeah. I really do. Yeah. This person scarred me in a way that so imagine, you know, in elementary school.

SPEAKER_00 0:27

Even the saxophones right there.

SPEAKER_01 0:29

Exactly. Yeah, you should. Yes. I might be able to fly them in on the audio version. Some little Kenny G or something.

SPEAKER_00 0:36

No, no, no. Or something that won't be boys in the wood saxophones. Yeah, yeah, yeah.

SPEAKER_01 0:46

Fair. Well, fair. Zigzag, baby. Decent math skills in elementary school. You know, and getting ready to go into seventh grade. And my mother says to me, she goes to like the I I had to get permission to go to a deal because I didn't live in, y'all know how it is in DC. Like you had to live in the ward in order to be allowed to go to the school. And we lived in ward four, and you know, Tinley Town in that area was I don't know what ward it was, but like you had to get permission to go there. It turned out that one of the people that my mother went to college with was one of was the assistant principal. And so he was like, I got him. Gets me in the deal. And she goes up for like the orientation, parent teacher orientation. And she comes home and she says, Okay, you're gonna have a schedule. Like the big thing going into seventh grade was you're gonna switch classrooms. It was like, oh, oh man, we're gonna switch classes. Like that was new. Like, because you in elementary school, you go to one classroom, you have one teacher every year. And this was oh, wait, we go here and we do this, and we got we're gonna have this many teachers. And she said, Yeah, we I signed you up for pre-algebra. And I was terrified because I'd heard of algebra, but I didn't like know what it was, and I was like, I don't know. Oh, go ahead, Chris.

SPEAKER_00 2:15

For those playing the home game, we are referring to Alice Deal Middle School. Yes, continue Omar.

SPEAKER_01 2:22

Yes, thank you. We may want to tell them what wards mean too, for those that don't know anything about the DMV. You had to be like, tell me you're from DC without telling me you're from DC. If you don't know, if you tell me you're from DC and you know what a ward is, no.

SPEAKER_00 2:34

It's like a borough. Yeah, there are six quadrants of DC that is separated into basically sections. So nation state. Yeah, nation state. It's like ward one, which I I live in, is in Northwest. Then there's ward two, there's ward three, there's ward four, five, and six. Oh, wait a minute. My bad. There's eight wards.

SPEAKER_01 3:01

What about eight wards? Yeah.

SPEAKER_00 3:03

Yeah. Yeah. So yeah. There's basically eight sections of Washington, D.C. So there is.

SPEAKER_01 3:12

All right. So mother's like, you're gonna I put you in pre algebra. And I was like, why? Why do you hate me? And she was like, you know, no, no, no, you know, I think you can handle it. So we're gonna put you in that. I lasted a semester because the teacher was just, I mean, it there's there's mean and there's like mean where you're like, okay, that person was mean, but I grew. That teacher was hard, but that's the one I want to go back and see and be grateful for how tough they were on me because they were tough. This person destroyed my confidence so completely within two semesters that I went decades after with no confidence at all that I could do math. When I ended up getting into the University of Maryland and they had a placement exam, and I was already like, Well, I guess I'm taking remedial math because you know I'm not any good at this. So the confidence was just shot at Maryland Remedial Math, barely got through that and with drop math courses. It wasn't until I went back to school after dropping out. Years and years and years later. Because I dropped out of Maryland in '92, went back briefly in '98, and then finished my degree at Strayer starting in 2006, finishing in 09. And the I I will never forget they told me I'm about four classes in, and I'm purposely not taking algebra because I'm terrified of it. You know, now as a grown grown man, and the I forget what they're called, but the the people that would like like sign you up for classes and your your liaison with the school, they were like, look, we're not, you you have to take algebra. And I'm like, Well, I'm gonna take it. You know, I'm just saving it for last. Like my whole thing was I'm not going to deal with like my thinking was if it's the only thing standing between me and finishing, then I think I I'll be I'll be forced to do it. But I don't want to kill my momentum because I have dropped a bunch of classes. My my undergrad and early on, I wasn't a very good student, just didn't have any confidence in it and was terrified of failing out again. Like when you drop out, it just messes with your psyche. And so just the fact that I'm even back in school got that far, I didn't want to lose any momentum. I'm terrified of this. And they said, Well, we're not gonna let you register unless you register for algebra. You've hid from it long enough, was basically what they told me. And I got so upset that I threatened to transfer. I was that shook. And they were like, you just have to take a placement exam. And I'm like, no, I've taken placement exams before. If I'm I don't I don't want to pay, because this at this point I'm paying for it. I don't want to pay $1,500 for a remedial math course, you know, when I could just wait. And they were like, dude, you haven't even tried. Now that triggered me from our last conversation from the Jerry Mitchell, dude, you didn't even try to fight. So once that was said to me, it was the the kick in the fanny that I needed.

SPEAKER_00 6:34

Not the fanny.

SPEAKER_01 6:35

Yes, the fanny. I go up to wherever they they had me do this placement exam. Now, what's interesting is during this window of having been dropped out and going back, I had become a musician, and I taught myself how to do some basic Python programming and some HTML programming like back in the day, like just through reading the code and figure, like just figuring stuff out, messing with it, getting it wrong and so forth.

SPEAKER_00 7:05

You taught yourself basic?

SPEAKER_01 7:08

Mm-hmm. Now, what's wild is I'm not making the connection that music is math, you know, or any of these things. So I don't know. I'm just going off of what happened to me in seventh grade, terrified. I go up and I'm about to go in, I'm mad the whole time. You know, just mad that they're making me do this. And I'll never forget the the woman who was like, look, you know, just just try. You know, if you don't do like do the best you can. They gave me an hour. I was done with the placement exam in like 15 minutes. And it was only 15 minutes because I like checked everything and came out and I was like, well, I answered everything. And you know, funny enough, it was like multiple choice. So it was like it wasn't, you know, like you're doing calculus or nothing. Came out, she ran the numbers. I got a 98 on this placement exam. And she looked at me. I'll never forget, she was like, I thought you couldn't do math. And I was like, so did I. Ended up getting an A in every math class I took at Strayer, was tutoring people in statistics by the end of the run. And what's interesting is I had an opportunity when I first started working for Disney to speak to the college interns. Now, what's interesting is that they they call you in to speak to the interns, and typically you will have a panel of about seven people, and all the people on the panel are folks that were typically like, Well, I was a college intern at Disney, and I, you know, I did this and I did that. So they go down the line as people are introducing themselves, and then they get to me, and I say, Well, I dropped out of college, and my GPA was so terrible that I probably could not get into the schools that you are in now, but I'll tell you how to get a job here. You know, if you listen. And they look. The person asked me one of the questions I got asked, man, what from one of the students was, Well, what classes should I be taking? And I said, Take as much math as you can. And they like you can almost see like their heart sink. And that person came up to me afterwards and they were like, But I'm, you know, I'm not good at I'm not good at math. I remember looking at her and I said, Do you have a checking account? And she said, Yeah. I said, if I took $10 out of your checking account, would you notice? She said, Yeah. I said, then you can do math as subtraction. Go take math classes. And she walked out. And I learned in that moment, man, that math is just confidence. Here's the interesting twist on this part of me wants to thank this teacher. Because if I don't have that experience, I don't have the failures that lead to those moments. It does like it, it's I I wouldn't want to trade what happened after for some temporary relief of having gone through what was seemingly traumatic. I don't think it was cool. But oh, and I didn't even get to tell you, like, it was the thing that put me over the top that made me drop this person's class was there was a day that we were getting quizzes handed back, and this teacher went around the room and would call your grade out in front of the whole class.

SPEAKER_00 10:29

Oh, that ain't cool, man.

SPEAKER_01 10:30

Yeah, literally would go around and gets to me and was like, Do you want to know what you got? Yeah, you got a D. Would do this. Yeah, kid you not. This happened. It was Alice Deal, junior high school, seventh grade, and there are people that are listening that are like, I know exactly who that is. I'm not gonna say no names, but y'all know if you went there, you know who I'm talking about. Devastating. You know, the part of me wants to say thank you. Part of me would love to go back in time and be 12 and say, let's box.

SPEAKER_00 11:03

Now, if someone is listening at home that does know exactly who Omar's talking about, schedule some blood work. Check your levels.

SPEAKER_01 11:22

Yeah, man. Jim Shooter and my seventh grade algebra teacher.

SPEAKER_00 11:30

Fight. Beautiful story, Omar. Thank you. Thank you. Hey, hey, Chris. Yes, sir. Wanna go somewhere and cry together? Here's the thing. Here's the thing. I can't, I legitimately I cannot relate to any of that for one reason. If I had even considered dropping out of a thing, Cherie Scott would have killed me. She would have punched me so hard that I disappeared. It it would have been 1984 all over again, and we're gonna try and lose it.

SPEAKER_01 12:08

And that's how you helped me fight Jim Shooter. That's how you do it.

SPEAKER_00 12:13

There you go. I would have I would have solved that particular problem if I had it by simply just knowing and admitting I'm just not good at something. Like that's just me. Like we went to the same high school, Omar and I, and I took uh rock sciences. And I never was this science. This was like senior year. Damn.

SPEAKER_01 12:43

Yeah. Wait a minute. Okay, because the rock sciences, like the all right, so I don't remember that because yeah, like the yeah. All right, let me ask you this. Did you did you go because you and I like I talked you in a bit like, man, let's go up to Domino's quite a few times. Like, forget that class, man.

SPEAKER_00 13:05

Me and you, we going over here. Yeah, no, no, no, no, no. So this is where you and I differ. There was a point in that class where the teacher was like, if you just show up, I'll give you a D. And I just looked at her and I said, You and I both know I'm never going to care about rocks. So if you gotta give me the F, give me the F. I've already got enough credits to graduate out this B. So if you want to give me the F, give me the F. Because I'm not learning about rocks. Did you end up learning about rocks, Devon? No. Oh, wow. You really didn't know.

SPEAKER_01 13:47

No, man, you came with me. Me and Devon, man, I mean Devon was just like it was we were Superman and Batman in senior year.

SPEAKER_00 13:56

No, but you know what? But I'm just saying this. I didn't have a terrible influence on Devon. Come with me. I did not find to this woman out of spite. I was saying it because I knew realistically, I did not care. I knew I was never gonna use this stuff again. So it was like, ma'am, you cannot make me care about rocks as much as you care about rocks. So let's just there's no, there's there's gonna be no vegan moments here.

SPEAKER_01 14:32

Like, I just don't care. Like do you remember anything from that class? Anything?

SPEAKER_00 14:39

I remember igneous and said sedentary rocks or something like that. I don't know. See, I'm proving my point.

SPEAKER_01 14:51

You ain't had time to be reading. I get that, I understand that.

SPEAKER_00 14:57

No, I I read a lot, but the things I don't care about, I really don't care about.

SPEAKER_01 15:04

Yo, that's true. That is true. And I like oh, bruh, like you gotta tell me it is it's a say less, man. Like like one of the things that I admire most about Devon Sanders, ladies and gentlemen, children. Man, whole Christian is that he has no problem standing on bit. Like, if Devon believes a thing, that's that's it. Good luck trying to move him off of that. It ain't happening. Nope. He and don't care. Don't care what you think. Nope, this is where it is. And I respect that because Alba will like like change my mind, you know, on certain things. Like things that I come in, like, no, it's this. And then he'll be like, Well, what about this? And I go, you know, you might be right. I will flip like a pancake, but Devon, it's this. And I wish I could be more like that with Devon Noah's complete sentence.

SPEAKER_00 15:59

I've gotten better. You know, I have gotten better.

SPEAKER_01 16:02

Oh, I'm not saying that you don't like you are like immovable. Yeah. What I mean is you are you stand on business, like you have no problem being exact having your opinion being exactly who you are. And it's like one like what you see is what you get. It's 100 all the time. There's a deep respect.

SPEAKER_00 16:22

Yeah, stink me all the time. Damn. You know, I've never even seen that show, but I know who you're talking about. I'm kidding, baby.

SPEAKER_01 16:31

It's impossible not to know who stink Nina is.

SPEAKER_00 16:33

It's definitely worth your time. No, you're you are not you are definitely grandpa, but like you're not.

SPEAKER_01 16:42

Yeah, I would say that. I would say that. Yeah, you're definitely granddad. Yeah, definitely granddad.

SPEAKER_00 16:47

I am like if you had to look at a character who is me in real life, it would probably be Stanley from the office, or it would be like Barber and Coming to America. It's Mama name of Clay. I'm gonna call him Cassius Clay. Oh, okay. Okay, yeah. Yeah.

SPEAKER_01 17:06

Yeah. You'd be the Arsenio barber.

SPEAKER_00 17:09

Yeah.

SPEAKER_01 17:10

Yeah. Yeah, you would. I can see that.

SPEAKER_00 17:12

Yeah. So that made you Eddie Murphy?

SPEAKER_01 17:16

I don't know. I might be the other barber.

SPEAKER_00 17:17

You know, you ain't never met the king. That boy good, good and terrible. That boy good. Oh man. So that was a whole stocker. I I feel like I need to talk about time I had nervous breakdown in the middle of college in my sophomore year. Look at that. Devon Sanders saving y'all from my story of being motherman in a Bruce Manor as I walk down Central Avenue in the rain. Yeah, because we're threatening to have a 90-minute episode as we listen, you knew that when I it went from me fighting Lucy Van Pelt or wanting to like stared and fought her with your eyes. No violence. At the end, you turned into festivist. I respect it though. This is what you get when you have a clean for a clear, you know, just a clear path, a wild format.

SPEAKER_01 18:34

Listen, man, this shouldn't surprise you. This is basically our text messages in real life.

SPEAKER_00 18:39

True. It is.

SPEAKER_01 18:40

Yeah. I will text Devon about any kind of random thing. Like true man, I'm I'm thinking like the shifts in discussion, because I will just text you about anything. And you just roll with it.

SPEAKER_00 18:54

Yeah. All right, I guess we're talking about this. About a month ago, I like texted him out of the blue. Hey, Omar, oranges don't taste the way that they used to taste. I was like, they're they're just not citrusy like they used to be. Like the like these are actual things I said.

SPEAKER_01 19:15

These are actual conversations. Yeah.

SPEAKER_00 19:16

The reason that excuse me. The reason that Tang was called Tang, it was an orange flavor beverage. There's no Tang in an orange. These are actual like text messages.

SPEAKER_01 19:33

Yeah. Tang is the official drink of astronauts, too, by the way.

SPEAKER_00 19:38

Uh-huh. Yeah.

unknown 19:40

Yep.

SPEAKER_01 19:40

He was one of them Sunny D kids, wasn't you, Devon?

unknown 19:43

No.

SPEAKER_01 19:43

Oh, everybody was a Sunny D. Everybody was Sunny D. Sunny D is delicious.

SPEAKER_00 19:47

You didn't like Sunny D Mr. Formaldi. No, no. What about okay, more Tampico? No. It tasted heavy.

SPEAKER_01 19:57

Okay. Were you a Tampico?

SPEAKER_00 20:01

I barely remembered. I did like that.

SPEAKER_01 20:04

It was like Tampico was delicious. It is the official drink of the hood. We love it. Give me more Tampico.

SPEAKER_00 20:10

Yeah. Wait, it was how we how the hell are we going to wrap this up?

SPEAKER_01 20:16

Hey, listen, you in our defense, you brought up oranges. Yeah. And how they don't taste good. Yeah. That got me on Tampico. I'm trying to get us to 90.

SPEAKER_00 20:30

We've had a wonderful evening here on the Tap Guys podcast. An evening of thorough introspection, outward growth, and good Christian family fun. And we elbow drop billionaires, and we've come to grips with past traumas. Yes. Well to yours. We wish you a happy take care. See you next episode, baby. I'm Chris Scott. That's Devon Sanders. That's Omar. We out. That's how you work for that. That's how you do it. That's how you do it. That's how it works for dad. And that's how it's gonna go. Yeah, I was like, how are we gonna bring this back? Yeah. I'm glad you were just like, alright, enough.

SPEAKER_01 21:35

Not my fault. I was orange juice. It gets too good to me. It gets too good to me.

SPEAKER_00 21:42

Oranges are delicious.

SPEAKER_01 21:44

Oranges are delicious. Or at least they used to be. Yeah.

SPEAKER_00 21:48

Not as good. Apples I can't really mess with.

SPEAKER_01 21:51

It depends on the kind of apple that you get.

SPEAKER_00 21:53

See, I like apple juice. Yeah. Okay. Unless I'm good when you put apple in things. I don't think even honey crisp?

SPEAKER_01 22:04

Honey crisp is good. You don't like honey crisp apples?

SPEAKER_00 22:07

Oh, they're oh, actually, those are good. Those are good.

SPEAKER_01 22:10

That's the only ones I'll get, man. Honey crisp. Expensive as well. But these days, what is it?

SPEAKER_00 22:15

Yeah. Those are the only places I can actually eat like an apple. But it's like you chop up an apple, you put it in some fruit salad, boom, put it in a pie, boom. I'm there. But if you just hand me an apple, it'll be like thanks. I ain't messing up my teeth for this. I ain't your meat.

SPEAKER_01 22:35

Exactly. I have to cut them. I'm I'm I'm that dude. I have to cut the apple. Yeah before I eat it. And then even on the side, because I don't know if I can. Okay. Yeah.

SPEAKER_00 22:43

Smother than peanut butter if I'm gonna eat it. Damn.

SPEAKER_01 22:46

That also.

SPEAKER_00 22:47

Yeah.

SPEAKER_01 22:48

Yeah.

SPEAKER_00 22:49

Yeah, I'm not just gonna I'm not just gonna raw dog an apple, that's for sure. Zip. What you've just heard has been but a brief sampling of the outstanding awesomeness that is the Top Guys podcast. If you would be so kind, on your way out the door, leave us a like, a thumbs up, a nice comment, give us a five star rating on whatever Yelp service you use to listen to your podcast, and you know, give us a high five and also subscribe.