Fighting The World Of Fake Martial Arts - Phrost - #458

**Chris Williamson** (0:00)
Hello, friends. Welcome back to the show. My guest today is Phrost. He's editor at Bullshido and a podcaster. The introduction of MMA and UFC has been the ultimate stress test for fake martial arts. No touch knockouts and chi push energy blasts have been arm barred and head kicked out of existence. Yet, the ability to detect and defeat BS, whether physical, martial or conceptual, is no less useful. Expect to learn whether Will Smith should have just swung harder, Phrost's justification for why you should always get into online arguments, what it was like to create a real life fight club, the most ridiculous martial arts which were disproved, how hard Steven Seagal really was, whether everyone should learn to fight and much more. But now, ladies and gentlemen, please welcome Phrost.
Phrost, welcome to the show.

**Phrost** (1:13)
Hey, great to be here.

**Chris Williamson** (1:14)
This is awesome. It's been a few days now. We've had enough time for the lessons from Will Smith slapping Chris Rock to percolate around the internet and their philosophical significance to embed themselves. What were your thoughts when you first saw that, and what are your thoughts now, having had time to reflect on it?

**Phrost** (1:34)
Well, like every single human being that is even moderately aware of this, I had my own take on this, and it was basically this, I thought Will Smith could hit harder. But it's not the most earnest way of looking at that. Yeah, I mean, I don't think he was trying to knock Chris Rock's head off. A lot of people, given what we do at Bullshido, thought, oh, it was a work, it was staged, it was the Oscars, nobody cares about them anymore, and now we're all talking about it. So I don't have strong opinions one way or another, but yeah, I was just like, hey, action movies aren't reality, let's just take this opportunity to remind you of that.

**Chris Williamson** (2:14)
Interesting one. On balance, I don't think that it's a fake event. I don't think it makes as much sense. I'd heard that if it came about through whatever your equivalent of Ofcom regulators are, that they'd staged this and that in the script for it had been swear words, that the Oscars would be looked at being slapped with like a $10 million fine, that if you were to purposefully, you can accidentally say swear words and it's about a quarter of a million. I was with a guy from Hollywood yesterday on the Drinking Bros podcast. If you script a swear word in and it's not supposed to be there, it's some insane feat, some ridiculous. So I think that that seems unlikely. And just the reactions from pretty much everyone, including if you play the tape a bit longer and you see Chris try to get himself kind of back to what's happening. I'm aware he's an actor and that's their job. But dude, that's some... He should have got an Oscar for how he dealt with the slap if that slap was a fake slap.

**Phrost** (3:19)
Yeah, no, I mean, he was great. And he looked like he was in some, you know, you could see the wheels turning in his head. He was like trying to come up, well, how do I spin this and keep the show going?
And yeah, and somebody was like, well, I'm surprised he didn't get knocked out. And my joke was that, well, he's not Chris Paper, after all.

**Chris Williamson** (3:36)
Oh, very funny. Very, very, very funny.

**Phrost** (3:39)
Yeah, well, I go for low hanging fruit.

**Chris Williamson** (3:41)
You've seen those slap fighting championships, right?

**Phrost** (3:44)
Yes, those are awesome. I love that.

**Chris Williamson** (3:46)
Is there a concern with that slap fighting stuff that we're basically watching people get CTE live on air for our entertainment?

**Phrost** (3:56)
I mean, that would be the same thing for the UFC.

**Chris Williamson** (3:59)
At least you're allowed to defend yourself.

**Phrost** (4:02)
Yes, but I mean, come on, statistically, you're going to get hit probably fewer times in a slap competition than you are in the UFC.

**Chris Williamson** (4:11)
Yeah, that's fair. That's fair. So yeah, what about your reflections on whether Will should have reacted, shouldn't have reacted?

**Phrost** (4:20)
There's a whole spectrum of things that we could talk about with that, with regards to a man's role in defending the honor of his wife. And, oh man, that you throw out the buzz phrase, toxic masculinity, whether that plays a role in it. I mean, obviously, Jada Pinkett Smith can defend herself. She doesn't lack for the wits or the charmer, and the ability to be sassy back in a situation like that. So, I don't know. I honestly couldn't even say what I would do in the same situation. I know it would be a step between what he did, what Will Smith did, and what Ted Cruz didn't do when somebody made fun of his wife.