Jon Anik on His UFC Career, Broadcasting at the White House + Listener Q&A

We'll start off with the World Cup, right? Some perspectives that I have of the World Cup.

Uh, the knockout stage has begun.

The group stage was fun.

There was some drama, uh, last-minute goals and goal differential, but now it's a clean slate if you've advanced.

32 teams.

We kind of get a mini March Madness, if you will.

Uh, 32 teams, single elimination, last man standing are your World Cup champions.

Uh, and something that I felt when I filled out a bracket yesterday...

Yes, I filled out a World Cup bracket.

Uh, it, for some reason, was not easy for me to find a printable and fillable, uh, World Cup bracket.

I tried taking the impressive and awesome Fox graphic, uh, that they posted on their socials, but it was all blue, and I couldn't find a silver Sharpie.

I went to CVS, I went to Publix, and I couldn't find a silver Sharpie, so I said, "You know what? I'm just gonna do it online," even though I love filling out brackets, uh, by hand, because I think that's how all brackets deserve to be filled out.

[lip smacks] Uh, but anyways, it was the closest I think I'll ever get to feeling like that person in the accounting department of your office who fills out a March Madness bracket without really knowing the depths of each team.

There's always that person.

Let's call her Janice.

Janice always end up, ends up being a conversation in your March Madness pool because she just gets lucky, or she picks teams because of their colors, or she picks teams because, uh, she likes where they're from.

In this case, I was kind of throwing darts myself.

I mean, I, I've been pretty transparent about my, I guess, ball-level knowledge from a soccer perspective.

I've b- really been enjoying Fox's production of the World Cup so far, uh, but I'm not the biggest soccer consumer year-round.

So obviously I have some biases, and I picked the United States to win the whole thing.

Um, but I was just throwing darts and picking countries because I felt like they were going to win, and I was so close to nailing an early round upset.

I picked Japan to take down Brazil.

Japan struck first in the first half of we'r- recording this Monday early evening, or of this afternoon's game, and then Brazil scored, tie it up, and they scored in the final minutes before extra time.

But yeah, I think I just wanted to share my perspective of filling out a World Cup bracket.

That must be how the non-sickos of college basketball feel every March.