How COVID Broke the Martial Arts Community

In this episode of Fighting Matters, Jesse Walker and Stephan Kesting (just back from thirty days in the Arctic wilderness) are joined by Dr. Clayton Green, a board certified dermatologist with a PhD in microbiology who worked face to face with patients through the whole pandemic. Clayton and Stephan take apart the conspiracies the pandemic left behind (nanobot tracking chips, the lab leak, RFK Jr.'s claims about Lyme disease) and explain why frightened people reached for them in the first place. Jesse's question runs underneath the whole thing: how did a community built on evidence-based martial arts end up rejecting evidence-based medicine?⸻👥 Featuring:- Jesse Walker — https://roughhandsbjj.com- Stephan Kesting — https://grapplearts.com- Dr. Clayton Green⸻🧠 Topics Discussed:- The Big Pharma payment myth, debunked- Fear, certainty, and bad decisions- Fauci as the scapegoat- Changing the guidance was correct- Grapplers rejecting evidence-based medicine- Ivermectin and the grifters targeting grapplers- The genetics that rule out a lab leak- Algorithms and radicalized coaches- Your phone tracks you better than any chip⸻📖 Chapters:00:00:00 — Introducing Dr. Clayton Green, dermatologist00:01:53 — The Big Pharma payment myth, fully debunked00:03:57 — Six years on, still no reckoning for COVID00:05:49 — Fauci as the scapegoat for a whole government00:08:07 — Fear and anger drive people to false certainty00:10:12 — The early mask messaging that cost public trust00:18:11 — Saving the mask supply for hospitals was right00:23:01 — The vaccine claims held true until Omicron hit00:26:51 — Reaching for ivermectin over actual medicine00:29:13 — Operation Warp Speed, the win nobody will claim00:31:42 — Grapplers rejected evidence-based medicine00:37:02 — Pleading the fifth to dodge a perjury trap00:41:45 — Genetic fingerprints rule out a lab leak00:45:35 — Social media moderation and anti-Asian backlash00:50:34 — YouTube radicalized Stephan's old instructors00:53:35 — Debunking nanobot chips, 5G, and snake oil01:00:37 — RFK Jr. is wrong about Lyme disease origins01:03:06 — The AIDS-virus sequence myth, taken apart01:05:17 — Whether we can get the public trust back