Anime is the shit.  Nothing to be ashamed of 

If you’ve been on fitness Insta in the past few years, you might’ve noticed a trend lately: More and more women are hitting the gym, hard. They are lifting heavy weights, tracking their muscle gains and showing off their mind-blowing athletic feats.

The hashtags speak for themselves:

#StrongisSexy
#MusclesAreBeautiful
#StrongistheNewPretty

Women of all shapes and sizes are beginning to embrace their strength in a way society has never seen before. 

Unfortunately, not everyone has caught on to the trend, particularly when it comes to accepting athletic women of color. Female athletes like Serena Williams and Simone Biles are often criticized for looking “savage” and “ugly” just for having muscular builds.

But there’s one woman who has proved that perhaps society is beginning to change how they see the female black body. And that woman is IFBB Pro Figure athlete LaTorya Watts.

In 2015, She became the first African American woman to win the Ms. Figure Olympia, one of the world’s most renowned figure competitions. She returned the next year to win it again and placed second in 2017.

While Watts was unable to compete in the 2018 Olympia due to a medical condition, her dedication to the sport over the years has broken down barriers for other women of color to succeed. Last year’s competition saw three women of color take the bikini, figure and fitness titles, and we here at Rule Breakers are excited for where this trend is going.

Amazingly, we got a chance to talk to Watts right after the 2018 Olympia to reflect about why she thinks the bodybuilding arena is changing. In this week’s podcast, Watts also talks about her journey, the intricate balance of training for figure and what she’s had to overcome as a minority in the industry.

So click the play button and listen to one of the greatest athletes to walk the stage.

And PS: Don’t be afraid to like, subscribe, comment and join the Rule Breakers conversation.

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Latorya Watts - 2017 Ms Figure Olympia

Heather "The Heat" Hardy is a two combat sport athlete.

The Brooklyn native is a staple in the women's boxing ranks, having won a slew of titles across her career. She is currently undefeated and holds the women's WBO featherweight champion after beating Shelly Vincent back in October 2018.

However, Hardy decided to become a mixed martial artist. Currently, signed to Bellator MMA, "The Heat" had a reality check after selling a gang of tickets for her shows and not even being televised on her boxing cards.

She has now found her spotlight in MMA.

Although she recently lost via TKO to Taylor Turner at Bellator 222 in Madison Square Garden on June 14th, 2019, she is determined to end her career in the cage and not the ring.

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Heather "The Heat" Hardy - Boxer turned MMA Fighter

On this episode of POTB, No Limit's own Master P stopped by to put some points on the board.

With "I Got The Hook Up 2" dropping this month, P came through to talk hoops, Toronto Raptors, his time in the NBA, and why building a record label/business is like coaching a team.

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Master P and The New No Limit, Charlotte Hornets Toronto Raptors, I Got The Hook Up 2 Episode

Dhafir "Dada 5000" is a true pioneer. 

The heavyweight hailing from one of Miami's most notorious neighborhoods took an idea to entertain and eliminate street violence and turned it into a PPV worthy product.

Literally starting from the back yard, Dada 5000 organized bare knuckle fights that first set South Florida on fire and then the world. From his Netflix documentary Dawg Fight, produced by the team behind Cocaine Cowboys, to his most recent Back Yard Brawl Extreme Fighting series, he has taken the sport of back yard brawling and bare knuckle fighting to new heights.  He also hosted its first pay-per-view event in Cheyenne, Wyoming on April 5th.

We sat with the fighter turned promoter at the Florida Boxing Hall of Fame weekend in Tampa to talk about it all!

Notable Highlights:

Impact of his movement on combat sports
Next steps for his sport and himself
The success of Back Yard Brawl Extreme

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Dada 5000, Back Yard Brawl Extreme

On The Points On The Board podcast, we interview the closers and finishers from every discipline. Each week, digital producer, journalist Kyle Harvey sitdowns with rising athletes, sportswriters and creatives to breakdown the lessons they learned from the field of competition and how they applied to dominate it their crafts. Subscribe here for the latest episodes. 

Since Colin Kaepernick took a knee, the terms "stick to sports" and "shut up and play" are often regurgitated by those who are willfully ignorant or want to remain in the dark about the undeniable and current connection between politics and athletics.

Coming off the heels of last week's twitter meltdown directed towards the World Cup-winning US Women's National Soccer Team and his latest rant against 4 congresswomen of color, there was no better person to talk about Trump and his historic insecurities against the "other" than MSNBC's Joy-Ann Reid.

A consistent MSNBC on-air presence since the killing of Trayvon Martin, Reid puts points on the board for challenging, debating and exposing the hypocrisy of those who profit off spreading fake news.

In an hour-long discussion at the Shadow League office with host Kyle Harvey, The Man Who Stole America author, compared 45's warped brand of American demagoguery to an 80s villain among other things, specifically the Batman's eternal nemesis the Joker.

"The reason why I open the book up by calling him the Joker is because most of the time, the Joker is this really rich guy, who's angry about the existence of Batman," Reid begins at 15:15 min mark. "The two are both rich, both angry, and what Batman decides to do with his anger is to fight criminals.

"He doesn't like the fact that people are abusing the 'little guy'. And what the Joker decides to do is fight Batman. In fact, doesn't really kind of doesn't exist without Batman. There's no real purpose for the Joker other than messing with Batman. He hates the fact that Batman is popular, that people love him, he just hates him".

Every villain needs a foil. If Trump is just a clown with an agenda, its not hard to figure out who Bruce Wayne is. 

"Obama could be his Batman, the culture could be his Batman...like all these things he wanted for himself, like growing up in Queens and wanting to be respected by the Anna Wintours of the world, they never let him in," Reid elaborated on Trump's view of fame.

"So now he hates that. He started hating the thing he wanted the most." 

Do you agree? Check out full podcast here and let us know what you think in the comments below

Highlights

Reid's time as the managing editor at theGrio

Trump's WWE Bravado

Covering every major black death (Trayvon Martin, Mike Brown, Jordan Davis) as a black mother for cable news

The art of politely eviscerating ill-prepared political talking heads

The greatest hip hop activists of this generation

Why Heath Ledger is the greatest Joker of all time

The first hip hop, r&b albums you give your kids

Versus: Dru Hill vs 112



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MSNBC's Joy-Ann Reid, Talks New Book, And Why Trump Is An 80's Villain Personified

Christy Martin is a bonafide legend.

”The Coal Miner’s Daughter” from West Virginia, won her first world title after 32 fights and she faced everybody in her generation.

From Isra Gibran to Laila Ali, Mia St. John, and even Holly Holm, Martin saw it all in her 23 year career.

Now as a promoter and Florida Boxing Hall Of Fame inductee, she has some choice words for the current fighters today and the one who is calling herself the “Greatest Woman Of All Time”.

Peep this legendary interview with a boxing O.G.

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Former American World Champion Boxer Christy ”The Coal Miner’s Daughter” Martin

Nathaniel "Nate" Campbell III is an American former professional boxer who competed from 2000 to 2014. His professional nickname was "The Galaxxy Warrior" as an homage to the gym that made him.

As an active boxer, he held the unified WBA (Super), IBF and WBO lightweight titles from 2008 to 2009, as well as having challenged for the IBF super featherweight title in 2005 and the WBO junior welterweight title in 2009.

In his fourteen years as a pro, he fought everyone from Danny Garcia, Victor Ortiz, and Tim Bradley and having survived the racially charged streets of Jacksonville, Florida, Campbell was fueled with a sense of purpose.

We caught up with this legend during his 2019 induction into the Florida Boxing Hall of Fame.

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Nate "The Galaxxy Warrior" Campbell

Not every performer can make a hit, let alone land a few that make waves on the charts.

In an era where music heads consume, create, and demand quality music all the time, it's difficult to let songs that could stand on its own, time to grow. 

Singer-songwriter Elle Varner's never had that problem. Debuting in 2012 with a pair of R&B hits that were a breath of fresh air for the genre, the LA native is back with Ellevation, an EP project that was made on her own terms. 

Varner stopped by the POTB set to chop it up about her approach to crafting a hit, and what's required to be consistent. 

"It doesn't matter if you have all these co-signs, or if someone 'hands it to you', it doesn't matter. You can't cheat the hard work," Varner said about staying loyal to your craft.

"So the ones that will last, the ones that will stand the test of time, they must ride peaks and the valleys. There's no way around it." 

Highlights
How has her writing process evolved over her career

Adopting Kobe's winning mindset to her live shows
The state of women in R&B
Serena Williams' impact on Compton
What's required for her to get into her "Flow state" 
Crafting songs for your core audience, b side tracks
Defining success as an artist on her own terms
The first hip hop, r&b albums you give your kids
The greatest songwriters to study
Her musical family

Versus: The greatest 90s movies soundtrack of all time.  

And more. 

On The Points On The Board podcast, we interview the closers and finishers from every discipline. Each week, digital producer, journalist Kyle Harvey sitdowns with rising athletes, sportswriters and creatives to breakdown the lessons they learned from the field of competition and how they applied to dominate it their crafts. Subscribe here for the latest episodes.

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Singer Elle Varner On The Art Of Elite Songwriting

Undefeated Polish star and Brooklyn-native Adam Kownacki is known as the Babyfaced Assassin. This weekend he will look to thrill in front of a hometown crowd when he steps into the ring against veteran former title challenger Chris "The Nightmare" Arreola for a 12-round heavyweight showdown that headlines FOX PBC Fight Night on FOX and FOX Deportes Saturday, August 3 from Barclays Center. This will be Kownacki's ninth fight at Barclays Center and his first as the headlining attraction. We chopped it up and talked about growing up in Greenpoint, Brooklyn, his desire to become the first Polish Heavyweight Champion by defeating Deontay Wilder, and how is August will also welcome his first child. Babyface is having a baby.

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Brooklyn's Polish Heavyweight Boxer Adam Kownacki

Bernard Hopkins has always been all-action both in the ring and outside of it.

With the release of the Brian Banks movie which chronicles the unjust incarceration of the falsely accused football player, the time was right to retouch base with the legend for an O.G. perspective on prison reform.

As usual, we were blessed with a wisdom and passion that is unmatched and B Hop dropped jewels that can only be described as precious.

Listen to this raw, unadulterated edit which is more like a stream of consciousness from a true Philadelphia and global icon. We present Bernard Hopkins in this PLH Special Investigative Report on prison reform.

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Bernard Hopkins On Prison Reform

In the sports arena, a new era has dawned.

From athletes, administrators and marketers to journalists, agents and owners, women are making a name for themselves as trailblazers, influencers and decision makers in the world of sports. 

With Rule Breakers, The Shadow League's newest podcast, sports journalists Anya Alvarez and Adele Jackson-Gibson speak with these inspirational, trailblazing women who are creating positive change in both sports and society.

With a growing roster of guests featuring leaders such as U.S. National Soccer team gold medalist/sportscaster Aly Wagner, WNBA Champion Swin Cash, MLB Chief Diversity and Inclusion Officer Renee Tirado, CIAA Commissioner Jacqie McWilliams and Inside Edition’s Lisa Guerrero, Rule Breakers is the home for women leading the fight for change in sports.

Come break some rules with us!

Latorya Watts - 2017 Ms Figure Olympia

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