On that now historic Thursday three years ago, Meredith and the Wyoming Cowboys traveled Brookings, South Dakota, for a dual meet against Big 12 foe South Dakota State. The Jackrabbits of South Dakota State bested the Cowboys of Wyoming by way of a 20-18 decision, but the two-point Wyoming defeat wasn't what had the college wrestling world aflutter -- it was the 141-pound matchup between No. 1 Seth Gross (133) and No. 1 Bryce Meredith (141).
During that dual, Meredith and Gross became the first known NCAA Division I wrestlers since the weight certification rule change in 1998 to wrestle each other as top-ranked wrestlers from different weight classes.
The match materialized, and ultimately came to fruition due to a series of bank-and-forth tweets between the two top-ranked wrestlers in the days preceding the dual.
First, on Jan.15, three days prior to the dual, Gross tweeted that SDSU fans should pack Frost Arena for the Big 12 conference dual against Wyoming.
Then, Meredith somewhat jokingly replied to Gross' tweet by merely suggesting it could be a matchup of him against Gross.
To that, Gross responded by suggesting that a head-to-head match later that week would be good way to finish their best-of-three series, which was currently tied at 1-1 from their past matches throughout their respective college careers.
Meredith and Gross had met twice in 2016. Meredith took the first match during the regular season, as Gross came away with the win in the Big 12 tournament semifinals. Gross moved down to 133 pounds after the 2016 season and was the NCAA runner-up a year in 2017.
From there, Wrestling Twitter took over, creating a buzz and an excitement over the possible match. By match day, the hype was both significant and noticeable.
Would a simple Twitter conversation result in one of the best individual matches of the 2017-18 season?
Yes, yes it would.
Seth Gross bumped up a weight class (to 141 pounds) and took on Bryce Meredith. Gross went on to lose 4-2.
The match was as tightly contested as one would expect for a battle of No.1's, both of whom had been NCAA finalists at prior points in their collegiate careers.
After a scoreless first, Gross escaped Meredith 30 seconds into the second period. The period would end with that same 1-0 score.
Down 1-0 to start the final frame, Meredith, who chose bottom to start the third, escaped within five seconds, at the 1:55 mark of the third. to tie the match 1-1.
With about a minute and 30 seconds left, Gross got in deep on a single-leg shot but failed to covert. Instead, after a hectic 30-second scramble, Meredith turned Gross' initial takedown attempt into two points for himself via takedown. The Cowboy found himself ahead and in the top position with a minute remaining in the regulation.
Gross was able to escape the Meredith ride will 11 seconds remaining, the score was now 3-2 in favor of the heavier Meredith. The bout ended 3-2, before a riding time point was added for Meredith to extend the margin. The match ended with a final score of 4-2.
You can see the match highlights here.
The match not only lived up to the hype, but also was the talk of the wrestling community for days afterward.
"It was quite a weird week honestly, but it was fun and I'm excited that it happened," @bmeredith001 after beating fellow No. 1 ranked wrestler Seth Gross of South Dakota State. #LCT #GoWyo pic.twitter.com/azUnNCCKjK
�" Wyoming Cowboy Wrestling (@WyoWrestle) January 19, 2018
Meredith's coach, Mark Branch, echoed similar sentiments as his wrestler with regard to why the matchup needed to happen.
"When we got to match day and confirmed that it was going to happen, it kind of exploded," Cowboys coach Mark Branch said to Scott Nulph of the Wyoming Tribune-Eagle in a 2020 piece that looked back and reflected on the historic match, now more than two years later. "That's when it felt like it was something special and the right thing to do. I was for it because of the exposure that it created, the attention it got for our programs and our sport."
With respect to the individual rankings at that time, Meredith cemented his hold on the top spot at 141 with the win, and Gross was still ranked No. 1 at 133 the following week.
Years later, Meredith has said he has zero regrets about the impromptu match that turned the college wrestling world upside down in 2018. In, fact, Meredith would recommend others take similar risks whenever possible.
"I would recommend to do anything that builds the sport and builds your brand," Meredith said to the Wyoming Tribune-Eagle last year. "What can you do to leave your legacy on this sport? That (match) was one way we both (Gross and I) could do it."
Unfortunately, in the years since that cherished third Meredith-Gross battle in Brookings, we haven't seen as many instances of teams or individual wrestlers putting their reputations or records on the line so selflessly -- for the good of the sport and its loyal and devoted fans -- as Meredith and Gross did. Rather, what we have seen is numerous probable ranked-versus-ranked matches fall through just prior to the match.
Take the Purdue Tri-Meet that happened on Feb. 7 in West Lafayette, Indiana, as a prime example. The event, which had the host Purdue Boilermakers, Ohio State Buckeyes, and Iowa Hawkeyes, featured a top-notch grouping of 125-pounders: No. 1 Spencer Lee (Iowa); No. 10 Malik Heinselman; and No. 11 Devin Schroder.
Purdue's Devin Schroder defeated Iowa's Aaron Cashman by technical fall (Photo/Purdue Athletics)Presumably this tri-meet of Big Ten foes should have yielded three matches featuring two ranked wrestlers at 125 pounds -- but only one such match occurred -- No. 11 Devin Schroder (Purdue) defeated No. 10 Malik Heinselman (Ohio State) with a 1-0 decision. Additionally, Schroder was the only one of the three grapplers to wrestle in both of their teams dual meets that day. Lee was held out of the Iowa vs. Purdue dual, while Heinselman was pulled from the Ohio State vs. Iowa dual literally seconds before the dual began.
Now, don't get me wrong, I expect that had Lee had the opportunity to wrestle both Heinselman and Schroder, he would have won in convincing fashion. Lee has looked unbeatable this season, there is no other way to say it.
However, the reason I bring up these recent happenings is because it demonstrates a disturbing trend common to college wrestling: Coaches resting athletes in an effort to preserve (or possibly improve) their seeds for the conference tournament and national tournament at the end of the season.
This is not to say that there are never instances where it is perfectly reasonable and justified to rest a starter -- there certainly are. After all, the wrestling season is a grind. Plus, as the NBA has proven in recent years, that there is some legitimacy to implementing load management measures.
In 2020 for instance, we saw a handful of elite NCAA wrestlers participate in a various international events and Olympic qualifying events during the college season. With that, guys like Lee, Sebastian Rivera, and others missed some time. Ohio State's Kyle Snyder was another prominent example where load management was implemented at times during his NCAA tenure, especially during the back half of his Buckeye career as he was pursuing his freestyle and Olympic aspirations simultaneously.
There are also other numerous other reasons to justify resting a marquee wrestler. That said, what we saw recently was worrisome to say the least. In consecutive, nationally televised duals, we saw two healthy wrestlers (who both competed that same day) not in action.
For fans, it was upsetting. For the sport, it's just a bad look. In the future, to prevent teams from resting athletes solely for the purposes of protecting postseason seeding, I would like to see the NCAA make some changes to create greater accountably.
While there are many ways to achieve this, and no solution will be perfect, here are some suggestions:
1. Institute a continuous weighted points system that, at the end of the season, will give wrestlers single "score" that will help dictate seeding for NCAAs. All wrestlers will begin with the same number of points (i.e. 100 points). Points are added and subtracted as the season progresses. Those with the highest point totals are seeded highest. Those who end with the lowest totals are seeded lowest.
2. Make dual meet participation more valuable in the context of seeding consideration for NCAAs. Conference meets will hold greater value than non-conference meets. (i.e five points for every conference meet wrestled, three for every non-conference meet wrestled). An additional point will be added and subtracted depending on the individual match result.
3. Institute a point system that adds or deducts varying point values for each type of win (add points) and defeat (subtract points). Also, fall, technical fall, major decision and decision will have differing point values (i.e 25 for fall, 20 for tech, 15 for major decision, 10 for a decision).
4. Award more points for ranked and upset wins. Subtract less points for losses to ranked opponents.
Admittedly, instituting a weighted point system for seeding would not be as simple as I described above -- I know that. Many more extremely detailed bullet points would need to be added to successfully put a system such as this into place. And yes, there are some glaring holes, flaws, and question marks with the four bullets above and this strategy in general.
However, allowing a wrestler's record to be so immensely impactful toward their postseason seeding is clearly detrimental to the sport. Wins and losses certainly should have some importance to seeding, but right now they carry far too much weight in my opinion. The biproduct of such an exclusively wins-and-losses predicated seeding system leads to exactly what we witnessed recently and have seen at other marquee tournaments such as the 2019 Ken Kraft Midlands Championships, which saw Ryan Deakin (Northwestern) and Michael Kemerer (Iowa) resting in street clothes for the entire event, much to their chagrin.
When healthy athletes are held out of matches and tournaments, fans are not getting the best bouts. Under this system, nobody wins -- not athletes, not fans, and certainly not the sport.
Recommended Comments
There are no comments to display.
Create an account or sign in to comment
You need to be a member in order to leave a comment
Create an account
Sign up for a new account in our community. It's easy!
Register a new accountSign in
Already have an account? Sign in here.
Sign In Now