Eleman Dogdurbek Uulu launched Jang Myong-Song in a bronze-medal match in men's freestyle at the Asia Games (Photo/Sachiko Hotaka)With the end of the season comes my personal break from wrestling. I've been covering these tournaments and building the new United World Wrestling media department for several months, and haven't had much time to power down the engines. The upcoming rest period will be spent outside of the gymnasium and hopefully add some perspective to the season. Mostly I'm looking forward to a sun burn, fruity cocktails and napping.
My time spent doing less will also give me an opportunity to contemplate the direction of the upcoming folkstyle season in America. The 2014-15 NCAA season is rotten with storylines, and though I could expound on any of them with zeal, I'm looking forward to your inquires and opinions.
Send 'em over. Rooms open in one week.
To your questions ...
Was the Flo deal a total valuation or just this round of funding? And either way, congrats!
-- @JaroslavWrestle
Foley: I can't tell you much more than what was reported by Fortune and what ran on the PR Newswire. Flocasts, the parent company of Flowrestling, earned a round of funding for $8 million from the venture capital (VC) firm Causeway Media Partners. The capital is likely to be used for further development of deals in the works and an expansion of roles across all their platforms, including Flowrestling.
As discussed last week (with no insight on this deal), Flowrestling is arguably the wealthiest wrestling entity in the United States. Their cash and existing distribution and acquisition deals gives them immense power in directing the future of our sport. As you, I love wrestling. My job is to critique all elements of the sport, and increasingly that will mean the influence exerted by Austin on the future of our sport.
Wrestling has always stood on a precipice of obliteration with little tangible profitable future. The consequences of ignorance and error have been elimination and the reward for hard work, minimal.
Flowrestling's income, media activity and desire for future growth have created an opportunity for them to change wrestling's famine or subsistence paradigm. Austin can help our sport establish further cultural legitimacy, and as with any thought leader or economic leader they will need, at times, redirection from fans and media.
Congrats to Austin.
Q: What do you think of the policy adopted by the Roman Catholic Diocese of Harrisburg, which requires that boys on its school wrestling teams forfeit matches to girls?
-- Tim K.
Foley: I'm not an astute enough theologian to have any biblical-based insight for or against boys wrestling girls.
The structure for my opinion comes from personal experience. From that I firmly believe that inclusionary policies teach our youth more than policies that exclude, limit and discriminate based on race, gender or religion.
The dioceses' reasons are borne of an institution and not the heart of the individuals interested in the actual competition. A personal choice is something I can understand and mostly support. I'm not supportive of institutional policies that promote segregation and exclusion.
Q: What is the outcome of all these kids and their phones? Will we lose wrestling as life becomes easier?
-- Terry H.
Foley: My favorite quote about wrestling remains:
"Almost certainly wrestling is the oldest sport of mankind ... It came to town with the Olympiads of Ancient Greece and went back to the country after the decline of Rome -- there to remain, at least in greatest part, for nearly two thousand years. Preponderantly in and because of the country the sport has lived on in the general manner of pasture bluets, or field daisies, or other more or less global and substantially invincible wildflowers. Time and time again pasture bluets can be and have been burned away by the heavy hoofs or close-grazing herds. Yet with mystic stubbornness and effectiveness the pasture bluets somehow rise and bloom again. Wrestling is like that. It thrives, meets apparent destruction or widespread abandonment only to rise again, taking resurrection from a good and folkish earth. This has come to pass in many nations and it keeps happening in our own."
-- Charles Morrow Wilson, The Magnificent Scufflers, 1959
So ... no.
While sports like wrestling that include touch and perceived combat will always be replaced within cultures sensitive to a perception of barbarism, there is a growing recognition of wrestling's fundamental goodness.
That written, today's twenty-somethings grew up with a megaton of positive affirmation -- meaningless participation ribbons and self-confidence that tops the world rankings. The thought of struggle, and loss, isn't appealing to many who can simply tweet out their negative feelings and receive back a virtual hug.
There is a fear among "thinkers" that our new culture is becoming almost irreperably wussified. In his now viral piece on Generation Wuss, Bret Eaton Ellis eviscerates this lackluster group of young men and women for their inability to cope, to work, to tough out anything they find mildly displeasing.
Wrestling teaches an individual how to cope and self-soothe. There are a myriad other lessons, but at the center of American wrestling is how to survive a daily combat routine. There will always be those who want that lifestyle and struggle, but over the years, the swing youths have disappeared or marched to sports with less individualism and responsibility. Less coping.
Coaches are at the forefront of this battle. It might be worth asking them how they've dealt with a generation dependent on Facebook and Twitter conversation that affirm their worst tendencies. I'm sure their responses would shock us all.
Q: On the international level, do countries try to recruit wrestlers from other countries to compete for them? Is there like a free agency market for wrestlers at the international level?
-- Elbridge G.
Foley: Absolutely. The wrestlers in Dagestan and the Ossetias are a hot commodity among gold-hungry wrestling countries and are often shipped overseas. The country with the most transfers is Azerbaijan, but you see Uzbekistan, Georgia, Turkey and Moldova take in several wrestlers as well.
The policy regarding international transfers was made more simple last year. One transfer only and it can be immediate. No waiting period, which used to be at least two years. Countries may only take in one wrestler from each style per year and they must have at least working papers. This is the norm established by the IOC. There are no more transfer fees.
I think that more American wrestlers should look at the idea of competing overseas. Nationalism is appealing, but information has crumbled cultural borders and there is nothing wrong with learning to experience the world stage, even with a flag other than the United States' on your back.
Multimedia Halftime
Link: USA vs. Serbia *One match, with the first period freestyle and the second Greco-Roman. Total score. As evidenced by the video, I've never wrestled Greco-Roman ...
Link: 98-year-old judo black belt
Link: BJJ with a wrestling influence
Link: Wrestling mania in Senegal
Link: Koreans wrestle in Switzerland
Link: Spread of sumo
Q: What is behind your mind-numbing hatred of football?
-- Paul S.
Foley: The games are too long, there isn't enough action and I can't celebrate a sport that is so obviously unhealthy for the majority of its participants. Three high school football players died this week. When three wrestlers died in 1998 due to a mixture of supplements and extreme weight loss, a special council overhauled the sport and changes were made to help curb unhealthy behavior.
What has football done? Nothing. We don't ask it to change because we've allowed it to become of our life stories. The thought of proceeding through our existence without the team colors and the Sunday rituals is a horrifying consideration for most Americans. The reams of evidence showing the game is made unnecessarily dangerous by greed haven't been able to overcome the fear of many Americans that they will lose that connection to their tribe. There is rampant and dangerous incompetence among the commissioner, owners and several players and yet every Sunday Americans line up at bars and in homes to take in 10-plus hours of head-smashing humans and Doritos commercials.
When football takes off the pads, quickens the pace of play and addresses its health crisis (with more than a few PSA's on the Toledo regional channel), maybe I'll tune in for the afternoon. Until then it's all wrestling, and the occasional Tottenham Hotspur match. Six Nations Rugby, too.
Just as a note, it might be time for the Washington football team and owner Dan Snyder to read the tea leaves. When South Park eviscerates you in their season opener it doesn't bode well for future sustainability. The name will not last past this season. (My mom is a Washington fan. Sorry, Mom!)
Q: You travel a lot. Any travel tips?
-- Brian D.
Foley: Plenty. I'll write a travel column for you guys in a few weeks. In the meantime check out this flight. Yowza. $23k for a commercial airline ticket!
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