I know that switching college to freestyle isn't getting much traction right now, but...

[RYou]

19 hours ago, dragit said:

But if they do this, everyone will downgrade the accomplishments of the poor guys who win NCAAs at 61/134, 70/154, 79/174, and 92/202.

The folkstyle weight classes, youth programs through NCAA follow the weight distribution curves for males of the respective age groups.

[scourge165]

20 hours ago, VakAttack said:

Sure.  I don't see the problem, since that happens at the next level anyway.  It doesn't matter, particularly, what the weights are in collegiate style, they've changed before. We want to be successful in the International styles, and matching the weight classes seems like an easy step with no downside.

You're taking away a weight class in the middle and adding two weight classes that...aren't quite as exciting(202/212).

I get the idea of building for Freestyle, but you have to adjust your weight every level you go(unless you're a 125 your whole life). 

I'd be in favor of adding 97KG, but that's not a big enough spread from 197 LB for me. 

But you're taking away a 149LB National Champ so guys are more well adjusted to their weight cut for the next level. That doesn't seem like it should be the priority for College Wrestling. Something to consider, but not the priority. A National Championship is the pinnacle of the sport for many. 

I also like getting to see matches like Lee vs Yianni in Freestyle, but that's probably not the strongest argument.

[Mike Parrish]

NFHS weights take the Gaussian distribution of wrestlers over the weight range and then try to evenly apportion them over the number of weights.

 

[Eagle26]

I’m a big proponent of making folkstyle a little more like freestyle, but I really don’t think the 10 freestyle weight classes are distributed very well at all. It’s because we tried to fill in between the Olympics weights and they just did the best they could with that. If you are trying to just make up 10 good weight classes from scratch, you would never pick these. Just look at the distribution.
57
61 (+4kg)
65 (+4)
70 (+5)
74 (+4)
79 (+5)
86 (+7)
92 (+6)
97 (+5)
125 (+28)

Keep in mind kg is 2.2 lbs and percentage of body weight is much larger for small guys. So you have a 5kg gap at 65-70 and 74-79, then go up to 7kg gap between 79-86? Then back down to only 5kg for 92-97? Those bigger guys could have a much larger gap and make the weights closer together in the middle weights where there’s a lot more wrestlers.