If brooks and Starroci win 4 titles

[Interviewed_at_Weehawken]

16 hours ago, Hurricane Wrestling said:

My answer was based on the hypothetical that the wrestlers discussed would all be given an extra year after their eligibility otherwise would have expired.  Therefore, I wasn't talking about Cael's true freshman year.  At any rate, its an interesting question, complicated by the fact that the weight classes that year were 177 and 190 and were changed in Cael's redshirt freshman year, when he wrestled at 184.  

Presumably, he would have had to have beaten Mitch Clark or Tim Hartung, the champs at 177 and 190 respectively (depending on which weight he wrestled).  In either case I would have favored Cael to win, more so at 177 than 190, where he would have been undersized (and where Fullhart would have also been in the mix).  

The late Paul Jenn disagrees that Cael would have won as a true freshman.

[Hurricane Wrestling]

2 hours ago, Interviewed_at_Weehawken said:

The late Paul Jenn disagrees that Cael would have won as a true freshman.

That same year, Jenn (may he RIP) DNP at NCAAs.  He went 1-2 and was teched by Eggum (who finished 5th) in his last bout.  Had Cael wrestled officially that year, I believe he would have avenged his loss to Jenn (assuming they met again).   

 

[Interviewed_at_Weehawken]

11 minutes ago, Hurricane Wrestling said:

That same year, Jenn (may he RIP) DNP at NCAAs.  He went 1-2 and was teched by Eggum (who finished 5th) in his last bout.  Had Cael wrestled officially that year, I believe he would have avenged his loss to Jenn (assuming they met again).   

 

Exactly.  No argument.  I think Cael soundly beat Jenn in a future meeting.

My argument is that if he was capable of losing to Jenn, he probably loses to Eggum, Hartung, Fullhart, Clark, Vertus Jones, as a true freshman.

[scourge165]

14 hours ago, Cowboy08 said:

 

I agree 100%.  Not that Star and Brooks can't get to tier 1 but even if they win 4 titles, based on the eye test, unless something dramatically changes, I wouldn't put them ahead of guys like Zain, Nolf, DT, Nickal, Ruth etc regardless of who won more championships.  Those guys flat out dominated whereas Star and Brooks just win.  Big difference IMO

Yup. If there's ever a case of splitting hairs, it's this discussion, but the way they just rolled through the other high seeds with bonus points...it was amazing. Starocci and Brooks are pretty dominant, but they just do it differently. They don't rack up the points. Which, I guess to play devils advocate, the point IS to control your opponent and win, so no knock against either.

But Ruth after that loss to Amuchastegui was about as dominant as you can get. He seems like the guy who gets the most underrated. Someone had him 7th I believe? I get it given the number of studs PSU has produced, but that's just hard for me to wrap my head around.

Couple of interesting metrics for this discussion;

https://www.flowrestling.org/articles/5967780-cael-is-the-greatest-ncaa-wrestler-of-all-time-so-who-s-no-2#.WcUwka2ZOu4

https://www.flowrestling.org/articles/6011460-by-the-numbers-dt-ruth-vs-bo-nolf

 

I'm a little surprised that Stieber is #2 after Cael. Not that he wasn't great...he obviously was, just didn't feel like he had that type of dominance at the NCAAs. 

This is probably a fun discussion if you're a PSU fan. Are the two guys likely to win 4 NCs better than the guys who "only" won 3!

[scourge165]

14 hours ago, Interviewed_at_Weehawken said:

I was told yesterday that bonus rate as a sign of greatness is the biggest myth in wrestling.  I would counter that by saying : If Brooks didn't keep matches against some competitors so close, he wouldn't have lost against Coleman.  You let a guy stay close, some crazy stuff can happen.

LOL...I could see saying that just because Taylor for example racked up bonus points, he wasn't better than Dake who just controlled Wrestlers(if for example those two hadn't actually wrestled and we didn't see who was better there).

But the "biggest myth in Wrestling?"  So just dog walking everyone doesn't mean anything? That's kinda silly. It's not the definitive measure, but what is? It's a factor.