Spencer Lee has entered the US Open

[AgaveMaria]

Jordan Burroughs wrestled with a broken ankle.

Spencer wussed out.

[ionel]

38 minutes ago, AgaveMaria said:

Jordan Burroughs wrestled with a broken ankle.

Spencer wussed out.

Six-time world and Olympic champion John Smith became familiar with pain during his sensational freestyle career. He suffered from broken fingers, sprained ankles, torn rib cartilage, a separated shoulder, damaged knee ligaments, cauliflower ears, and extremely painful hip pointers. But Smith knew, as do other high-achieving wrestlers, that injuries are part of the game and that a wrestler must learn to live with them and block them out.

While covering the 1988 Olympics for the Chicago Tribune, writer John Husar captured what winning a gold medal can cost a wrestler like John Smith.

“His nose had been broken Tuesday by the Bulgarian and Smith said he had never bled so much,” wrote Husar. “His bent and stubby fingers that had been broken four or five times apiece were jammed anew and swollen, and his right shoulder was crying for arthroscopic surgery. But none of that hurt as much, he said, as the rawness on his backside, where he wore away the skin sitting nightly in his rubber suit on the stationary bike.”

“‘Aw, it’s nothing, really,’ he assured a knot of incredulous re-porters. ‘All athletes go through this type of stuff. Aches and pains come with sport. You’ve just gotta adapt to ’em’” (Husar 1988, 12).

Adapt he did, and again in 1992, when he was searching for his second Olympic gold medal. This time, Smith was facing a different type of injury.

“I had a staph infection hit me in January and it tore me up,” said Smith in 2004. “My whole head was swollen, and I had bald spots on my head, too. It just gradually got worse. I suffered from fatigue. After just 15 minutes of drilling, I would be exhausted.

“During some practices, it felt like my head was going to explode. It took everything I had to mentally get through the Olympic trials and the Olympics. It would have been easy for some guys to just walk away at that point, to settle for something less. But I couldn’t do that.

“I remember writers coming up and acting surprised that I could keep going, and I thought, ‘What’s the big deal? It comes with the territory.’ I’ve just always assumed injuries are part of the game.”

In that respect, he was akin to Dan Gable, who entered the 1972 Olympics in Munich with a severely damaged left knee. In the first match, Gable’s foe from Yugoslavia headbutted him, opening a gash that required seven stitches to close.

“Sure, it hurt,” said Gable years later. “But so what? The point of wrestling is that it hurts and you overcome that. It never occurred to me that it wasn’t supposed to hurt.”

Pain is part of the game at the highest levels. The finest athletes have learned to accept it and to ignore it, in many respects

[ionel]

Wonder what Dan Gable thinks?

[Pinnacle]

31 minutes ago, ionel said:

Wonder what Dan Gable thinks?

Maybe excuses are for wusses?

[jchapman]

2 hours ago, ionel said:

Six-time world and Olympic champion John Smith became familiar with pain during his sensational freestyle career. He suffered from broken fingers, sprained ankles, torn rib cartilage, a separated shoulder, damaged knee ligaments, cauliflower ears, and extremely painful hip pointers. But Smith knew, as do other high-achieving wrestlers, that injuries are part of the game and that a wrestler must learn to live with them and block them out.

While covering the 1988 Olympics for the Chicago Tribune, writer John Husar captured what winning a gold medal can cost a wrestler like John Smith.

“His nose had been broken Tuesday by the Bulgarian and Smith said he had never bled so much,” wrote Husar. “His bent and stubby fingers that had been broken four or five times apiece were jammed anew and swollen, and his right shoulder was crying for arthroscopic surgery. But none of that hurt as much, he said, as the rawness on his backside, where he wore away the skin sitting nightly in his rubber suit on the stationary bike.”

“‘Aw, it’s nothing, really,’ he assured a knot of incredulous re-porters. ‘All athletes go through this type of stuff. Aches and pains come with sport. You’ve just gotta adapt to ’em’” (Husar 1988, 12).

Adapt he did, and again in 1992, when he was searching for his second Olympic gold medal. This time, Smith was facing a different type of injury.

“I had a staph infection hit me in January and it tore me up,” said Smith in 2004. “My whole head was swollen, and I had bald spots on my head, too. It just gradually got worse. I suffered from fatigue. After just 15 minutes of drilling, I would be exhausted.

“During some practices, it felt like my head was going to explode. It took everything I had to mentally get through the Olympic trials and the Olympics. It would have been easy for some guys to just walk away at that point, to settle for something less. But I couldn’t do that.

“I remember writers coming up and acting surprised that I could keep going, and I thought, ‘What’s the big deal? It comes with the territory.’ I’ve just always assumed injuries are part of the game.”

In that respect, he was akin to Dan Gable, who entered the 1972 Olympics in Munich with a severely damaged left knee. In the first match, Gable’s foe from Yugoslavia headbutted him, opening a gash that required seven stitches to close.

“Sure, it hurt,” said Gable years later. “But so what? The point of wrestling is that it hurts and you overcome that. It never occurred to me that it wasn’t supposed to hurt.”

Pain is part of the game at the highest levels. The finest athletes have learned to accept it and to ignore it, in many respects

Very few are are cut out to be multi-time Olympic champs

[Eagle26]

Why did Gable and Smith stop wrestling when they were both in the peak of their career then? Just playing devils advocate here, but Spencer has already wrestled through worse injuries than those listed. I mean the guy won NCAAs with two torn ACLs! I remember watching him wrestle the state tournament in high school and we could tell something was wrong but he told no one beforehand and decided to wrestle anyway. As we learned later, he had torn his acl just a few weeks before and I remember being impressed with how tough he must be for a high school kid to make that decision. Most people would have simply retired with the slew of injuries he had (like Smith and Gable did). What does the guy have to do to be tough enough for you?! I’d love to see all the internet tough guys try to compete at that level with those kind of injuries lol

[PortaJohn]

1 hour ago, Eagle26 said:

Why did Gable and Smith stop wrestling when they were both in the peak of their career then? Just playing devils advocate here, but Spencer has already wrestled through worse injuries than those listed. I mean the guy won NCAAs with two torn ACLs! I remember watching him wrestle the state tournament in high school and we could tell something was wrong but he told no one beforehand and decided to wrestle anyway. As we learned later, he had torn his acl just a few weeks before and I remember being impressed with how tough he must be for a high school kid to make that decision. Most people would have simply retired with the slew of injuries he had (like Smith and Gable did). What does the guy have to do to be tough enough for you?! I’d love to see all the internet tough guys try to compete at that level with those kind of injuries lol

I think it's more of the "excuses are for wusses"  "wrestling is living or dying" & the Iowa tough guy persona that opens Spencer up to these types of attacks.  

[MPhillips]

Did Spencer say that the pain was too much for him?  I didn't read it if he did.

[Eagle26]

34 minutes ago, PortaJohn said:

I think it's more of the "excuses are for wusses"  "wrestling is living or dying" & the Iowa tough guy persona that opens Spencer up to these types of attacks.  

I guess, but I feel like he has lived up to these. Everybody wants him to come out with an excuse, but he won’t make excuses. He’s clearly struggling with some sort of injury but he doesn’t use it as an excuse. Instead he gave Ramos the credit. I respect that.

I’m just tired of the double standard and the ridiculous criticism he is up against. For example, you didn’t hear one peep about Starocci MFF out of the tournament (rightfully so). He finished his match in the championship bracket, so why couldn’t he finish in the consis? We all know the answer… it wasn’t worth risking further injury at that point. Same exact thing for Lee at NCAAs… wasn’t worth risking further injury with the open coming up. Unfortunately, it still wasn’t enough time to heal, and now people still think he is just mentally weak?? That’s crazy

[PortaJohn]

7 minutes ago, Eagle26 said:

I guess, but I feel like he has lived up to these. Everybody wants him to come out with an excuse, but he won’t make excuses. He’s clearly struggling with some sort of injury but he doesn’t use it as an excuse. Instead he gave Ramos the credit. I respect that.

I’m just tired of the double standard and the ridiculous criticism he is up against. For example, you didn’t hear one peep about Starocci MFF out of the tournament (rightfully so). He finished his match in the championship bracket, so why couldn’t he finish in the consis? We all know the answer… it wasn’t worth risking further injury at that point. Same exact thing for Lee at NCAAs… wasn’t worth risking further injury with the open coming up. Unfortunately, it still wasn’t enough time to heal, and now people still think he is just mentally weak?? That’s crazy

Not disagreeing with you.  Only negative comment I've ever made about Spencer Lee was @LJBand I questioning his gas tank a few months ago and we were called haters. It goes both ways. Bottom line is the spotlight has been on him for years.  Negative attacks come with the territory 

Edited April 29, 2023 by PortaJohn

[AgaveMaria]

Yojo Uetake won 64 Olympic Gold while wrestling with a shoulder separation.

https://theolympians.co/2016/06/15/two-time-olympic-champion-wrestler-yojiro-uetake-part-1-technique-speed-and-victory/

Lee has his challenges. Biggest is in his head now.

[Pinnacle]

7 minutes ago, Eagle26 said:

I guess, but I feel like he has lived up to these. Everybody wants him to come out with an excuse, but he won’t make excuses. He’s clearly struggling with some sort of injury but he doesn’t use it as an excuse. Instead he gave Ramos the credit. I respect that.

I’m just tired of the double standard and the ridiculous criticism he is up against. For example, you didn’t hear one peep about Starocci MFF out of the tournament (rightfully so). He finished his match in the championship bracket, so why couldn’t he finish in the consis? We all know the answer… it wasn’t worth risking further injury at that point. Same exact thing for Lee at NCAAs… wasn’t worth risking further injury with the open coming up. Unfortunately, it still wasn’t enough time to heal, and now people still think he is just mentally weak?? That’s crazy

The difference between Starocci and Lee is that no one thinks Lee was injured at NCAA or the US Open. Starocci was obviously injured in the Ringer match. Spencer gets built up to be larger than life. It is like a FloHollywood production at this point ,  and the branding and image building is off the chain. The comments come with that kind of hype. 

[bnwtwg]

46 minutes ago, AgaveMaria said:

Yojo Uetake won 64 Olympic Gold while wrestling with a shoulder separation.

https://theolympians.co/2016/06/15/two-time-olympic-champion-wrestler-yojiro-uetake-part-1-technique-speed-and-victory/

Lee has his challenges. Biggest is in his head now.

Fake news. Everyone knows wrestling wasn’t invented until 2010.

[ionel]

3 hours ago, Eagle26 said:

Why did Gable and Smith stop wrestling when they were both in the peak of their career then? 

Pretty sure Smith had accomplished everything he could 6x with two Olympic gold, why would he continue, would 10x have proved anything more?  Gable yeah maybe beat up but both had coaching options a you didn't make any money wrestling back then.  

[Eagle26]

1 hour ago, Pinnacle said:

The difference between Starocci and Lee is that some people, who have no idea about the situation, think Lee was not injured at NCAA or the US Open. 

FIFY

[Eagle26]

38 minutes ago, ionel said:

Pretty sure Smith had accomplished everything he could 6x with two Olympic gold, why would he continue, would 10x have proved anything more?  Gable yeah maybe beat up but both had coaching options a you didn't make any money wrestling back then.  

Well, why not go for another quad and possibly GOAT in any country? I don’t really disagree with you… just making a point. I do believe injuries played a factor in Smiths decision to retire, but I also believe having to make an actual living back then was a big factor as well. 

[Plasmodium]

On 4/29/2023 at 12:23 PM, Eagle26 said:

Well, why not go for another quad and possibly GOAT in any country? I don’t really disagree with you… just making a point. I do believe injuries played a factor in Smiths decision to retire, but I also believe having to make an actual living back then was a big factor as well. 

The money question is interesting.  He probably lived on ramen early on.  I recall him saying he gave himself a budget of 2000/month when he was wrestling because more that that would be a distraction.

[DJT]

1 hour ago, Plasmodium said:

The money question is interesting.  He probably lived on ramen early on.  I recall him saying he gave himself a budget of 2000/month when he was wrestling because more that that would be a distraction.

$2,000 in 1992 would be $4,302.72 today. That’s about what I spend a month, and I’m perpetually distracted.

[ionel]

2 minutes ago, DJT said:

$2,000 in 1992 would be $4,302.72 today. That’s about what I spend a month, and I’m perpetually distracted.

Doubt it was $2k.

[DJT]

6 minutes ago, ionel said:

Doubt it was $2k.

You are correct:

John Smith won his first world title in 1987 while he was still in college, one year later he won an Olympic Gold. After that, silver was not an option. Smith details the way he lived his life and the adjustments that he had to make along the way to keep himself sharp and to give him a mental edge. Even though he was doing well financially, Smith decided to give himself a budget of $1000/month to live on.

https://www.flowrestling.org/articles/5055801-john-smith-what-drives-winning
 

The internet is pretty amazing. Thank you, Mr. Gore.

[DJT]

$1,000 in 1987 is $2,657.01 today… probably not making it rain at the strip club every weekend but still not living on Ramen.

[Wrestleknownothing]

7 hours ago, DJT said:

$1,000 in 1987 is $2,657.01 today… probably not making it rain at the strip club every weekend but still not living on Ramen.

2k is $4,302.72, but 1k is $2,657.01? There was a lot of inflation in that hour between posts.

[Crotalus]

On 4/29/2023 at 12:40 PM, AgaveMaria said:

Lee has his challenges. Biggest is in his head now.

This may very well be true, but he has still shown more toughness and wrestled through more adversity throughout his career than most wrestlers, let alone anyone in this forum, ever have to. He's spent the better part of the last 5 years rehabbing more than wrestling. It's bound to take its toll physically and mentally. It seems unfair to question his toughness, but that's what the internet is for. 

[DJT]

31 minutes ago, Wrestleknownothing said:

2k is $4,302.72, but 1k is $2,657.01? There was a lot of inflation in that hour between posts.

The $2k number was 1992 til now… the $1k was 1987 til now… just used the year stated in the article, though 1989 would’ve been more appropriate as it referred to his budget lifestyle coming after he won the Olympics.

[Interviewed_at_Weehawken]

On 4/29/2023 at 12:45 PM, Pinnacle said:

The difference between Starocci and Lee is that no one thinks Lee was injured at NCAA or the US Open. Starocci was obviously injured in the Ringer match. Spencer gets built up to be larger than life. It is like a FloHollywood production at this point ,  and the branding and image building is off the chain. The comments come with that kind of hype. 

Carter was bviously injured?  First of all, he fell on his side when he was about to be turned and grabbed at his knee to get a break. Secondly, Penn State's "cyclical training" makes them impervious to injury.  He obviously felt well enough to run his mouth at Ringer AFTER the match.