The Henry Cejudo Experiment

[Theo Brixton]

This just came out and I have listened to ~2/3 of it. Nice podcast by WCML. 

A few things:

1. Henry Cejudo would not have reached the heights he reached as quickly as he did without Terry Brands. Period. Henry's run to the 2008 Olympic title represents one of the greatest coaching achievements in American wrestling. 

2. Unsurprising yet annoying to hear the second-guessing of Brands' methods. I remember watching training videos in the run-up to Beijing. There was one video in particular of the team running the Cog and a number of Olympians were half-assing it. Their effort would be pathetic even for a weekend warrior. But not Cejudo. He was all in. There were multiple videos like this during that time. I wonder if any of the team that had dreadful performances ever reflected on that.

3. Funny to hear 40-year old Terry handling a workout that left the team sore and complaining. TNT's capacity for work was one of two essential skills they brought to wrestling. Their opponents were lucky that matches were only 5-7 minutes.  

[pokemonster]

Might need to give it a listen after work. Just curious, what makes Henry's achievement more significant than other coaching feats? Was it the OTC that was questioning his training methods? Thanks for the post btw. 

[Theo Brixton]

14 minutes ago, pokemonster said:

Might need to give it a listen after work. Just curious, what makes Henry's achievement more significant than other coaching feats? Was it the OTC that was questioning his training methods? Thanks for the post btw. 

I feel he was a very unlikely champion at that stage of his career. If you watch the matches, they were won with a grit that was reminiscent of Brands.  And while he didn't end up facing Kudukhov, his bracket was stacked. Brands kept him on the straight and narrow in a way that no other coach probably would have, another essential component to his success. Cejudo was certainly talented but he needed Terry to unlock his potential.

I feel one reason it worked is because he was young enough to be impressionable. I sense many of the more experienced athletes too jaded to buy into what Brands was selling and that was to their detriment.

They didn't name names (or I at least didn't catch it when it was playing in the background) but it was apparent it was coming from multiple places. He had college coaches courting him that were no doubt giving him the hard sell that likely included disparaging Brands. Also, from how Kevin Jackson spoke, I would be surprised if he wasn't second guessing the training methods. That had to be a toxic situation, little wonder Brands left.

[Scouts Honor]

reminds me of a story when gable was coaching the world/olympic team... not sure which

guys were questioning gable

'he won't tell us how many... how do we know how hard to go'

iowa guy: you go 100% each time

[11986]

47 minutes ago, Scouts Honor said:

reminds me of a story when gable was coaching the world/olympic team... not sure which

guys were questioning gable

'he won't tell us how many... how do we know how hard to go'

iowa guy: you go 100% each time

I recall this story as well. I think that exchange was between former Iowa St great Mike Land and Hawkeye Randy Lewis.