Remembering Wrestling Legends

[flyingcement]

Saw a Mike Sees reference in Twitter and hadn't thought about him in ages.  He pinned me when I was seven.  

 

Please share your stories or appreciation of wrestling legends in this thread.  Legend can be defined be each person

[Idaho]

I thought this thread was about me in the first place....I have shared this before, but.....

Back in the 80's I bumped up an age group at Vegas. I won a few matches then ran into a kid I never heard of...John Buxton. I had never seen a leg lace before, so I had also never seen a counter or defense for it. He took me down and leg laced me until we went out of bounds. I had no idea what happened. Then in a scramble, he locked it up and turned me until we went out of bounds again. Match over. He may still be leg lacing me to to this day had there not been a 12 point tech fall at that time. He went on to become an AA at Nebraska, having some great matches with Eric Aiken from Iowa State... I did not. Probably the best kid I ever faced in high school. 

Edited November 6, 2023 by Idaho

[KCMO2]

I was at the Columbia Rock Bridge tournament my sophomore year wrestling 105, and I wrestled some kid named Tony Purler.  He was a little small for the weight so I was feeling pretty good going in.  That changed.

[Leg rider]

When I was in college Kolat was one of our assistant coaches, I slammed him hard with a mat return after his stand up, and that is the end of the story as far as I am concerned

[11986]

I wrestled Mark Ruffalo in a summer tournament. He played the legend Dave Schultz in the movie Foxcatcher. 

(ok I definitely wrestled a guy named Ruffalo but don’t recall for sure if first name was Mark. Our ages and the young Ruffalo being a Va Beach kid lines up though)

[flyingcement]

my high school teammate put Zach Esposito in a spladle.  Unfortunately Esposito would go on to defeat him pretty much every other time they faced off.  Andrew Donofrio

[flyingcement]

The following of my youth teammates wrestled D1 in college (probably missing a few and apologies for that):

Jon Trenge, Lehigh

Derek Jenkins, Rider

Sean Jenkins, Rider

Mike Miller, Rider

Paul Velekei, Penn

Christian Franco, Penn

Mike Heist, Pittsburgh

Kurt Pryor, West Point

Bobby Shaw, UNC

Andrew Donofrio, Virginia Tech

Matt McConnell, Franklin & Marshall

Zach Plerhoples, Edinboro

[Quaker118]

8 hours ago, flyingcement said:

The following of my youth teammates wrestled D1 in college (probably missing a few and apologies for that):

Jon Trenge, Lehigh

Derek Jenkins, Rider

Sean Jenkins, Rider

Mike Miller, Rider

Paul Velekei, Penn

Christian Franco, Penn

Mike Heist, Pittsburgh

Kurt Pryor, West Point

Bobby Shaw, UNC

Andrew Donofrio, Virginia Tech

Matt McConnell, Franklin & Marshall

Zach Plerhoples, Edinboro

Christian Franco was a stud who unfortunately had injury issues and couldn't get through even a couple of years before he had to retire. A shame because he kept trying. 

[bnwtwg]

Now listen here guys and gals this here is one of those threads that merits strong consideration of the best of the best and the toughest of the roughest and that means that you need to think outside of the box n look straight up to the fella willing to do the dirty work to get the roof done now Tom and Terry tried to run a fella like that out of town once already and that's a real shame because that's the teammate you need when you are gambling with your legacy and you can't deadlift your way out of the foxhole but that's okay because I'm sure that type of fella is still walking among us and probably even sneaks in a few PBRs then takes his old lady to the stabbin cabin and that's the kind of legend that always needs to live on if you know what i mean and you know what i mean

[flyingcement]

5 hours ago, Quaker118 said:

Christian Franco was a stud who unfortunately had injury issues and couldn't get through even a couple of years before he had to retire. A shame because he kept trying. 

He was also a really nice kid and about as humble as you can imagine for someone with his talent.