Nick Simmons vs Radoslav Velikov 2011 Waclaw Ziolkowski Memorial

[fishbane]

Discussion on the college forum about wrestlers dodging opponents during the regular season and coaches using this not to prevent a loss for seeding but rather as a method of keeping information from potential future competitors, reminded me of the match between Nick Simmons and Radoslav Velikov from the 2011 Ziolkowski tournament.  Velikov, a Bulgarian, was world champion in 2006 and Nick Simmons had recently made his first world team.  They wrestled in the tournament in a somewhat early round and Simmons pinned Velikov in a spladle.  Simmons ended up finishing 5th in the tournament and like all USAW matches at the tournament it was posted on Youtube and also circulated other social media as Simmons pinning a world champ was a big result even if he failed to medal.  The video of the match was later removed from YouTube and scrubbed from USAW's social media.

The story at the time was that it was taken down at the behest of then national freestyle coach Larry Jones with the thinking that they didn't want potential opponents of Simmons at the 2011 World Championships seeing it and working out counter measures for Simmons's spadle.  At the World Championships in 2011 Simmons pinned his second round opponent in a spladle before falling to Velikov in the semifinals and ultimately finishing 5th.  I don't know that the video removal was a factor at all in his placement.  I think he would have defeated the Moldovan in the second round regardless and his semifinal opponent, Velikov, didn't need the video to know about the spladle.

Some 12-13 years hence I tried and couldn't find video of the Simmons-Velikov match from the 2011 Ziolkowski.  It is available anywhere on the internet?  Simmons's matches from worlds (second round spadle vs Moldova and semifinal vs Velikov) are readily available but not the spladle from Ziolkowski.

[mspart]

Maybe talks about it here.

https://www.flowrestling.org/people/5936337-nick-simmons/video?playing=6744998

mspart

[Jason Bryant]

I didn’t delete it, but it was marked private. Not sure if it still is that way or not. I pushed back on that quite a bit but my objections were overruled. I started a 2:00 Go series with clips from practice that that didn’t last long. The one with Cael and Usman has been ripped off a ton of times since. they crop out the USAW copyright tag on the front and the back and the video itself.

But to the original point - it wasn’t made public before I departed in Oct. 2012.

[Interviewed_at_Weehawken]

Larry Jones lol

[Jason Bryant]

1 hour ago, Interviewed_at_Weehawken said:

Larry Jones lol

I mean, it is his actual name. 

[Interviewed_at_Weehawken]

9 hours ago, Jason Bryant said:

I mean, it is his actual name. 

I mean, I know... and I know Zeke.  It is just funny to see "Larry."

[Jason Bryant]

Stove Pipe (RIP) once called him Lawrence in a post. Thought that was amusing.

[fishbane]

The whole Larry, Lawrence, Zeke thing reminds me of Nate Bargatze's bit where the airline has his name as Nathan, his license says Nathaniel, and people call him Nate.

[fishbane]

On 1/22/2024 at 7:49 PM, mspart said:

Maybe talks about it here.

https://www.flowrestling.org/people/5936337-nick-simmons/video?playing=6744998

mspart

They discussed it, but the match they showed was Simmons vs Moldova from the World Championships.  He says something about  a scraplife shirt with that spladle on it and giving it to Velikov.  Not 100% sure if the shirt had a pic of the spladle of Velikov from Ziolkowski or Chirtoaca from the world championships.  I couldn't find a pic of the shirt in question...  Probably don't make it any more.

This webpage makes mention of the Velikov spladle and video take down. https://prommanow.com/2011/09/20/nick-simmons-lands-another-spladle-at-world-championships/

and here is the playlist of videos from the event on USAW's YouTube (lacking Simmons-Velikov) https://www.youtube.com/playlist?list=PL496A4C75002F58FF

If I were Nick Simmons and I could have one just one spladle all over the internet I'd prefer it be the time I spladled for former world champ.  I suppose one positive of Flo buying broadcast rights is that they wouldn't entertain a request to take down a match for something like this.

 

[Jason Bryant]

9 hours ago, fishbane said:

I suppose one positive of Flo buying broadcast rights is that they wouldn't entertain a request to take down a match for something like this.

 

They have in the past. Not sure if that's changed in recent years.