Should the U.S. be the best country in the world for men's freestyle wrestling?

[billyhoyle]

There has been a lot of discussion about whether the U.S. Men's Freestyle team underperformed, performed to expectations, or outperformed expectations.  I think the answer depends on how good you think U.S. Freestyle wrestling "should" be.  If the answer is that the U.S. should be in good years at best on par with Iran and still worse than Russia, then this was an average or good performance for the team. Based on my expectations going into the tournament, I was disappointed. But in retrospect, I think they performed about as well as we could have expected, and as fans we should all appreciate that effort. 

But why do we have these expectations?

In Iran, soccer is the most popular sport.  Wrestling is more popular in Iran than it is in other countries, but Iran itself struggles resource-wise to support athletics. The only sports they medal in are wrestling, Taekwondo/Karate, and Weightlifting. 

In Russia, of course Dagestan is the absolute best place in the world for wrestling. But the population of Dagestan is 3 million. They are the gold standard in the world from a relatively small number of participants, who like Iran, are under resourced. 

What about the U.S.?

There are youth wrestling clubs throughout the country. 300,000 high school students participate in wrestling. We have a number of very well funded NCAA programs, and avenues for our athletes to compete on the international circuit if they are the best in the country. We have more participants and better resources than every other country in the world.  

So, based on this, should the U.S. be the #1? If not, why shouldn't we be?

[The Kid]

15 minutes ago, billyhoyle said:

There has been a lot of discussion about whether the U.S. Men's Freestyle team underperformed, performed to expectations, or outperformed expectations.  I think the answer depends on how good you think U.S. Freestyle wrestling "should" be.  If the answer is that the U.S. should be in good years at best on par with Iran and still worse than Russia, then this was an average or good performance for the team. Based on my expectations going into the tournament, I was disappointed. But in retrospect, I think they performed about as well as we could have expected, and as fans we should all appreciate that effort. 

But why do we have these expectations?

In Iran, soccer is the most popular sport.  Wrestling is more popular in Iran than it is in other countries, but Iran itself struggles resource-wise to support athletics. The only sports they medal in are wrestling, Taekwondo/Karate, and Weightlifting. 

In Russia, of course Dagestan is the absolute best place in the world for wrestling. But the population of Dagestan is 3 million. They are the gold standard in the world from a relatively small number of participants, who like Iran, are under resourced. 

What about the U.S.?

There are youth wrestling clubs throughout the country. 300,000 high school students participate in wrestling. We have a number of very well funded NCAA programs, and avenues for our athletes to compete on the international circuit if they are the best in the country. We have more participants and better resources than every other country in the world.  

So, based on this, should the U.S. be the #1? If not, why shouldn't we be?

If freestyle wrestling isn't the #1 priority, we will never be the consistent #1 team in the world. 

It's a priority for our women and they are seeing exceptional results from their young wrestlers. But, those girls are being trained by level coaches,  not some funky high school coach with political connections.

The best team in the ncaa focuses on folkstyle techniques that do not work at all in freestyle.  

Guys like Nolf and Nickal looked like world beaters in college. Neither will ever make a serious challenge for an Olympic gold medal. But, somehow they are regarded as unbeatable by the US fans.

 

Edited Sunday at 11:38 PM by The Kid

[billyhoyle]

3 minutes ago, The Kid said:

If freestyle wrestling isn't the #1 priority, we will never be the consistent #1 team in the world. 

It's a priority for our women and they are seeing exceptional results from their young wrestlers. But, those girls are being trained by level coaches,  not some funky high school coach with political connections.

 

But do you think we should be #1? I'm not asking whether we are doing the right things to be #1, but whether based on participants/resources/etc, you think we ought to be. 

Edited Sunday at 11:39 PM by billyhoyle

[Pa in Taiwan]

Should there be peace on Earth, an end to war, and every man loving all his neighbors?

 

[WrestlingRasta]

If the United States Swimming decided to put all their resources and heavy emphasis in the breast stroke, programming the event from youth all the way through college.......should we expect to be the dominant nation in the butterfly at the olympics?  I mean, they're similar.

[billyhoyle]

3 minutes ago, WrestlingRasta said:

If the United States Swimming decided to put all their resources and heavy emphasis in the breast stroke, programming the event from youth all the way through college.......should we expect to be the dominant nation in the butterfly at the olympics?  I mean, they're similar.

Swimming emphasizes all the different strokes, which is why overall they are the best program in the world. 

[WrestlingRasta]

Just now, billyhoyle said:

Swimming emphasizes all the different strokes, which is why overall they are the best program in the world. 

Heeeeeeeeeey.  Winner winner chicken dinner!!!

Let me guess, they have an equal focus on all styles, from the development stages all the way through?

[billyhoyle]

6 minutes ago, WrestlingRasta said:

Heeeeeeeeeey.  Winner winner chicken dinner!!!

Let me guess, they have an equal focus on all styles, from the development stages all the way through?

So do you think if the U.S. switched to Greco/Freestyle, we would be the best in the world at both?

[CHROMEBIRD]

Agree that our MFS did as well as could be expected.

Also, this may not be a popular opinion here, but I'd be fine with having lower chances at taking home medals if we could have 10 weight classes and greater global parity. 

[alliseeisgold]

USA has succeeded recently due to an abnormal run of elite talent , combined with watered down weight classes and the surprise of never seeing our new guys before...and once that has gone away the USA has failed expectations. 

We should be good enough to take talents like dake and win gold....which is just asking for our training system to be on par with the world. 

Anyone honestly doesn't believe dake is the most talented wrestler at his weight minus Russia ? If they wrestle 10 times I bet you'd still pick dake to win gold still.

So dake failing at both Olympics is a failure.

Outside of Taylor and Burroughs. It's all pretty much taking elite talents and underperforming on the highest stakes when the world has time to prepare for us 

The rtc system has had 0 impact even tho there was a correlation made there.. Even ppl said college wrestling made USA tougher.  Those don't add up. Historically USA is mid. That's not changing. 

The movements just look more "natural' for other countries. Not sure how to describe it. Just innate feel.  Prbly gotta have a different system to develop it.

[Le duke]

Swimming emphasizes all the different strokes, which is why overall they are the best program in the world. 

Well, actually, the men got their teeth kicked in by several countries . The US men had one (1) individual gold.

Italy, Hungary and France had more men win gold than we did.

We were on par with Ireland, China, Australia, Romania and Germany.


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[GrandOlm]

Yes and no.  Considering the amount of youth wrestlers, resources, and widespread distribution of that the US has over the rest of world, they should. 

For the three main competitors, an ethnic group that makes up about 70% of Russia's population has nothing to do with Freestyle wrestling and two fairly small regions carry the whole nation (Dagestan + Ossetia), Iranian wrestlers mostly come from a single province, and wrestling isn't popular anywhere in Japan, they're just a wealthy and well trained country. 

The no part, well the US does things a bit differently than everyone else.  

[billyhoyle]

11 minutes ago, alliseeisgold said:

USA has succeeded recently due to an abnormal run of elite talent , combined with watered down weight classes and the surprise of never seeing our new guys before...and once that has gone away the USA has failed expectations. 

We should be good enough to take talents like dake and win gold....which is just asking for our training system to be on par with the world. 

Anyone honestly doesn't believe dake is the most talented wrestler at his weight minus Russia ? If they wrestle 10 times I bet you'd still pick dake to win gold still.

So dake failing at both Olympics is a failure.

Outside of Taylor and Burroughs. It's all pretty much taking elite talents and underperforming on the highest stakes when the world has time to prepare for us 

The rtc system has had 0 impact even tho there was a correlation made there.. Even ppl said college wrestling made USA tougher.  Those don't add up. Historically USA is mid. That's not changing. 

The movements just look more "natural' for other countries. Not sure how to describe it. Just innate feel.  Prbly gotta have a different system to develop it.

So based on talent, participation, and training resources, would you say we should be #1? But based on our approach to developing this talent and using these resources, it makes sense that we aren't?

[jross]

All across the USA, young competitive gymnast girls practice 20 hours weekly during school, and 25-30 hours weekly during the summer.  The best have options to home school and train more with the best coaches.

In wrestling, competitive youth practice 3-5 hours a week.  One has to actively seek out and has a hard time finding good coaching and practice opportunities.

[WrestlingRasta]

27 minutes ago, billyhoyle said:

So do you think if the U.S. switched to Greco/Freestyle, we would be the best in the world at both?

Immediately, no. In time, yes. 

[alliseeisgold]

1 minute ago, billyhoyle said:

So based on talent, participation, and training resources, would you say we should be #1? But based on our approach to developing this talent and using these resources, it makes sense that we aren't?

Yes and no - I think we overate our talent. We normally don't have a run of JB Taylor cox dake Snyder etc in .....never will be as talented as Russia. But we should be 2nd place. Junior worlds shows we have the talent for 2nd in world. The problem imo lies in developing them at the world stage against even talents and not losing based on technical aspects. Outside of JB and taylor none of these junior world champs develop into Olympic champs. Wonder why that is ?

We have the participation and money and facilities but not the freestyle coaching and training system.  So I believe we would need better resources on the coaching side. Maybe bring in some Japanese. Should we can folk ? Maybe. Or we just need some new blood on here for freestyle coaching besides the same ole guard. 

It's also not like Russia and Iran would not dominate folk. They would freaking own folk. Would be better than USA because those countries have such naturally brute phyiques and styles they would be absolute beasts in top and bottom.

 

 

[alliseeisgold]

I don't think JB and Taylor wrestled junior worlds 

So answer me this. What country has developed junior world talent into senior level talent worse then the USA ?

Only diahhamolis Lee and brooks and parris have made it. None have gold. 

I bet Iran Russia Japan etc have multiple junior world champs developed successfully into senior champs.

If Lee didn't wrestle freestyle cause of folk scrap it. Burn folk. 

[scribers]

We don’t have to be the best. But would lIke to see more consistency with the occasional lights out tournament 

[Interviewed_at_Weehawken]

2 hours ago, WrestlingRasta said:

Heeeeeeeeeey.  Winner winner chicken dinner!!!

Let me guess, they have an equal focus on all styles, from the development stages all the way through?

Russia!!!!

[Interviewed_at_Weehawken]

1 hour ago, alliseeisgold said:

I don't think JB and Taylor wrestled junior worlds 

So answer me this. What country has developed junior world talent into senior level talent worse then the USA ?

Only diahhamolis Lee and brooks and parris have made it. None have gold. 

I bet Iran Russia Japan etc have multiple junior world champs developed successfully into senior champs.

If Lee didn't wrestle freestyle cause of folk scrap it. Burn folk. 

Steveson. Snyder. 
Do they not count?

[MPhillips]

"Tell me that you want the kind of things
That money just can't buy"

[Scouts Honor]

2 hours ago, The Kid said:

 

The best team in the ncaa focuses on folkstyle techniques that do not work at all in freestyle.  

 

 

wait

singles and doubles and hi C only work in folk?
go behinds only work in folk?

noose series only works in folk?

I saw someone other than DT was folk top work at the olympics... someone from another country.

 

as to the OP

WRESTLING isn't a priority in this nation. let alone freestyle

[Scouts Honor]

as far as Dake

first he is old.

but more important.. and im going to be crucified for this... b/c he is really good and I love watching him too etc etc

 

but i see him a little like the kid who doesn't listen to his coach.

i did this once and im going to keep doing it...

you can't tell me how to get better etc etc

 

i mean he argued with the entire arena for like 5 minutes.

 

[Interviewed_at_Weehawken]

2 hours ago, jross said:

All across the USA, young competitive gymnast girls practice 20 hours weekly during school, and 25-30 hours weekly during the summer.  The best have options to home school and train more with the best coaches.

In wrestling, competitive youth practice 3-5 hours a week.  One has to actively seek out and has a hard time finding good coaching and practice opportunities.

And the USA has supplanted Russia and China to become the top gymnastic power. 
 

My son, who ended up wrestling, was coached by an Olympic gold medalist in gymnastics. I loved his coaches, but they weren’t Olympic gold medalists. 
 

I am not sure what the point is, other than there’s top quality gymnastics coaching throughout the US. 

[Interviewed_at_Weehawken]

5 minutes ago, Scouts Honor said:

wait

singles and doubles and hi C only work in folk?
go behinds only work in folk?

noose series only works in folk?

I saw someone other than DT was folk top work at the olympics... someone from another country.

 

as to the OP

WRESTLING isn't a priority in this nation. let alone freestyle

What is the “noose series?”

I probably have a different name. Legit curious.