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

[billyhoyle]

5 hours ago, JeanGuy said:

Especially the way scholastic stuff is going today. A 21-year-old might be a college Freshman. Lee is 25 and wrestling his first major Sr. level event. I know he had his own unusual circumstances with injuries, but the point is the same. Brooks is 24. You have Nolf stuck behind Dake and he is 28 and getting ready to time out. Messenbrink is already 21. It is hard to make up that time.

The prime of wrestlers is 22-26.  The prime of U.S. wrestlers, unfortunately, is 25-29 for this exact reason. And that's because it takes time to adjust to freestyle. The sad reality is that most don't fully adjust and still have terrible habits from folkstyle/never had the opportunity to develop their own style in freestyle.  

[Interviewed_at_Weehawken]

1 minute ago, billyhoyle said:

The prime of wrestlers is 22-26.  The prime of U.S. wrestlers, unfortunately, is 25-29 for this exact reason. And that's because it takes time to adjust to freestyle. The sad reality is that most don't fully adjust and still have terrible habits from folkstyle/never had the opportunity to develop their own style in freestyle.  

The average age of Olympic medalists has been increasing over the past three cycles. 
one of the reasons is that it is more lucrative to compete today. Athletes weren’t necessarily over the hill before. 

[billyhoyle]

33 minutes ago, GrandOlm said:

All of Dagestan has a smaller population than Los Angeles (3 million) and Ossetians are a rare ethnic group that numbers about 500k in total on the planet. Chechens are kind of like Siberian Greco-Roman wrestlers, a couple famous examples but most definitely not the engine of the system (and most Chechens, including the most famous ethnic Chechen wrestler, were molded as Dagestan born not in Chechnya - Dagestan is multi ethnic).

There are over 250k high school male wrestlers in the US. I think the US has won the participation war already. It's training them up that's the issue. Look at what Askren is doing in Wisconsin. 

Exactly. There is nothing special about the water in Dagestan. In fact, they have significantly worse training conditions than athletes in the U.S. and a smaller pool of athletes.  

There are really three questions that need to be asked.

1. Should the U.S. be the best country in the world for freestyle? (I think yes, but many seem to not think so)

2. Do you want the U.S. to be the best country for freestyle? (I do, but some seem to not care about U.S. athletes once they graduate from college and stop scoring team points)

3. What changes need to be made so that the U.S. is #1?  (This is where it gets contentious. The simple solution is to switch to freestyle, but tweaking the folkstyle rules may be enough, as would some other changes that incentivize better training environments and additional international experience). 

[billyhoyle]

2 minutes ago, Interviewed_at_Weehawken said:

The average age of Olympic medalists has been increasing over the past three cycles. 
one of the reasons is that it is more lucrative to compete today. Athletes weren’t necessarily over the hill before. 

Yes, and better methods of training to allow athletes to compete later and have less of a drop-off. I still think the absolute peak for the combination of endurance and strength required is ages 22-26. The older these guys get, the more likely they are to have to overcome significant injuries as well (see Yazdani)

[Interviewed_at_Weehawken]

42 minutes ago, billyhoyle said:

Exactly. There is nothing special about the water in Dagestan. In fact, they have significantly worse training conditions than athletes in the U.S. and a smaller pool of athletes.   

Also: not a lot of PlayStations in Dagestan. 

[Scouts Honor]

i agree. our training condition suck.

we need to be poor again.

and im serious.

[Scouts Honor]

1 hour ago, billyhoyle said:

Yes, and better methods of training to allow athletes to compete later and have less of a drop-off. I still think the absolute peak for the combination of endurance and strength required is ages 22-26. The older these guys get, the more likely they are to have to overcome significant injuries as well (see Yazdani)

perhaps. i think the money has more to do with it.

i don't have to stop wrestling b/c i have a job or family

[MJD]

4 hours ago, Interviewed_at_Weehawken said:

The average age of Olympic medalists has been increasing over the past three cycles. 
one of the reasons is that it is more lucrative to compete today. Athletes weren’t necessarily over the hill before. 

The average age of an Olympic medalist in freestyle is 26. Biologically speaking, physical prime begins to decline at 27. Wrestlers may try to continue to complete longer for certain monetary reasons, but that doesn't change the age of natural biological decline.

USA wrestlers are starting to wrestle freestyle full-time WAY too late. Getting started full-time at 24 (like many in the usa do), is always going to yield inconsistent results in the long term. For that reason, I think men's college wrestling should open up to freestyle. Keep folkstyle for those schools which have the fans, have a chance of getting a wrestler on the podium regularly, and have a historical vested interest in it. The other colleges, basically the majority of the 76 div 1 schools, should transition to freestyle.

[scribers]

There’s a plan. Let Carl, Carl jr, interchangeable brands, and a couple of other pretender contenders duke out the inevitable psu ncaa folkstyle championship. 
 

let everyone else prepare for Olympic glory. 

[Ched64]

 

5 hours ago, MJD said:

The average age of an Olympic medalist in freestyle is 26. Biologically speaking, physical prime begins to decline at 27. Wrestlers may try to continue to complete longer for certain monetary reasons, but that doesn't change the age of natural biological decline.

USA wrestlers are starting to wrestle freestyle full-time WAY too late. Getting started full-time at 24 (like many in the usa do), is always going to yield inconsistent results in the long term. For that reason, I think men's college wrestling should open up to freestyle. Keep folkstyle for those schools which have the fans, have a chance of getting a wrestler on the podium regularly, and have a historical vested interest in it. The other colleges, basically the majority of the 76 div 1 schools, should transition to freestyle.

It is most glaring in how many guys we send that look like they have very little competency in par terre.  They are all well trained on their feet from folkstyle but this isn’t merely a takedown tourney.  I am always surprised at how absolutely lost some look trying to do ANYTHING once they hit the mat. Obviously there are exceptions but those guys are the ones earning the medals.  The others are ceding an important part of the game to other world class athletes who can score in bunches.  I think it also makes our guys more wary of engaging because if you are not proficient in par terre yourself, your opponents abilities are perceived to be more dangerous and downright scary and establishing a good defense is predicated on having an innate understanding of how to execute the moves yourself.

[Interviewed_at_Weehawken]

1 hour ago, Ched64 said:

 

It is most glaring in how many guys we send that look like they have very little competency in par terre.  They are all well trained on their feet from folkstyle but this isn’t merely a takedown tourney.  I am always surprised at how absolutely lost some look trying to do ANYTHING once they hit the mat. Obviously there are exceptions but those guys are the ones earning the medals.  The others are ceding an important part of the game to other world class athletes who can score in bunches.  I think it also makes our guys more wary of engaging because if you are not proficient in par terre yourself, your opponents abilities are perceived to be more dangerous and downright scary and establishing a good defense is predicated on having an innate understanding of how to execute the moves yourself.

The par terre deficiencies greatly disturb me. 

Brooks had a gut wrench locked up in the semi and chose to put about a 1/16 effort into scoring with it. Those points could have made a difference. Geno, Taha, Saduleev, etc would not have hesitated to score there. 

I think one of the reasons there wasn’t a lot of scoring action in the 57 kg final is that both guys had a strong respect for how ugly the shore could get if they were taken down. You don’t want Higuchi to lick up an easy lace or guy, because they WILL score with it… or at least try to. 

[BuckyBadger]

13 hours ago, GrandOlm said:

All of Dagestan has a smaller population than Los Angeles (3 million) and Ossetians are a rare ethnic group that numbers about 500k in total on the planet. Chechens are kind of like Siberian Greco-Roman wrestlers, a couple famous examples but most definitely not the engine of the system (and most Chechens, including the most famous ethnic Chechen wrestler, were molded as Dagestan born not in Chechnya - Dagestan is multi ethnic).

There are over 250k high school male wrestlers in the US. I think the US has won the participation war already. It's training them up that's the issue. Look at what Askren is doing in Wisconsin. 

We have 250k high school male wrestlers that wrestle folk style. Probably a small fraction of them train in freestyle as their second style. The fact is our system trains our wrestlers very intensely in folk style through the early 20s while the rest of the world regularly produces wrestlers that are having great success on the senior level when they are in their early 20s, sometimes younger.

So I’m not sure if I agree on the US winning the participation war.

But I do agree that how we train is the issue. Our whole system uses folk as a base. It’s not surprising that the majority of our guys are not good at throwing, uncomfortable locking up in many positions, and don’t typically score back exposure off of their opponents offense. These are all critical freestyle skills. Dake is really the only guy I can think of that has those skills and he even forces things that aren’t there (as evidenced by his last two Olympic appearances). I don’t think we’ll drop folk style in the US, because it’s our domestic style and it has a fan base. But I think it’s also the reason why we won’t reach our freestyle potential.

Edited August 13 by BuckyBadger

[billyhoyle]

1 hour ago, BuckyBadger said:

We have 250k high school male wrestlers that wrestle folk style. Probably a small fraction of them train in freestyle as their second style. The fact is our system trains our wrestlers very intensely in folk style through the early 20s while the rest of the world regularly produces wrestlers that are having great success on the senior level when they are in their early 20s, sometimes younger.

So I’m not sure if I agree on the US winning the participation war.

But I do agree that how we train is the issue. Our whole system uses folk as a base. It’s not surprising that the majority of our guys are not good at throwing, uncomfortable locking up in many positions, and don’t typically score back exposure off of their opponents offense. These are all critical freestyle skills. Dake is really the only guy I can think of that has those skills and he even forces things that aren’t there (as evidenced by his last two Olympic appearances). I don’t think we’ll drop folk style in the US, because it’s our domestic style and it has a fan base. But I think it’s also the reason why we won’t reach our freestyle potential.

To have NCAA men’s wrestling stay competitive in the NIL era, we must switch to freestyle or at the very least a more exciting version of folkstyle that allows our athletes to better transition to free. It’s our best chance of boosting the popularity of the sport.  NCAA wrestling is losing fans every year-adapt or die, and we are choosing the latter. 

[Scouts Honor]

i dont see free being the change to make it exciting

what was viewership of the olympic wrestling... OUTSIDE the wrestling community?

how many on here say... he just wont wrestle... when describing a wrestler from ANY country.

it's NOT a better product.

ANYWHERE.

similar... maybe the same... but not better

[The Kid]

2 hours ago, Scouts Honor said:

i dont see free being the change to make it exciting

what was viewership of the olympic wrestling... OUTSIDE the wrestling community?

how many on here say... he just wont wrestle... when describing a wrestler from ANY country.

it's NOT a better product.

ANYWHERE.

similar... maybe the same... but not better

Freestyle is easier to understand and is much better wrestling than folk stall.

Folk stall is anti wrestling.  

[Scouts Honor]

10 minutes ago, The Kid said:

Freestyle is easier to understand and is much better wrestling than folk stall.

Folk stall is anti wrestling.  

lol

tell me how the continuation rule works

i will start with parris' match against  the mongol

[forkemaz]

23 hours ago, billyhoyle said:

To have NCAA men’s wrestling stay competitive in the NIL era, we must switch to freestyle or at the very least a more exciting version of folkstyle that allows our athletes to better transition to free. It’s our best chance of boosting the popularity of the sport.  NCAA wrestling is losing fans every year-adapt or die, and we are choosing the latter. 

Is free style gaining fans? Does freestyle have more fans than folkstyle does? 

[forkemaz]

13 hours ago, The Kid said:

Freestyle is easier to understand and is much better wrestling than folk stall.

Folk stall is anti wrestling.  

Freestyle is not easier to understand by any metric lol. What a wild thing to say. Watch freestyle with a no nothing then do it with folk. The difference is stark.

[Jim L]

I have watched both Folkstyle and Freestyle with sports fans who don't know much about either set of wrestling rules and it is clear to me than there are non-intuitive rules and situation approximately equally in both styles. 

As US wrestling fans who grew in wrestling folkstyle, we cannot overcome our bias of what is the proper way wrestling should be scored and what constitutes domination in grappling.

 

[CHROMEBIRD]

On 8/13/2024 at 1:41 AM, scribers said:

There’s a plan. Let Carl, Carl jr, interchangeable brands, and a couple of other pretender contenders duke out the inevitable psu ncaa folkstyle championship. 
 

let everyone else prepare for Olympic glory. 

Carl's Jr. (okay, Hardee's) never made me a contender. Their double western bacon cheeseburger was the bane of my existence.

[forkemaz]

1 hour ago, Jim L said:

I have watched both Folkstyle and Freestyle with sports fans who don't know much about either set of wrestling rules and it is clear to me than there are non-intuitive rules and situation approximately equally in both styles. 

As US wrestling fans who grew in wrestling folkstyle, we cannot overcome our bias of what is the proper way wrestling should be scored and what constitutes domination in grappling.

 

This is just plain disingenuious. 

Why does the referee keep stopping them?

Why did that guy score points?

Wait why are they now changing their mind and giving that other guy those points?

Why did he just get 1 pt? (Shot clock/passivity)

Wait a push out is worth a point? Lame

Why did he stand them up?

Why isnt the guy on bottom doing anything?

He just rolled through a bunch of times and its over?

Folkstyle is pretty clear. A guy gets on top and gets points. He gets away he gets points. He puts someone on their back, points. A pin is easy to understand. Ride time is probably the most confusing aspect.

Non wrestlers or people who have never seen freestyle have almost no clue Wtf is going. Shit people who watch folkstyle can barely get why someone scores over it being the others score, why that guy was put on the shot clock. 

[Scouts Honor]

i dont need to overcome any bias to know what is better

the data shows

[Jim L]

42 minutes ago, forkemaz said:

This is just plain disingenuious. 

Why does the referee keep stopping them?

Why did that guy score points?

Wait why are they now changing their mind and giving that other guy those points?

Why did he just get 1 pt? (Shot clock/passivity)

Wait a push out is worth a point? Lame

Why did he stand them up?

Why isnt the guy on bottom doing anything?

He just rolled through a bunch of times and its over?

Folkstyle is pretty clear. A guy gets on top and gets points. He gets away he gets points. He puts someone on their back, points. A pin is easy to understand. Ride time is probably the most confusing aspect.

Non wrestlers or people who have never seen freestyle have almost no clue Wtf is going. Shit people who watch folkstyle can barely get why someone scores over it being the others score, why that guy was put on the shot clock. 

That is your opinion as someone who has watched Folkstyle and prefers it.

Almost all of your examples are confusing to you because you are used to Folkstyle rules, which you believe is the proper and more obvious way to score.

Someone who is used to BJJ, Folkstyle, Judo, etc.  (or completely unfamiliar with any rule set) can make a list just as long about the non-sensical rules in Folkstyle, as your last sentence indicates.

I don't think there are many universal rules that inherently make sense for all styles of grappling. Each style has their own rules

 

 

[alex1fly]

53 minutes ago, forkemaz said:

This is just plain disingenuious. 

Why does the referee keep stopping them?

Why did that guy score points?

Wait why are they now changing their mind and giving that other guy those points?

Why did he just get 1 pt? (Shot clock/passivity)

Wait a push out is worth a point? Lame

Why did he stand them up?

Why isnt the guy on bottom doing anything?

He just rolled through a bunch of times and its over?

Folkstyle is pretty clear. A guy gets on top and gets points. He gets away he gets points. He puts someone on their back, points. A pin is easy to understand. Ride time is probably the most confusing aspect.

Non wrestlers or people who have never seen freestyle have almost no clue Wtf is going. Shit people who watch folkstyle can barely get why someone scores over it being the others score, why that guy was put on the shot clock. 

TBH I need a freestyle buddy to watch with that can explain the ref behavior. Rules can be learned but with free (and Greco to an extent) I'm often wondering why the refs are doing what they're doing. They seem to be given a lot of say in not only who wins the match but with how the wrestlers interact with each other - set ups, TDs, tie ups, how much time par terre lasts, all of it.  Some if it makes sense but sometimes it reads like favoritism.... which is acceptable/expected according to posts here.

[forkemaz]

1 hour ago, Jim L said:

That is your opinion as someone who has watched Folkstyle and prefers it.

Almost all of your examples are confusing to you because you are used to Folkstyle rules, which you believe is the proper and more obvious way to score.

Someone who is used to BJJ, Folkstyle, Judo, etc.  (or completely unfamiliar with any rule set) can make a list just as long about the non-sensical rules in Folkstyle, as your last sentence indicates.

I don't think there are many universal rules that inherently make sense for all styles of grappling. Each style has their own rules

 

 

Thats not my opinion thats my experience watching freestyle with anyone who isnt a freestyle zealot, they dont get it and they dont like it. You cant make a comparable list for folkstyle. Look at the post directly above this one, the subjectivity is out of control in freestyle and thats outside the confusing rule set.

Edited August 14 by forkemaz