Packard Posted August 23 Posted August 23 We saw Bo Nickal bashing Greco and Kamal Bey responded. The Greco faithful love to say Greco is the most popular style in the world. What data do they have to support this?
Jason Bryant Posted August 23 Posted August 23 We saw Bo Nickal bashing Greco and Kamal Bey responded. The Greco faithful love to say Greco is the most popular style in the world. What data do they have to support this? Most years, GR has more entries at Worlds than MFS … 1 Insert catchy tagline here.
Wrestleknownothing Posted August 23 Posted August 23 This year at U17 Euros - Men's free had 174 entrants from 31 countries - Men's greco had 197 from 34 - Women's free had 153 from 29 This year at U20 Euros - Men's free had 181 entrants from 28 countries - Men's greco 262 from 32 - Women's free had 151 from 26. So if you are comparing men's to men's outside of the US among the next generation, greco still has the edge. But a valid argument can be made that because there is no women's greco, greco is no longer the more popular style. 1 Drowning in data, but thirsting for knowledge
Jason Bryant Posted August 23 Posted August 23 53 minutes ago, Wrestleknownothing said: So if you are comparing men's to men's outside of the US among the next generation, greco still has the edge. But a valid argument can be made that because there is no women's greco, greco is no longer the more popular style. Let's make this an apples-to-apples comparison in its simplest form. Among women, freestyle is the most popular style worldwide. Among men, Greco is the most popular style worldwide. 1 Insert catchy tagline here.
Hammerlock3 Posted August 23 Posted August 23 16 minutes ago, Jason Bryant said: Let's make this an apples-to-apples comparison in its simplest form. Among women, freestyle is the most popular style worldwide. Among men, Greco is the most popular style worldwide. but why are we agreeing to worlds entrees as an appropriate metric for popularity? 4 "Half measures are a coward's form of insanity."
Jason Bryant Posted August 23 Posted August 23 It’s the best we have that isn’t solely U.S. centric data. By comparison, Every single “Fargo” has had more MFS entries than GR, so here, it’s clear among the two styles, FS is more popular. I don’t have any explanation as to why GR has more entries at worlds than MFS traditionally… 1 Insert catchy tagline here.
alex1fly Posted August 23 Posted August 23 Most popular how. Number of wrestlers? Number of fans? Number of countries with x amount of wrestling clubs? Gotta define your metric. Personally I don’t buy “entries at worlds” as an actual way to measure popularity but people love a story. 3
Jim L Posted August 23 Posted August 23 9 hours ago, Jason Bryant said: 9 hours ago, Jason Bryant said: Let's make this an apples-to-apples comparison in its simplest form. Among women, freestyle is the most popular style worldwide. Among men, Greco is the most popular style worldwide. Most years, GR has more entries at Worlds than MFS … If there are more entries in Fargo GR than Folkstyle nationals, does that mean GR is more popular?
Jason Bryant Posted August 23 Posted August 23 Most popular how. Number of wrestlers? Number of fans? Number of countries with x amount of wrestling clubs? Gotta define your metric. Personally I don’t buy “entries at worlds” as an actual way to measure popularity but people love a story.it’s the only verifiable thing we have at the moment. If someone wants to put in the work to find something more viable, I’m all ears. Worlds is essentially open with the only qualifier is you must compete at your continental championship. Insert catchy tagline here.
nhs67 Posted August 23 Posted August 23 This discussion happens at least a few times a year, it seems. It is difficult for our US gents to comprehend that MFS is not as popular worldwide. Someone even gathered data from most UWW events as well as Russian age level nationals over a few year span in one and once you go down the other UWW events that take place not only in Europe but Asia as well, the disparity between the two gets worse. MGR is far superior worldwide insofar as popularity. It was even broken down to not include 'local' athletes (meaning no Polish gents if in Poland). You have to consider that to go to Poland, even if from another European country, it isn't exactly cheap. You need hotel(s), transportation, entry fees, etc. So for it to be roughly ~30% or more insofar as entries go, that is saying something. I am of the mind that if we were to transition to MGR and MFS in college it would help both styles tremendously. Have the coinflip dictate who gets choice, like football. In football when you choose to kick or receive, the other guy gets to choose which side. So in wrestling, you can pick whether you start at MGR or MFS, the other guy can choose what weight to start at - or if someone chooses the weight, the other guy can choose MGR or MFS, with the weights alternating. There would be an interesting dynamic for individual tournaments. If a school does one individual tournament (Midlands) they can choose MFS, but if they do a second, they must participate in a MGR one as the second one. "I know actually nothing. It isn't even conjecture at this point." - me
nhs67 Posted August 23 Posted August 23 Just now, Jason Bryant said: it’s the only verifiable thing we have at the moment. If someone wants to put in the work to find something more viable, I’m all ears. Worlds is essentially open with the only qualifier is you must compete at your continental championship. Someone did a few years ago and I believe we were all rather shocked that it was ~30%+ more popular than MFS internationally. "I know actually nothing. It isn't even conjecture at this point." - me
Jim L Posted August 23 Posted August 23 15 minutes ago, nhs67 said: Someone did a few years ago and I believe we were all rather shocked that it was ~30%+ more popular than MFS internationally. I looked for this evidence and never found it. Numbers of entries does not equate to world wide popularity. I am not sure what would be a better metric, but that does not mean we should rely on a meaningless one. I think You Tube view numbers might be more reasonable. For instance, there are three countries in the Baltics with a combined population of ~6 million, where I believe GR is the most popular style (but still probably not widely popular) and if they all send complete teams to the World GR championship that means GR is 3X more popular than FS is in Iran with a population of 88 million and a passionate fan base.
nhs67 Posted August 23 Posted August 23 2 hours ago, Jim L said: I looked for this evidence and never found it. Numbers of entries does not equate to world wide popularity. I am not sure what would be a better metric, but that does not mean we should rely on a meaningless one. I think You Tube view numbers might be more reasonable. For instance, there are three countries in the Baltics with a combined population of ~6 million, where I believe GR is the most popular style (but still probably not widely popular) and if they all send complete teams to the World GR championship that means GR is 3X more popular than FS is in Iran with a population of 88 million and a passionate fan base. Did you check the old TheMat forums? Your other postulations hold merit, though. "I know actually nothing. It isn't even conjecture at this point." - me
Jim L Posted August 23 Posted August 23 30 minutes ago, nhs67 said: Did you check the old TheMat forums? Your other postulations hold merit, though. Don't think so as I am not smart enough to find info from sites that have gone dark. I did check number of entries on a bunch of tournaments through the UWW and remember that in generals for most international level tournaments and many continental championships there were more FS entries than. Another hypothetical - if the US states were to split up into fifty different countries and then each new country send a full FS team did FS just get much more popular worldwide? Yugoslavia split into 7 countries and the USSR into 15. I think in some (most?) of these new countries GR is more popular than FS. Most of though have populations smaller than US states.
Wrestleknownothing Posted August 23 Posted August 23 13 hours ago, Jason Bryant said: Let's make this an apples-to-apples comparison in its simplest form. Among women, freestyle is the most popular style worldwide. Among men, Greco is the most popular style worldwide. Another way to think about it is that the women, who had no historical basis to favor one style over the other, chose freestyle, suggesting that free is on the up swing while greco is stagnant. Drowning in data, but thirsting for knowledge
maligned Posted August 23 Posted August 23 3 hours ago, Jason Bryant said: it’s the only verifiable thing we have at the moment. If someone wants to put in the work to find something more viable, I’m all ears. Worlds is essentially open with the only qualifier is you must compete at your continental championship. I'm not sure there's a better metric out there. Wrestling is more than a second-class or niche sport in only a few nations on earth. In most nations it's like here--you watch wrestling or follow wrestling if you wrestled or are generally in the wrestling community. So if slightly more nations participate at the highest level in Greco, it's hard to argue by some other non-existent metric of attendance or participation that Greco isn't slightly more popular.
MPhillips Posted August 23 Posted August 23 40 minutes ago, Wrestleknownothing said: women, who had no historical basis to favor one style over the other, chose freestyle Chose... .
Wrestleknownothing Posted August 23 Posted August 23 Just now, MPhillips said: Chose... I knew I was on shaky ground as I typed that. Drowning in data, but thirsting for knowledge
MPhillips Posted August 23 Posted August 23 Just now, Wrestleknownothing said: I knew I was on shaky ground as I typed that. Why would you choose to type that? Must be the vacay seeping into your usually level headed thoughts... .
de4856 Posted August 23 Posted August 23 Well unfortunately I don’t see any Nordic countries entering into Freestyle, it’s like they have decided to just focus on Greco. Estonia is another country that I don’t see any Freestyle wrestlers. So I don’t know if this is about popularity or financial support.
CHROMEBIRD Posted August 23 Posted August 23 Unscientific, but in the lead-up to the Olympics the UWW had a poll up on its website asking which style people were most excited to see. Greco had an overwhelming # of votes, close to 70%, more than MFS and WW combined. Dunno what the final results were, but I do recall that the vote count was not trivial (n well into the hundreds or thousands). 1
Mr. PeanutButter Posted August 23 Posted August 23 7 hours ago, nhs67 said: I am of the mind that if we were to transition to MGR and MFS in college it would help both styles tremendously. Have the coinflip dictate who gets choice, like football. In football when you choose to kick or receive, the other guy gets to choose which side. So in wrestling, you can pick whether you start at MGR or MFS, the other guy can choose what weight to start at - or if someone chooses the weight, the other guy can choose MGR or MFS, with the weights alternating. There would be an interesting dynamic for individual tournaments. If a school does one individual tournament (Midlands) they can choose MFS, but if they do a second, they must participate in a MGR one as the second one. This is very interesting! Imagine, start period 1 in MFS, then, instead of par terre, the wrestler that wins the coinflip gets to choose whether to start period 2 in GR or FS
Scouts Honor Posted August 23 Posted August 23 no one has discussed reasons for greco being more popular ... maybe there are more entrants b/c its wide open? i dont follow greco... are there clear favorites?
gimpeltf Posted August 23 Posted August 23 11 minutes ago, 1032004 said: Russia isn’t that good at Greco right? Not this year
Natalie Rush Canon-McMillan, Pennsylvania Class of 2025 Committed to West Liberty (Women) Projected Weight: 207
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