Ironman 2024

[BAC]

14 minutes ago, Truzzcat said:

Adam waters I believe teched or pinned his way through as well. Neither guy was at the most competitive weight but its still ironman so obviously the competition is still stiff. Andrew Alton may have pinned his way through back in 2009 as well.

Waters won by injury default.  Not sure why the brackets show it as a pin.  It may well have been a tech absent the injury, as Waters was up big.  Regardless, even if someone else (Alton?) pinned their way through, I'm personally more impressed by a guy who can tech his way through the competition -- especially when the closest (longest) match is one that went just 23 seconds into the second period.  

The other crazy thing is that most of these points are coming from takedowns.  Looking at those short times, you'd think it's a Spencer Lee type match where he takes the guy down and racks up a bunch of back points in a series of tilts. But you'd be wrong.  It's almost all takedowns. 

No doubt the 3 point takedown played a big role in letting him rack up the techs so quickly, but man, he is FAST.  I think it was his semi match that I counted 3 takedowns before 15 ticks were off the clock.

Not trying to oversell him. Against top competition, he ekes out wins just like everyone else (e.g. Valencia, Zepeda, etc).  But if his opponent is a level below him, it's just a whole different ballgame.  I don't think I've ever seen anyone who can rack up so many TDs so quickly.  It's something to behold.

[Truzzcat]

Was checking weights for ironman, Blaze weighed in at 135.8 they got 2lbs so he could have weighed as much as 140. Leads me to believe he's not even cutting weight which makes him taking second at trials and giving ono his toughest match all the more impressive to me.

[MPhillips]

All of the top seeded wrestlers won their weight class.