Kolat vs Bassett

[OH-IO]

since alot of attention is being generated about BB, just thought i would add a fun topic to ponder!

Many of us consider to this day Cary Kolat to be the best HS (and top 20 college) wrestler of all time, I too agree with Cary being the top dog ever in HS it was just amazing to see him in HS (although I would say Chris Phillips was a close 2nd, only HS loss was 3-2 his freshman year to Senior Ed Ruth, Chris actually controlled the match completely,  Chris was unchallenged, 175-1,  BTW~does anyone know whatever happened to him) in your opioin has anyone surpassed Kolat as the greastes HS wrestler of all time? Of course I start this topic for good conversations and potential visits back to memory lane! 

 

thoughts of a matchup in their HS days has me curious......... Kolat vs Bassett 

 

My take is Kolat is still the best HS wrestler ever.... Cary was than and still is now a different type, an absolute beast among beast!!

 

Thoughts from some old school wrasslers!

 

[pokemonster]

I still remember when Chris Phillips beat Brian Roddy, who was a phenom in his own right, as a freshman. Mind you, Roddy was benching 315lbs the summer heading into freshman year during football workouts. Absolute monster. 

Can't comment on Kolat as I was focused on Ohio wrestling back then.

[Truzzcat]

Kolat was well before my time Chance was the closest thing to him for me hearing about him winning matches at college opens when he was in 7th grade was absolutely insane. Chance did not wrestle the circuit the other two did however and by comparison Kolat I don't think was active as Bo. Ive never heard of Kolat taking losses period in high school though. That is probably partially because of the events these kids go to now cadets,juniors,elite 8,super 32,fargo. It seemed like kolat had that aura of being completely untouchable that I'm not sure Bo quite has simply because we have seen him take losses to his peers, but I think that's a product of the national depth we now have and kids having the ability to wrestle so many different places. As far as in season goes Bo is currently 111-0 with 107 wins by bonus so 96.3%. Kolat was 137-0 for his career can't find bonus results. Thats a lot to say I think it's a matter of perspective Kolat may have had a bit more sense of invincibility though.

[OH-IO]

"Truzzcat" ~ good point sounds like you know your stuff, I remember Kolat wrestled a 4x MD state champion and tech'd him, I believe Kolat held his own in Midlands while in HS, I wish I knew the exacts for some reason I wanna say he wrestled Chertow while Kolat was still in HS @ Midlands and went toe to toe with him....anywho they all could kick my butt, quite easily too I might add.....

 

"pokemonster" ~ I remember the Roddy match very well finals @ Ironman 2007 (171lbs), Roddy number #1 or #2 in the country, chris also beat the # 3 kid in the country @ Ironman to get to Roddy, actually destroyed him, than destroyed Roddy in 2007 did not even give up a take down to either, crazy talent as a freshmen

 

[MPhillips]

As a freshman @ Ironman, Phillips wrestled Corey Peltier Blair Academy(ranked nationally), Zac Thomusseit (#1 ranked in OH DII), then (#1 nationally ranked) Brian Roddy from STED. 

Apologies not sticking to the Kolat/Bassett portion of the thread. I hope we get 4-5 college years of Bassett that we didn't get from Phillips. 

Al Fried is always in the top for me...

 

 

[GimJustafan]

One-on-One with Cary Kolat - College - InterMat.mhtml

Edited 5 hours ago by GimJustafan
wrong link

[Hammerlock3]

Did Kolat take 4th at the OTTs in HS? Also wasn't Kolat the best wrestler in his class?

[BAC]

It's a pretty good comparison, and tough to make a pick between Bassett and Kolat. 

Both have wide-open styles as high schoolers that leave them exposed, but it doesn't matter, since their offensive output is so high that they overwhem(ed) their opponents.

Both are famous for training like absolute madmen.

Both dominated PA high school wrestling, making wreckage of past state champs and medalists. 

Both also had freestyle success.  Both cadet world champs.

Both had success against college opposition in high school.  Kolat took 3rd and 4th at Midlands when it was the best tournament of the year, including taking out NCAA finalist Shawn Charles.  Bassett has won a couple smaller college tournaments, including one with Bouzakis in it, and has a freestyle win over NCAA champ Ashnault.

Both are human. The main chink in Kolat's armor is his 4-4 draw as a senior to Chris Bono at the Dapper Dan.  (He went up a weight at Senior Nationals the next weekend to avenge the loss, but Bono didn't make the finals.)  Got thumped at OTTs by Kendall Cross (future gold medalist).  Bassett has more chinks -- teched by Kolozik, lost at U20s, split matches with Zepeda -- but also lives in an era where there's more opportunities to find the top competition.

In college, Kolat made the national finals as a true freshman, taking out Iowa's undefeated defending champ Troy Steiner in the semis.  Bassett's true freshman year?  Yet to be seen.

Both are trailblazers. The country had never seen a high schooler taking on and beating college-level competition when Kolat did it; now it's more common. But Bo's shown leadership qualities in his own right, albeit more by force of personality.  (Kolat was always more of a recluse.)

Of course, wrestling's come a long way in the 35 years between the two, not just in technique but in access to information (internet, etc), so I don't doubt that Bassett as a high school junior is ahead of Kolat as a high school junior. But I don't think it's fair to factor that in, as the opposite would be true if they swapped the eras they grew up in.

Bottom line?  I'd call it a draw.  

[fishbane]

2 hours ago, BAC said:

Got thumped at OTTs by Kendall Cross (future gold medalist).  Bassett has more chinks -- teched by Kolozik, lost at U20s, split matches with Zepeda -- but also lives in an era where there's more opportunities to find the top competition.

I thought Kolat lost to Steve Knight at the 1992 trials and lost to John Fisher in 1996.  I think Cross and Kolat were are different weights in 1992, so maybe this match happened at another event.  

[fishbane]

2 hours ago, Hammerlock3 said:

Did Kolat take 4th at the OTTs in HS? Also wasn't Kolat the best wrestler in his class?

The 1992 trials were Kolat's senior year of high school.  I have often heard the claim that he was 4th, but also that he lost in a minitourament.  I don't really know how it worked way back in the old days.  It was clearly much different.  Below are the entries from an Oklahoman article.

136.6 - John Smith.

1. John Fisher; 2. Troy Steiner; 3. Terry Brands; 4. Mini-tournament: Buddy Lee, Ken Wharry, Sean O'Day, Mike Gomez, Cary Kolat, Steve Knight, Joe Stukes.

It went on to describe the schedule/format thusly "Mini-tournaments will be held today to determine the No. 4 seeds, which will go against the No. 3 seeds at each weight in the first of three, best-of-3 ladder challenges on Thursday.

So I don't really know what that means.  Maybe they wrestled the mini tournament and the winner of that had a best of three against Terry Brands and then the winner of that gets a best of three against Tory Stiener with the process repeating for the winner and John Fisher and then finally John Smith.  That would seem like a totally wild format. Maybe the 4 seeds just wrestled either a bracket or a round robin with the winner wrestling the best of three with John Smith.

The only results I know from the tournament were that Smith beat Fisher in the best of three and Steve Knight beat Kolat in the mini tournament final.  Not sure how that would put Kolat 4th.  Maybe Stiener or Brands ended up not wrestling so runner up in the mini-tournament became 4th in the challenge tournament and 5th on the ladder.  Or maybe I don't understand the format at all.

[BAC]

42 minutes ago, fishbane said:

I thought Kolat lost to Steve Knight at the 1992 trials and lost to John Fisher in 1996.  I think Cross and Kolat were are different weights in 1992, so maybe this match happened at another event.  

You're right, I'm misremembering.  From a quick google search, the Cross match was at the 1991 US Open, and though Cross won, Kolat took it to him at the start.  Match here.  I guess Kolat would've been a high school sophomore at the time?

You can see a snippet of his 7-6 loss to Steve Knight at the '92 OTTs here.

[fishbane]

8 minutes ago, BAC said:

You're right, I'm misremembering.  From a quick google search, the Cross match was at the 1991 US Open, and though Cross won, Kolat took it to him at the start.  Match here.  I guess Kolat would've been a high school sophomore at the time?

You can see a snippet of his 7-6 loss to Steve Knight at the '92 OTTs here.

Kolat graduated high school in 1992.  The 1992 olympic trials would have been the spring of his senior year.  The 1991 US Open was likely the spring of his junior year.  His junior year I'm pretty sure he was 4th at Midlands and his sophomore year he was 3rd.  At some point in high school he beat 1989 NCAA champion Sean O'Day.  I think that was in freestyle.

Still not sure the format of the 1992 trials and losing to Knight in the mini tournament finals makes him 4th.  I also found that Steiner was 3rd at the trails, so maybe Brands didn't wrestle and the final ranking was something like Smith>Fisher>Steiner<>Knight>Kolat with Kolat's 4th place referring to the challenge tournament and Steiner's 3rd place possibly referring to either the challenge tournament or overall.