65kg 2028 we need people to grow!

[Truzzcat]

potential field:

1. Luke Stanich (Junior gold)
2. Bo Bassett (Junior Bronze, Cadet gold)
3. Jax Forrest (Senior world team member, Cadet silver)
4. Marcus Blaze (Junior gold (hes gonna win), Junior bronze, Cadet gold)
5. Brock Hardy (u23 Bronze)
6. Jesse Mendez (Junior silver)
7. Real Woods (2025 senior world team member)
8. Aden Valencia (2x wins over Real woods)
9. Andrew Alirez (national champion)
10. Beau Bartlett (3x NCAA top 3)

Not mentioned but could end up here: Vito,Yianni,Nick Lee

This is a great problem to have obviously whoever wins the spot is going to have a great shot at gold however even assuming PJ moves up to 74kg that weight could realistically only have 3-4 guys competing there where it is their optimal weight (excluding KOT and Meyer I dont think it will be optimal for them.)

[AnklePicker]

And traditionally a weight where we struggle to medal.  That is some scary depth wow.  Speaking of Nick Lee is he retired?

[AnklePicker]

And can we stop with the 6 weight nonsense?  10 weights please.  The change from worlds to Olympics adds some intrigue at the qualification level but it also leaves so many deserving athletes watching from home.  

[de4856]

Well I am very excited for the future. I’m not sure who will be our 65 kg guy going forward after this year. I have to believe that Stanich will grow, so maybe it will be Blaze or Forrest fulfilling the role. 

[shiraz321]

9 hours ago, AnklePicker said:

And can we stop with the 6 weight nonsense?  10 weights please.  The change from worlds to Olympics adds some intrigue at the qualification level but it also leaves so many deserving athletes watching from home.  

They should sacrifice GR more FS weights if that is possible. 

[Gantry]

9 hours ago, de4856 said:

Well I am very excited for the future. I’m not sure who will be our 65 kg guy going forward after this year. I have to believe that Stanich will grow, so maybe it will be Blaze or Forrest fulfilling the role. 

Stanich started his college career at 125/57, I have to think that he's done moving up weight classes.  

[Lucho]

29 minutes ago, shiraz321 said:

They should sacrifice GR more FS weights if that is possible. 

Why should Greco be cut that's ridiculous. The shouldn't have cut the wrestling weight classes for any of the styles to begin with. If FILA wasn't a corrupt organisation with stupid rule sets we wouldn't be in this position to begin with. We need to preserve as many of the martial arts in the olympics as possible. They are some of the purest forms of sport and competition we have.

[shiraz321]

11 minutes ago, Lucho said:

Why should Greco be cut that's ridiculous. The shouldn't have cut the wrestling weight classes for any of the styles to begin with. If FILA wasn't a corrupt organisation with stupid rule sets we wouldn't be in this position to begin with. We need to preserve as many of the martial arts in the olympics as possible. They are some of the purest forms of sport and competition we have.

Its just boring. They tried a lot of rule sets for Greco. Actually I am in a way impressed by FILA/UWW, they managed to keep GR in the Olympics somehow. It is the only olympic sport women can't participate in. How did they pull it off? Im sure it's not because of the immense audience it draws. We were never going to have 24 or 30 weight classes or whatever ( 8/8/8 10/10/10 or even 7/7/7) no matter now competent or incompetent UWW may or may not be. The days of 10 weights per style or even 8 were when womens was not included.  We already have the most weight classes of any sport. Im no fan super fan of UWW and they can barely even film a wrestling match properly in some of their recent tournaments ( some of the camera angles at 2023 worlds and this years junior asians were shocking) but out of all the sports in the Olympics that have weight classes, wrestling has the most with 18. If we could go 9 and 9 with FS and WFS I would take it. Unfortunately my real assumption is eventually it will all be replaced with beach wrestling, which I am not a fan of.

[de4856]

3 hours ago, Gantry said:

Stanich started his college career at 125/57, I have to think that he's done moving up weight classes.  

Well if you are right we may be in for a treat 

[juniorvarsity]

15 hours ago, Truzzcat said:

potential field:

1. Luke Stanich (Junior gold)
2. Bo Bassett (Junior Bronze, Cadet gold)
3. Jax Forrest (Senior world team member, Cadet silver)
4. Marcus Blaze (Junior gold (hes gonna win), Junior bronze, Cadet gold)
5. Brock Hardy (u23 Bronze)
6. Jesse Mendez (Junior silver)
7. Real Woods (2025 senior world team member)
8. Aden Valencia (2x wins over Real woods)
9. Andrew Alirez (national champion)
10. Beau Bartlett (3x NCAA top 3)

Not mentioned but could end up here: Vito,Yianni,Nick Lee

• Ben Davino
• Ryan Crookham
• Caleb Henson
• Shayne Van Ness
• Sergio Vega
• Jordyn Raney
• Jayden Raney

[Winners Circle]

16 hours ago, Truzzcat said:

potential field:

1. Luke Stanich (Junior gold)
2. Bo Bassett (Junior Bronze, Cadet gold)
3. Jax Forrest (Senior world team member, Cadet silver)
4. Marcus Blaze (Junior gold (hes gonna win), Junior bronze, Cadet gold)
5. Brock Hardy (u23 Bronze)
6. Jesse Mendez (Junior silver)
7. Real Woods (2025 senior world team member)
8. Aden Valencia (2x wins over Real woods)
9. Andrew Alirez (national champion)
10. Beau Bartlett (3x NCAA top 3)

Not mentioned but could end up here: Vito,Yianni,Nick Lee

This is a great problem to have obviously whoever wins the spot is going to have a great shot at gold however even assuming PJ moves up to 74kg that weight could realistically only have 3-4 guys competing there where it is their optimal weight (excluding KOT and Meyer I dont think it will be optimal for them.)

We have 3 medals at this weight since 2000, and only one of them is gold. I'm a Stars and Stripes homer as much as the next guy, but to say a "great shot at gold" is pushing it for me. 

[lu_alum]

potential field:

1. Luke Stanich (Junior gold)
2. Bo Bassett (Junior Bronze, Cadet gold)
3. Jax Forrest (Senior world team member, Cadet silver)
4. Marcus Blaze (Junior gold (hes gonna win), Junior bronze, Cadet gold)
5. Brock Hardy (u23 Bronze)
6. Jesse Mendez (Junior silver)
7. Real Woods (2025 senior world team member)
8. Aden Valencia (2x wins over Real woods)
9. Andrew Alirez (national champion)
10. Beau Bartlett (3x NCAA top 3)

Not mentioned but could end up here: Vito,Yianni,Nick Lee
This is a great problem to have obviously whoever wins the spot is going to have a great shot at gold however even assuming PJ moves up to 74kg that weight could realistically only have 3-4 guys competing there where it is their optimal weight (excluding KOT and Meyer I dont think it will be optimal for them.)

I assume Joey McKenna is still in the mix as well?


Sent from my iPad using Tapatalk

[CHROMEBIRD]

17 hours ago, AnklePicker said:

And can we stop with the 6 weight nonsense?  10 weights please.  The change from worlds to Olympics adds some intrigue at the qualification level but it also leaves so many deserving athletes watching from home.  

We all want to see more Olympic weight classes, but 10 FS & GR weights has only happened 7 times ever in the Modern Olympic era, and it was back when the Soviet/Unified Team competed. Remember, the current 6-6-6 model was adopted as a compromise to save wrestling's place in the Olympics after it was voted out for 2020.

Also, idk if this is an IOC by-law or something, but they have a hard cap on the total # of competitors for the Olympics with the participant pool trending smaller each cycle, so adding more weights would mean reducing competitors in other events (a pretty tough sell) or making sacrifices to wrestling's existing styles (e.g., cutting weights from one style to add to another; smaller brackets; true bronze). It might just be a matter of time before the current styles are scaled back to make room for Beach Wrestling, anyway. Beach seems like a good strategic fit with the IOC's programming goals, for better or for worse.

[CHROMEBIRD]

6 hours ago, shiraz321 said:

Its just boring. They tried a lot of rule sets for Greco. Actually I am in a way impressed by FILA/UWW, they managed to keep GR in the Olympics somehow. It is the only olympic sport women can't participate in. How did they pull it off? Im sure it's not because of the immense audience it draws. We were never going to have 24 or 30 weight classes or whatever ( 8/8/8 10/10/10 or even 7/7/7) no matter now competent or incompetent UWW may or may not be. The days of 10 weights per style or even 8 were when womens was not included.  We already have the most weight classes of any sport. Im no fan super fan of UWW and they can barely even film a wrestling match properly in some of their recent tournaments ( some of the camera angles at 2023 worlds and this years junior asians were shocking) but out of all the sports in the Olympics that have weight classes, wrestling has the most with 18. If we could go 9 and 9 with FS and WFS I would take it. Unfortunately my real assumption is eventually it will all be replaced with beach wrestling, which I am not a fan of.

The UWW says they want to preserve Greco because it has tradition, technique, and popularity outside of our freestyle-centric view in the US, Iran, Japan, etc. but I think they're reluctant to make cuts to GR because it gives FS and other styles an inroads in the Scandinavian, Nordic, and Northern European countries where people like Greco. I'm not sure the needle has moved very much for MFS/WW there, though

[Truzzcat]

1 hour ago, lu_alum said:

I assume Joey McKenna is still in the mix as well?


Sent from my iPad using Tapatalk

Certainly, I am not sure how much of a factor I foresee him being at I believe 32 by 2028 however guys seem to be having much longer careers.

[Lucho]

8 hours ago, shiraz321 said:

Its just boring. They tried a lot of rule sets for Greco. Actually I am in a way impressed by FILA/UWW, they managed to keep GR in the Olympics somehow. It is the only olympic sport women can't participate in. How did they pull it off? Im sure it's not because of the immense audience it draws. We were never going to have 24 or 30 weight classes or whatever ( 8/8/8 10/10/10 or even 7/7/7) no matter now competent or incompetent UWW may or may not be. The days of 10 weights per style or even 8 were when womens was not included.  We already have the most weight classes of any sport. Im no fan super fan of UWW and they can barely even film a wrestling match properly in some of their recent tournaments ( some of the camera angles at 2023 worlds and this years junior asians were shocking) but out of all the sports in the Olympics that have weight classes, wrestling has the most with 18. If we could go 9 and 9 with FS and WFS I would take it. Unfortunately my real assumption is eventually it will all be replaced with beach wrestling, which I am not a fan of.

I personally like greco more than freestyle in some aspects but I understand where the US view comes from. High level greco is boring because the margins between the top guys is tiny. The passivity calls imo have made it more watchable. But for guys who have grown up with freestyle and folk I understand why greco would be so foreign. If Beach wrestling gets added I'm not watching the Olympics. That's actually ridiculous.

[Lucho]

1 hour ago, CHROMEBIRD said:

smaller brackets; true bronze).

I wouldn't be opposed to that. I think the 2 bronzes is a bit weird tbh. Like I get why repechage exists but having 2 guys come third doesn't really make sense. Also 16 guys compete in each olympic weight class nowadays so how are we going to cut that further? 8 people??

[shiraz321]

2 hours ago, CHROMEBIRD said:

The UWW says they want to preserve Greco because it has tradition, technique, and popularity outside of our freestyle-centric view in the US, Iran, Japan, etc. but I think they're reluctant to make cuts to GR because it gives FS and other styles an inroads in the Scandinavian, Nordic, and Northern European countries where people like Greco. I'm not sure the needle has moved very much for MFS/WW there, though

If that's the reason then it's not working. Those countries don't have anyone decent (outside of maybe Khamzat Chimaev, lol) and will never care about wrestling enough to produce a solid team. They pretty much suck at GR too. My surprise is more that the IOC hasn't removed GR. 

[boconnell]

5 hours ago, Winners Circle said:

We have 3 medals at this weight since 2000, and only one of them is gold. I'm a Stars and Stripes homer as much as the next guy, but to say a "great shot at gold" is pushing it for me. 

It's not pushing it to say Blaze or Forest have a great shot at gold.  

Also who won medals since 2000 in this weight class has exactly zero to do with who will win medals in the future.  It's completely different wrestlers going forward than it was before these guys were born.

[boconnell]

2 hours ago, Lucho said:

I personally like greco more than freestyle in some aspects but I understand where the US view comes from. High level greco is boring because the margins between the top guys is tiny. The passivity calls imo have made it more watchable. But for guys who have grown up with freestyle and folk I understand why greco would be so foreign. If Beach wrestling gets added I'm not watching the Olympics. That's actually ridiculous.

Greco is fun to do.  At lower and middle levels it's fun to watch.  

At high levels it's 100% unwatchable.  Nobody can score.  It's a series of weird and mostly arbitrary ref calls deciding most matches.  If football never invented the forward pass and they played running game only with modern athletes and every game was 0-0, the sport would be gone.  Instead they figured out rules that allowed scoring.  Greco cannot do that.  They've tried and tried and tried.  The sport cannot survive because nobody can ever score.

Edited 15 hours ago by boconnell

[Tyler Perry]

It’s an insane weight, that’s not even counting Raneys 

[AnklePicker]

I’ll take Jax. 

[AnklePicker]

3 hours ago, boconnell said:

Greco is fun to do.  At lower and middle levels it's fun to watch.  

At high levels it's 100% unwatchable.  Nobody can score.  It's a series of weird and mostly arbitrary ref calls deciding most matches.  If football never invented the forward pass and they played running game only with modern athletes and every game was 0-0, the sport would be gone.  Instead they figured out rules that allowed scoring.  Greco cannot do that.  They've tried and tried and tried.  The sport cannot survive because nobody can ever score.

I respect GR but I tend to agree. I’ve always thought Greco would make a lot more sense if you were ONLY able to touch the legs in freestyle but in freestyle you can do BOTH.  It’s a way more viable and practically applicable martial art/sport.  

[Lucho]

13 hours ago, boconnell said:

Greco is fun to do.  At lower and middle levels it's fun to watch.  

At high levels it's 100% unwatchable.  Nobody can score.  It's a series of weird and mostly arbitrary ref calls deciding most matches.  If football never invented the forward pass and they played running game only with modern athletes and every game was 0-0, the sport would be gone.  Instead they figured out rules that allowed scoring.  Greco cannot do that.  They've tried and tried and tried.  The sport cannot survive because nobody can ever score.

I guess that is true. It's just a shame as there are so many phenomenal athletes that won't be able to showcase themselves if it gets removed from the olympics. I personally enjoy both styles equally but I think I'm in the minority here. If greco gets removed from the olympics, the sport will die. Apart from Iran, I dont think any other country will even bother sending proper teams to compete. It will just make freestyle much more competitive which isn't the worse either tbh. It's one of those things that sounds good on paper but is quite difficult to pull off in reality. It's only been kept somewhat alive possible because of the freak athletes who compete in it.

[Winners Circle]

13 hours ago, boconnell said:

It's not pushing it to say Blaze or Forest have a great shot at gold.  

Also who won medals since 2000 in this weight class has exactly zero to do with who will win medals in the future.  It's completely different wrestlers going forward than it was before these guys were born.

I highlighted that to show that this weight is consistently the toughest weight in the world, and I don't think anyone would argue that. So yes, I think it is pretty relevant.