ILLINIWrestlingBlog

Brian Swaw and I did an interview with Isaiah Martinez yesterday, and the talk eventually made its way to his tattoos. I personally think his arm tat is mankind's greatest achievement. Coach Poeta favors his ankle tattoo. So far, we know that Coaches Poeta and Imar have ILLINI Wrestling tattoos, and so do AAs Jordan Blanton, Jimmy Kennedy and John Wise. We want to do a future podcast on wrestling tattoos, so if you know of any, drop me a line. The tats must be specifically related to wrestling, although a wrestler with a cool prison face tattoo might be considered. Anyway, this is the short trailer for the podcast, which can be found here:

Zach Glazier by far. There should be one face on this Mount Rushmore. But, you can put a plaque of Garrett Joles down in the park somewhere along the trails. I had considered both of them to be kind of stiff, meat-and-potato-type wrestlers but they showed out this year, especially Glazier. If not for a knee injury and surgery, I'd have the ILLINI's Isiah Pettigrew on this list. He could still surprise! I think this says something about 197 this year in college wrestling. I don't know what it says about it, but something.

This is going to take a while, so you might want to go grab a beer. We'll need a legend to keep track of everything. So here's the legend: LEGEND OLYMPIC RED SHIRT MEDICAL RED SHIRT INJURY SURGERY REGULAR RED SHIRT 125. CARDANI. He missed last season because of an INJURY that required SURGERY. He has worn a large shoulder brace all this season. 133. BYRD/MADRIGAL. This was a double-whammy. Over the Summer Lucas Byrd was going to qualify for the Olympics in Greco. He was signed up to do so, and he's made age-group teams in the past. My money would've been on him, but he suffered an INJURY to his hand/wrist. I don't know if it required SURGERY but suspect that it did. He's had either padding or a brace on his hand/wrist for months. He had to take a MEDICAL RED SHIRT. Luckily, Tony Madrigal wanted to finish up his eligibility at the U of I. Unfortunately, he suffered a hamstring INJURY pretty early in the season and missed duals. He came back and suffered a re-INJURY of the hamstring. Good news is that he's back and looks great. 141. PUCINO. Unknown INJURY or illness kept him out of a couple duals this season. 149. WEBSTER. The question was whether he would take his true Freshman redshirt. In the end, the decision was made to take a REGULAR RED SHIRT. The good news is that Kannon and Braeden Scoles showed up at the Zingo Nationals and cradled everybody from the ticket-taker to the referees. 157. ROBERTS. A lot happened here. Austin O'Connor became an assistant coach, and wrestled with Joe. He said Joe has what it takes to challenge for the podium. But, Joe had some concussion issues. He had a re-INJURY during the season. On top of that, he suffered an INJURY to his hand, which caused him to miss duals and eventually wear a wrap that looked like an oven mitt. 165. LITTLE BRAWNY. He is training for his shot at the Olympics and is wearing an OLYMPIC RED SHIRT. The good news here is that he has apparently become even better at hand-fighting because, hey, you know, hand-fighting is what Greco dudes do. 184. CONNELL. Dylan had an INJURY to his foot/ankle early in the season. He then had a re-INJURY to the same foot/ankle at Midlands. The good news: He should now be healthy and have his gas tank back. Only 8 auto-bids at this weight at the Big Ten tournament, so he'll need to kick butt. 197. THICC BRAWNY/PETTIGREW. OMG. Where do we even start? The Brawlnagel is on an OLYMPIC RED SHIRT. Isiah Pettigrew was doing well in the lineup and then suffered a knee INJURY. He had SURGERY and came back about a month later. What a BAMF! 285. LUFFMAN. Big Luuuke had an INJURY that required SURGERY. He will hopefully have a MEDICAL RED SHIRT for this season. If not, he still has eligibility remaining.

CORRECTION OR QUESTION I wrote in a post above that Purdue's Hayden Copass would be wrestling in the BTT, and that would be his first match of the season. That information came from FloWrestling here. On themat.com that is not the case. This is what they have at heavyweight: "14. Hayden Filipovich (PUR)." Another site has Filipovich as well. So? Is this another Teske situation or is FloWrestling out to lunch? QUESTION How do you get "Wrathgee" out of "Rathjen." That just pisses me off.

I usually post my "They terk ar seeds" meme on this day, but I can actually live with the ILLINI seeds. Edmond Ruth and Tony Madrigal are your two Big Champs from ILLINOIS. The only question is whether Rocco Welsh chooses bottom. Choose your poison carefully, young Buckeye! Madrigal is the old vet who was hampered by injury all season. He's been on fire since coming back and has the talent to win. Danny Pucino with the nice bump will not have to see Jesse Mendez for an extra match. He gets Real Woods instead, and word is that Real is gassed and lying on a mat belly down somewhere right now. They did my boy Jake Harrier wrong, but Dylan D'Emilio is 2-2 against ILLINI in the past. So, that's a push. Interesting for Purdue fans--who we all hate--Hayden Copass is wrestling his first match of the season at the Big Ten Tournament. Anyway, here's that meme for any seed sufferers out there:

Cruz has had a freestyle career that has included wrestling in as many tournaments as possible. He had a smart strategy in this match: Back up for six minutes. He knew it would probably cost him a couple of points, but he banked on his ability to reattack. That ability was increased because Zane had to dive full-length to even touch his legs. I'm sure Zane would trade his three wins over Cruz for this one loss. My one question for rule geeks is this: Once Zane was grounded and pushed out of bounds, shouldn't the ref have blown his whistle? I believe the point awarded to Cruz came from them going out of bounds, then Cruz lifting Zane up. For the millions of Zaniacs out there, you can bet he'll be back. Every match at OTT will be tough, so everybody has to be in top condition and have managed their cut.

Nobody beats Darian Cruz four times in a row.

Hard book to read, but so worth it! As for Flo, it would be good if they didn't have commercials on their tweets. Who the **** does that? What they are basically providing is a commercial for somebody else on top of a commercial for themselves. And the commercials during their broadcasts of events occasionally interrupt the match you're watching, and we don't have TIVO to zap it. When they don't interrupt the match, they interrupt the end-of-match celebrations, the coach's reaction, the raising of the hand (As a community, we disrespect refs so ******* much it's incredible, check out the wall of invisible refs below). Also, if you want to look at video from a wrestler named "Mark Smith," well, **** you. There are eighty Mark Smiths in their database, and they are not maintained in any logical order. You have to go through all of the avatars to find your Mark Smith, and that means wading through all the Mark Smiths who wrestled in a JV high school tournament in 2019. Their cameras were bought from Charlie Chaplin's film production company. C'mon, man, 360 pixels is the same as the video that your uncle sent to you of his dog and new girlfriend back in 2006. And Trackwrestling. Oh my! I will watch FRL during NCAA tournament time.

We need to build a beautiful wall to keep-em in? That Lee/Gomez match was crazy. I am not a fan of Penn State, but I do like Nick Lee. He DID NOT look like Nick Lee out there. Even at the start of the match, he didn't look right. As for Gomez's injury, his right leg and knee were trapped in a triangle made by Lee's thigh and calf and the mat. His scream came a little late, but my guess is that it was legitimate. I do wish they had given Lee the opportunity in par terre. I mean, Nick just took him down! It would've also given Lee time to burn some clock. I have to think that whatever fever was affecting Lee caused him to go upper-body up by four points with a minute left in the match against Austin Gomez.

As far as I can tell, Zane Richards is 3-0 against Darian Cruz. The one thing about Cruz is that he wrestles in every tournament and exhibition he can get a ticket for. He's dangerous, just ask Thomas Gilman. But Richards is so precise and not prone to Gilman-like mistakes. Zane's first-round opponent wrestled in the United States last year, is a model and even has a Wrestlestat.com page. Plus, he is an influencer. Zane wrestled 133 in high school, so he's pumping in liquids and other calories right now. For RBY fans (I am not one of them), here's a video of Zane Richards teching Oscar Tigreros in the championship of the Pan Am Games. Like his last opponent, Tigreros will have the strength advantage over Bravo Young:

Well, the Elor match had a little too much drama. She was hit with a four-pointer to start out the match and spent a long time coming back for the win. GO USA!!!

The semifinals at 157 in 2009: Jordan Burroughs versus Gregor Gillespie on the top side of the bracket, Mike Poeta versus Jordan Leen on the bottom. We were lucky that nobody died from simultaneous double leg attempts.

The one aspect of Greco that most needs change is how they call the passivity. Cohlton Schultz was dominating the ties, had pushed his opponent outside the circle multiple times, and he's put down. But he still wins!

By the authority vested in me by the Nevada Gaming Commission, I hereby call for expedited drug testing for the winners of this Pan Am Games Olympic qualifying tournament.

On behalf of Zac Braunagel and the ILLINOIS Regional Training Center, thank you Spencer Woods and Pan Am ref #113.

As good as Kamal wrestled in the first period, he wrestled that much ungood in the second. Dang. That Colombian looked like an 87 kg wrestler.

I hadn't thought about sports betting. Good point! As for the injuries, fails at medical checks and weigh-ins, that is easily resolved with a forfeit. Those things can happen with the current structure.

Kamal Bey is one match away from qualifying the weight for the Olympics. He had to go through a past World Champion and Olympic Silver from Argentina (via Armenia). Here's some great action from that match, which was challenged by Argentina and disallowed, apparently for a leg foul. I call bull**** on that, but you know that past Senior World Champs get the benefit of the doubt. Bey won 4-2, even without this beautiful throw:

Here's an idea for USA Wrestling and UWW: Instead of having draws the day before wrestling starts, have the draws at least a week before the event. I believe that this makes sense and is easily do-able. They have ranking points, so they know who should receive which seed. The other wrestlers have entered and can be randomly drawn. Why do it like the Soccer World Cup? Because people can start talking about the matchups. People can get excited. Whole days that were empty of wrestling talk could be filled with it five days and four days before the tournament. Anticipation. Mostly, though, it would have saved me from posting my most embarrassing preview on The ILLINI Wrestling Blog and Forum and Beyond Plus. I went ahead and previewed three of Zane Richards' chief competitors at the Pan Am Olympic Games qualifier. Zane will not wrestle any of them. First, there's the Cuban. It turns out Cuba didn't even enter a wrestler at the weight! Second, there's the apparent seeding changes. It looked like Zane would be seeded first and the Venezuelan fourth or be unseeded. Instead, the Venezuelan got the first seed, and Zane got the second. They will not wrestle. Finally, there's RBY. Of course, whether he would face Zane was up to the draw, but if the draw happened a week ago, he would not have been added to the preview. So, what I'm saying is that it would be good for wrestling if UWW went to week-before draws. Even more importantly, it would make me look less stupid. As a final note, RBY fans can check out the preview to read about the Venezuelan, Pedro Mejias, who is standing in the NLWC kid's way. Bravo Young will need to stay away from the #1 seed's strength, which is short offense wrestling. RBY is very good at that. But if he is too slow to convert a single, Mejias will chest lock him around like RBY is his pillow, and he's in a big pillow fight.

I was just looking at some Fargo results from 2011. Thomas Gilman won at 119 pounds. At 130 pounds, your champion was Zane Richards. The big tournaments and even the little ones are now getting streamed, and that means a lot to the kids. Now there's even more incentive to keep your head down and work for the big stage. It's not just a medal that nobody at school cares about. You're on the teevee! The RTCs have allowed wrestlers to wrestle. Paychecks can do that. The most important factor, I believe, is the number and quality of local clubs and academies. They have popped up all over ILLINOIS, and the coaching is absolutely fantastic. And I don't think it will level off or shrink at any time in the near future because now those coaches and clubs will need to increase in size to instruct women. Japanese women look out! As for Greco, I think Kamal Bey could be the guy. To be the guy, you have to beat the guy. That's especially true in Greco. International Greco refs always seem to give deference to the reigning or recent world champ. Then, the Silver, and after that, the Bronze. It's almost a caste system based upon the color of your medals. Bey has the talent to win a world championship or Olympics. If he does, then he becomes the man.

You are a devil.

The USA has become a wrestling arms dealer.

This one happened so fast, though, I don't know how anybody could be quick enough to stop it. On top of that, it seemed like Starocci initiated the move. Ref's gonna pay more attention when the other guy is twisting the leg. The good news is that surgery has come a long way. The ILLINI 197 pounder, Isiah Pettigrew, had surgery and was back within three to four weeks! First match back was a dud, second one was winner. Full gas tank, shooting takedowns in the third to earn a major. I can hardly comprehend kids coming back so quickly, but it's possible. Coach Poeta said that they have ways to keep folks with knee and ankle injuries in cardiovascular shape. I think it involves an Iron Maiden and an ostrich feather. Don't quote me on that.

I disagree that the skill is no longer allowed in folkstyle. On the contrary, the funk roll happens all the time. It is less successful nowadays because folks have had years to plan how to defend against it. Moreover, nobody was ever as good at it as Jesse Delgado. It was an important part of his offense against top-tier wrestlers. Nowadays, it is mostly a last line of desperate defense. What set Jesse apart was that he studied it and practiced it and refined it so that he moved smoothly from point A to point B and then points C and D and so on. He didn't stay on his back like some other fellows. I asked him about it in a recent interview, and he said that he was afraid that a ref in a hostile gym would call a pinfall against him, so he moved with alacrity. In fact, he said the new danger rule would have benefited him. (25:15 in video below). I agree with him. His opponents would've been the ones in trouble. He had other weapons as well. Nobody has a 9-0 lifetime takedown advantage over Nashon Garrett who doesn't have a full quiver of arrows. Besides being incredibly skilled, he was also a college teammate of Zane's. They have had a long-lasting friendship. Then, there are the other BAMFs on that couch. Pretty amazing, and I would say the best 57kg room in the world.

I've been thinking about that as well. The best I've come up with is a measure I use in predicting duals: 1. Assign a win percentage to all the wrestlers in a dual. 2. Then, add up the win percentages for each team and divide by 100. Then, you end up with something, for example, like 6.3 to 3.7. 3. Assign the win to a wrestler from the 3.7 team who is closest to a tossup even though he is an underdog in his particular match. I think it makes sense statistically (as long as the percentages are close), and because there always seems to be at least one slight upset per dual, or you have a starter sitting out because of injury or illness. Is that what Wrestlestat.com does? I don't know.