ILLINIWrestlingBlog

Aman wins his semi at 57 kg over Georgia with a first-period tech. Zane has a great chance at Bronze, as he's been pulled back in, and he can beat these guys. This is why Aman was my dark horse pick for last year's World Championships.

She gets credit for all of them. She's a fine administrator.

Sebastian Rivera over little Finesilver at 65 kg 3-0 at the break. Rivera beats the shot clock in the second with a takedown and goes up 5-0. Rivera up 7-1 now with little time left. Nolf up 7-0 at the break. And that's the final score.

McKenna is jacked and doesn't look dehydrated, but his Armenian opponent, Tevanyan, has the 4-0 lead at the break. Tevanyan looks even bigger, and he's the 5-2 winner. Speaking of Mrs. Finesilver and her wide shot pattern, this is how I'd rank the wrestling mothers on that score: 1. Mrs. Mattin. It's like she gave birth to 7 identical twins but all were born in different years. She had the tightest shot pattern. 2. Mrs. Amine. I think the major differences in her brood is based on weight training. Still, not as tight a shot pattern as Mrs. Mattin. 3. Mrs. Braunagel. She has a tighter shot pattern than it seems, as young Joey is wrestling 197 for the ILLINI, but he's pretty close to the size of Zac, and Danny is right there if he wasn't cutting weight all the time. They had an older brother who was smaller, and that's why she's here in the rankings. 4. Mrs. Finesilver. She was all over the place. The Finesilver children could be Russian nesting dolls.

Quincy Monday lost a super chippy match against Azerbaijan in the quarters, 4-5. Azerbaijan, along with Iran, are having a great tournament.

Zane Richards got trashed by the Aman Aman of India, the U23 champion from last year 11-0. It wasn't a lot of turns, it was a lot of takedowns. I expect Zane to be pulled back in, as Aman is the quality in the lower half of the bracket, but that was a match he's going to want to review with Coach Medlin. He was in a seat belt whizzer position about 5 times, and most of the time, Aman used his length to step over and score.

Representing the IRTC and Mongolia, Bekhbayer Erdenbat gets the 11-4 win over Joey Silva of Puerto Rico. That pushes him into the semifinals at 61 kg. He's been working with Zane at the training center.

Nolf (not my favorite wrestler) gets the 12-2 tech over Bulgaria and is into the quarters.

Nolf (not my favorite wrestler) down 0-2 to the Bulgarian Ramazanov. He evens it up 2-2 at the break. How did Mrs. Finesilver manage to make sure all her kids were at different weight classes? Lots of foresight and management, I suspect. Finesilver (65 kg) is into the quarters, your winner by a 5-4 score over Switzerland. The wrestler from Switzerland has become an instant national hero for being the first Swiss to get to an 1/8 final in an international wrestling tournament.

McKenna is your 11-0 winner. He's jacked. Tech falls an Azerbaijani. Goes into the quarters. Another Finesilver out there. The 65 kg one.

Iran's having a really good tournament. Sebastian Rivera at 65 kg wrestling for Puerto Rico has a strong Bulgarian who he has to beat to get to the quarters. Bulgaria leads 1-0 at the break. I always thought that Sebastian should be the name of a butler or a diplomat and not a wrestler. Looks like I was wrong. Rivera goes up 3-1 with a takedown and shot clock. Rivera wins 3-1 and into the quarters. McKenna up 1-0 against an Azeri to start his match. He's now up 3-0 at the break.

Max Dean having issues with Bulgaria, down 0-4 at break. Make that 0-6 with 2:40 to go. Now 3-8 with 1:22 left. That's how it ends.

Quincy Monday with the tech in the first few seconds of the 2nd period over India. He's in the quarters. Looked real good.

Zane is a winner, 5-2. The guy from Turkyie was a U23 Finalist last year.

Doug Zapf wrestling again because his bracket is a round robin at 70 kg. He gets the first takedown against the Hungarian. Zapf with a second takedown in the second period. Darian Cruz, wrestling for Puerto Rico, takes a 2-0 lead into the break versus UWW's #1 ranked Wanhao Zou of China at 57 kg. Loses in the end.

Courtney leading by criteria 2-2 gives up a takedown with 2 seconds to go. Challenge requested. Challenge lost, and Georgia gets the 5-2 win. We're getting killed in the last half minute of matches. Team America Hell Yeah! is having a rough go of it.

Nahshon Garrett losing 3-4 at the break against Switzerland. I thought Switzerland was neutral, what's with the leg attacks? Nice feet-to-back double from Nahshon for four with :43 seconds left to take an 8-5 lead. A challenge gives Switzerland 2 to make it 8-7 Garrett. With :19 seconds on the clock and a four-pointer in his pocket (meaning he ain't gonna lose on criteria) Nahshon freaking gives up his leg. Switzerland wins 10-8. What a silly mistake. Brandon Courtney wrestling Georgia, gives up the first takedown and the first period ends 0-2. Now tied 2-2 with 2 minutes to go....

The UWW knows where the majority of their audience comes from. They've shown both Iranians marching to the mat for their matches, and nobody else. 74 kg Finesilver gets beat 1-9 by Greece. Colin Realbuto, wrestling for Italy, and looking like a Ferrari driver from Milan in the 1980s with a long but neatly trimmed beard and shoulder-length hair, loses 2-7 to Azerbaijan. The difference was one magical high amplitude throw by the Azer. Just showed another Iranian walking to the mat.

Nolf beat a guy from Venezuela with a mullet. If you can appropriate any American hairstyle, why choose the mullet? Final score 10-0, there's a challenge, but that looked like a four point chest wrap throw to me. Almost a Dake bomb? USA 2, Venezuela 0

Ramos gets teched by Bulgaria 1-12. Chance Marsteller is a chunky monkey at 86 kg. Not fat. His muscles are just chunky. Led 1-0 at the break against Venezuela. He wins 4-0 on 2 shot clocks and a takedown. His job against David Taylor will be to push keep his legs back and push some more. Nolf (not my favorite wrestler) up on Mat A.

Doug Zapf loses 5-6 to the Georgian. Good fight. Ran out of clock. Quincy Monday has put on muscle to be a real 74 kg guy. He teched Poland 15-4. He's got the doubles going. Zahid Valencia loses 2-10 to Babii of Ukraine. Might've been a conditioning issue at 86 kg here. Or, maybe he's sick. Ethan Ramos of Puerto Rico losing 1-8 to Bulgaria now. Americans are giving up exposures on their attempted takedowns. Smart move by their opponents. Americans do all the work, and the nasty foreign fellows just tilt them a little along the way.

That sucks. The best tournaments are the ones with lots of Americans so you don't have to sit around and wait for matches of interest. The entry list is starting to fluctuate like a Muon in a super collider. Since last night, these names were added: Eric SCHULTZ (USA) Taylor LUJAN (USA) So we win some, we lose some.

I look at my friends, and about 25% are sick, while another 25% are recovering, and that may mean that 25% are sick and they don't know it yet. This was an issue for the ILLINI at the Midlands. We love a contact sport. Could be an injury as well. This isn't a loaded field at 57, but there are guys there who'd pick you apart if you weren't 100%. I agree with you though that Gilman will be a happy fellow when he no longer has to step on a scale. Cheers!

The Croatia/Zagreb Open is already making news. Thomas Gilman is no longer on the entry list. You can see that entry list at this link. His name was on that list at 57 kg last night. This is the cold and flu season, I'm surprised that there are this many people wrestling. It's just another reason (one of many reasons) why we need Wrestling in the Summer Olympics.

There's nothing that I saw on the front page of themat.com about this pretty important tournament that starts tomorrow. If you click on the "News" link and scroll down some, though, there's a kind of preview. Luckily, I've done a preview for The ILLINI Wrestling Blog & Forum & Beyond Plus here. It is IRTC-centric. As an added bonus, there's a preview of the ILLINI versus Ohio State on Friday. The IRTC is sending Zane Richards at 57 kg and Mongolian World Medalist Erdenebatyn Bekhbayar at 61 kg. There will also be Greco later in the week, as well as the Women Freestylers. IRTC Greco favorites Joe Rau and Kamal Bey are registered. The toughies in the field at Zane's weight include: China's Wanhao Zou, Thomas Gilman, Horst Lehr, Aman from India as well as wrestlers from Azerbaijan, Georgia and Turkey. For American Freestyle fans, you can also expect Darian Cruz representing Puerto Rico and Brandon Courtney. Other Americans at heavier weights include: Joseph McKenna, Yianni Diakomihalis, Nahshon Garrett, Quincy Monday, Jason Nolf (not my favorite wrestler), Evan Wick, Joseph Lavallee, Zahid Valencia, Chance Marsteller, Max Dean, Isaac Trumble (off his Midlands tournament), Kyle Snyder, Michael Macchiavello, Christian Lance, Mason Parris and Nick Gwiazdowski. Note that I didn't look for other Americans wrestling for foreign countries besides Darian Cruz. I'm sure there are more of them. Here's the official entry list from the UWW. On page two of this pdf link is the schedule. Be ready to cheer them on starting at 3:00 am (Central) tomorrow morning. USA! USA! USA!