ILLINIWrestlingBlog

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.

Zane will have had tougher goes in his tournament simulations:

I haven't found one. I just go to FloWrestling and click on "LIVE" for the Pan Am Championships. There are two mats wrestling, so I then click double view: □□ There are brackets and results at UWW. When a match goes live, it will show up in their brackets here.

Don't a lot of coaches have their wrestlers doing simulation live-goes up to a week before a tournament? Can't imagine a better live-go simulation than the actual arena on the actual mats against many of the same opponents and same refs. But who knows! Marsteller got the tech in about 4:30. Cuba just lost on the other mat at his weight. To Canada, LOL!

Apologies: Marsteller is wrestling right now against Argentina. He leads 6-0 at the break. Hopefully, this link works: https://www.flowrestling.org/live/93327

Suriano beat the Cuban 3-2 in the first round. It's a round robin, and he'll eventually get a bye in round three because of an injury to the Ecuadorian wrestler. Is that Cubano going to drop down to 57kg next week? Is that allowed? I thought it was not, but don't know for sure. In case it is allowed, him losing to Suriano and then having to lose another 9 pounds in a week. Ouch! What do you make of RBY's decision not to wrestle this weekend? I've been pondering that. He gave up his best shot at going to the Olympics (i.e. by reaching the finals this weekend and being put in the opposite bracket from Zane Richards) because he (1) either had too tough of a cut, or (2) he is injured or sick, or (3) he is recovering from injury or sickness and wasn't in wrestling shape. None of them bode well for him. Dake's first match was in the quarters, and he teched the poor fellow from Panama. He's got a Cuban in his bracket who won 9-4 in the first round. Dake techs everybody but the Cuban? Looks like they're wrestling the rest of the freestyle matches tomorrow.

Americans will win medals in the last two Greco weights. They'll be your unofficial team champions. I didn't believe half the weird things that I wrote in my three posts yesterday, but UWW published a results article this morning that confirmed all of it. Wild stuff. Schultz with an injury forfeit in the semis, then a :30 pin in the Bronze match was the weirdest, actual true thing.

Brackets seem to show an injury to Schultz in the semis. But he just pinned his opponent in the Bronze match. WTF? He looked very fit. Cuba won a Gold at 87kg, while the USA did not place. El Cubanos could challenge for the team trophy. We needed more Brawlnagel there. They wrestle two more Greco weights tomorrow.

The USA with a Gold or two in Greco so far, at least a couple of Silvers, Cohlton Schultz had to injury forfeit (if I'm reading the brackets correctly), and I just watched Kamal Bey destroy his Bronze medal opponent. The Americans appear to be on their way to a team championship, but it is a lot closer. The match that everybody wanted to see at 77kg, the Cuban versus Kamal Bey, didn't materialize. They both lost, and not to each other. There's a Colombian and a Brazilian in the finals at that weight. I guess that's why they wrestle the matches.

Is Cuba boycotting parts of the Pan Am Championships? Are they out of money? Is there something offensive to the communist sensibilities about 57kg, 61kg, 79kg and 92kg? They have some Greco athletes wrestling today, but they don't have freestylers at the non-Olympic weights and at 57kg. USA wrecking things in Greco.

It is my understanding that if RBY makes it to the finals of this tournament, he will be on the opposite side of the bracket from Zane Richards at the Pan Am Olympic Games qualifying tournament. I hope he's on the opposite side of the bracket here from Spencer Lee, or he's gonna get beat by Spencer and Zane in consecutive weekends. That is, if he can make weight two weeks in a row. As for picks, I'm going with yours mspart, except I'd add Suriano as a lock and Mason Parris as a near lock. In fact, at all the non-Olympic weights, I think the USA rep has to be a huge favorite. That's because of (1) America's incredible depth compared to other nations in our hemisphere, and (2) those other nations have their major contenders at Olympic weights. There'll probably be a couple tough Cubanos, though, at the non-Olympic 70 kg and 79 kg weights, unless Cuba can't afford to send them, or has no interest. Cheers!

Here's a video showing the ILLINI winners over the weekend. They were on the road against Purdue and Northwestern. Double winners included Edmond Ruth, Tony Madrigal and Danny Pucino: Music credit to the Climax Blues Band and their chunky hit, Couldn't Get It Right, video credit to BTN+. Name and LIkeness to the ILLINI, Northwestern and Purdue coaches and wrestlers. By the way, it seems "The Feud" is on. Did you hear that, Northwestern Wildcats? IT'S ON!