ILLINIWrestlingBlog

Love the App State and Little Rock picks. Little Rock because they're the exciting new guy and have three ILLINOIS kids on their roster. App State because they were the first school to give me media credentials for their early-season tournament. I liked them before that because they had good, tough wrestlers. Moreover, their football team keeps upsetting top ten teams that I absolutely hate like Michigan and Texas A&M. I'm also keen on the Pitt and Penn picks, mostly because the ILLINI have dualed that tough Pitt team the last couple of years, and they had a couple of ILLINOIS boys starting for them in the Hellers. Penn because they always seem to be in the same tournaments as the Orange & Blue. I know the Penn lineup, and they are good and scrappy. Rider and Lehigh are on the ups. I don't know much about West Virginia except that Ty Watters and Kannon Webster already have a backstory, and they'll be fun to watch wrestle in the future. The ILLINOIS pick is inspired because of the return of a motivated and pissed-off Lucas Byrd. Everybody likes to watch Byrd wrestle, right? But also because of the return of the Brawlnagels and Luffman. The Braunagels because they are tough guys. Some might like the prancing around, fake-shot style of wrestling, but if you want to see wrestlers pour their guts out onto the mat.... Edmond Ruth wrestles smart and controlled matches, sure, but you almost always get at least one SPECTACULAR highlight per match with that bear hug of his. Then, there are the new kids like Kannon Webster, Chris Moore and Braeden Scoles. So excite! Interesting thread. Got me to thinking, thinking.

@1032004 It's all good, my friend! This deserves it's own thread. I appreciate that you did that. And from the ILLINI Wrestling Blog & Forum & Beyond Plus: Camden Fontenot came out wearing swim trunks. WTF? All The Irish Nightmare in round one. Huge throw down from a bear hug from O'Connor. Then, ground and pound for the rest of the round. Throws a leg in, hip control. Throwing lefts and rights. "AOC, AOC, AOC" chants from the crowd. First time I've seen a chicken wing for more than :30 in an MMA fight. Fontenot comes out in the second round like a Power Ranger with high kicks. Austin puts him on his back almost immediately. Slams him down. Sticks in a leg and pounds his head and ribcage. The announcers call it "Big Brothering" him. "It's like a martial art form I've never seen before." TKO in the third from ground and pound. The announcers were on point the whole way through the bout with, "Miranda Rights were read." After winning, "Some of the most creative and mean wrestling I've ever seen." In his interview, AOC showed a little potty mouth, with the "F" and the "A," but he sounded good, and he sounded tough. I understand boxing and MMA give every fighter "a floor" when scoring. That usually means, even when one fighter dominates, the other guy still gets 7 points on the scorecard. A dominant round would be 10-7. Each of the three rounds in this bout shoulda been 10-0. Maybe 30-3 for the whole fight. Maybe. But ground and pound ended it. Just vicious. Fontenot has a wrestling background, but as the announcers said, and the folks at Intermatwrestle.com keep saying: "There are levels to this."

And in keeping with the HEROES topic on this beautiful Sunday, The Irish Nightmare just made his MMA debut, and it was incredible. Some of the things the announcers said during the match, "It's like a Martial Art form I've never seen before," "Some of the most creative and mean wrestling I've ever seen," and "Miranda Rights were read." AOC with the TKO in the third round. Ground and pound. Fontenot was 3-1 before this match:

In your Sunday morning comics, you have the traditional funnies, the one-panel one-liners, and some great villains, but you also have the heroes, heroes like Prince Valiant, Dick Tracy and Funky Winkerbean. In that mold, we bring you the World of Orangecraft:

Will be interesting to see what the ILLINI end up doing from 165 to 197. There are multiple logjams and, I think, only one redshirt left. You'd think last year's All American and the two Covid AAs will be safe, but who knows. 165. Chris Moore (NCAA qualifier as true Freshman, still has redshirt). Braeden Scoles (True Freshman last year, 4x Wisconsin State Champ, listed at 157 by Wrestlestat.com), Caden Ernd (Spot starter last season). 174. Danny Braunagel (Olympic redshirt last season; Covid AA, moving up in weight--and it loooked like he needed to), Colin Kelly (Blue chip true Freshman this season). No controversy at this weight. Little Brawny starts and Kelly redshirts. 184. Edmond Ruth (AA last season, R12 the year before; moving up in weight), Dylan Connell (NCAA qualifier 2 years ago, suffered multiple injuries last season). This will be the key lineup battle. 197. Zac Braunagel (Olympic redshirt last season; Covid AA, expect him to stay at 197 where he finished R12 two years ago), Isiah Pettigrew (Started last season and looked good until injury slowed him down). Expect a wrestle-off here, but the Brawlnagel has to be the big favorite. Also, Sungyup Ryu showed a lot of promise at Midlands, but he went back to Korea to wrestle with their National Team.

JOMBO™ Classic. This was when we first met the Mrs.

Certainly taller. By far. But thinner as well. I think he's still growing, and I've even said he might end up at 184 for the ILLINI before he's finished. His hands are baseball gloves. I saw him rip open an orange at the Midlands, and I've never before felt sympathy for fruit.

KANNON WEBSTER just beat Antrell Taylor at U20 WTT. Taylor was an All American last season at 165. Kannon is expected to go 149 next season.

I think that is a fantastic idea. That would be so cool.

This weight is by far the toughest in the world. And I was trying to figure out how the Olympics could be a little bit better short of removing the two Continental Qualifiers from Africa and Oceania, and the only thing that I came up with was having Thomas Gilman and Zane Richards gain dual citizenship with Australia and the Solomon Islands. There are 10 wrestlers who wouldn't shock me if they won. My favorite is Spencer, but the winner is going to have to go through an absolutely amazing gauntlet. One consideration that I think will play a huge part is this: There are only 16 wrestlers in the bracket, which means straight off, you are almost assured of getting a tough out in the first round, and there will be no byes (right?), which additionally means that the wrestlers have to make the cut, wrestle right off the bat, get little time to recover, and then wrestle again. This will be tough for the really big guys, the ones who'd benefit from a 61 kg weight.

Did you just call Shenanigans? I think I heard somebody call Shenanigans.

What I wrote on the IWB&F&B+ about the two ILLINI entries at U20: 70 kg KANNON WEBSTER Challenges will come from wrestlers like Brock Mantanona, Antrell Taylor (if he can make weight at 154 pounds and some change), Dylan Gilcher, Tyler Kasak and Ethan Stiles. With his showing at the 2024 US Open, expect KANNON to receive a very high seed in this tournament. This might be a good time to mention that there are other ILLINOIS athletes from NIU, SIUE and other schools who will be wrestling. There are 15 wrestlers registered at this weight so far. 79 kg CHRIS MOORE Challenges will come from Gabe Arnold, M.J. Gaitan (Edmond Ruth beat him in the blood round) and William Henckel among others. Of note, Bradley Gillum will be repping ILLINOIS and SIUE at this weight. At this time, there are 13 wrestlers registered at 79 kg. Win the tournament and what you earn is a best-of-three trials finals against PJ Duke at 70 kg and Zack Ryder at 79 kg. We're sure the young ILLINI are itching for that, especially a rematch between WEBSTER and Duke. The 2024 U20 World Championships are slated for September 2-8 at the Pontevedra Municipal Sports Hall in Pontevedra, Spain. A few additional thoughts: Kannon lost two crucial (and high-scoring) 50/50 positions with PJ Duke at the US Open. Had that match gone much further, I'm thinking Duke woulda gassed. Antrell Taylor looked small at 165, but not that small. How does he like cutting weight? Webster is a real title threat here. Chris Moore just keeps getting better. As a true Freshman last year, Moore lost to #11 Caleb Fish, #12 Maxx Mayfield and #22 Stoney Buell early in the season. He beat all three later in the season. I think he's giving up weight at 79 kg, but the kid keeps improving.

Can we sue them for putting a thick layer of animal fat on all of their camera lenses? What about for having Lucas Byrd at #8 and Kannon Webster at #11 in their preseason rankings?

On behalf of the Board of Directors of the ILLINI Wrestling Blog & Forum & Beyond Plus, we would like to renew our pledge and commitment to very silly ideas and outrageous takes. Our dedication to clickbait will be unmatched, and our devotion to homerism and crass sales puffery will remain unrivaled. We want you, the reader, to know that there will always be a place on this dusty planet of ours for ILLINI homerism and hyperbole. Likewise, there will always be a place where you are welcome to hate Iowa and Penn State and Okie Lite and an Ohio State University and stupid Minnesota and whatever it is that Nebraska is. And Rutgers. Haha! I almost forgot about Rutgers. Geez. Wait. You were talking about @nhs67. Never mind.

About 99% of the time, I watch only the upper division. I had to search out that channel. It looks fun. Although this might not be the one you are talking about. Anyway, the :44 video below was hilarious. Cheers!

This is a classic JOMBO™ that I'm pretty sure hasn't been posted on this board yet. I'll try to include a classic every Sunday morning (whether you like it or not).

By saying "I was there for the last year of Hakuho's reign," I mean that I watched all of the tournaments that year on Youtube. I wasn't actually in Japan. Of course, then I wanted to see all of his matches.

Great story, @Threadkilla! I was there for the last year of Hakuho's reign. He was amazing. By far the GOAT among legends. The May basho is over, and we have a new winner! Onosato is the champion in only his third tournament. He finished at 12-3. The runner-up was the fellow I also thought had a chance to win, Daieisho, who finished at 11-4. Ura fell apart as expected, but it was so bad that he failed to reach .500 with a 7-8 record. That was unexpected. I was happy to see Takarafuji finish 9-6, which is a nice record for him at his age. Onosato has now finished 11-4, 11-4 and 12-3 in his three bashos. One runner-up finish and a championship. He is a new and emerging super talent. Hakkeyoi!

UPDATE. VERSION 2.0.