ILLINIWrestlingBlog

I'm going to guess Burroughs in three.

That's what I thought. He's the Austin DeSanto of comedy. First period is strong but a bit of a feeling-out process. By the third period, he's going strong.

BTS Chicago is amazing. Facilities, coaching, whole life education. I'm a big fan. That organization will produce a lot of talent and be a feeder program for the whole city. I am as hopeful as you. The kids who come out of that program will be the leaders in their high school rooms.

The Brawlnagel beat that young fellow by even more at the recent US Open, and then there's this:

With the ILLINI's Zac Braunagel also on the way to Final X, Coach Medlin will have to devote time to him as well. So, the super-massive attention advantage that Zane Richards had over the NLWC is now only a very large and massive advantage. Below: This is the throw that the Brawlnagel used to defeat his finals opponent. Was it an underhook and a shove? Or, maybe it was a combination of Judo and Magic? It was freaking elegant. That sounds strange, but, yeah, it was elegant. Could be he's discovered the Kung-Fu-five-fingered-death-punch equivalent in Greco?

What I find most admirable about Zane Richards is that he had the character to shut out the doubts of other people and the doubts in his own mind. He dedicated himself to a course that would allow him to improve and to hell with what anybody else thought or said. That takes a lot of determination. He had wrestled up a weight and decided that his full potential could only be realized at 57 kg. So, he became determined to make that happen. The kind of determination that will lead to a win against a strong opponent even when barriers like illegal holds get in the way. Below is a couple of photographs that Jordan Blanton posted on the internet. It shows what amounts to a singlet grab that almost became a chokehold. From the UWW rulebook: It also happened during the final takedown sequence, but it was not nearly as obvious. You can see it in the "Storyboard" that is here on The ILLINI Wrestling Blog and Forum and Beyond. If caught, that would've been two additional points for Zane.

Davenport is not on the team. I wish he was because he is a talent. After I posted the original comment, I had second thoughts about Dylan Connell. He made huge gains during the year. If you make your biggest improvements between your Freshman and Sophomore years, then he will be a very tough out come tournament time. Moreover, he will be a true full-size 184er next season. As for Danny Braunagel, my guess is that injuries have been the thing. Cheers!

The trend in college wrestling is to wrestle Freshmen who have established that they are ready for the big time. Kannon is a huge talent, as his win over Jesse Mendez at the US Open showed. I could certainly see it. The mitigation against is that Pucino at 141 and Harrier at 149 really seem like they're ready to take that next step. Also, Kannon seems like he is still growing. He recently wrestled at 65 kg in the US Open (about 143 lbs). Five months ago, he was at 138. Nine months ago, he wrestled 132. Eighteen months ago, he won Fargo at 120. When does he stop growing? He has Hulk Hogan hands and looks like he can walk onto a horse now!

There was a fellow on the old message board who provided a review of the ILLINI team every year. I really enjoyed those posts. I hope he and other ILLINOIS fans like @ionel and @bnwtwg and others pick apart my post until we can come to some kind of consensus. 125. Justin Cardani/Maximo Renteria. Cardani had surgery and missed last season. Renteria entered his name in the transfer portal, but I haven't heard of any movement. This would be a big-time wrestle-off if it happens. Cardani has the ability to teleport to anybody's leg. Unfortunately, when he hits the "finish him" button, the machine malfunctions. If he has gotten bigger and stronger, he could be a load. Cardani was 3-1 against Liam Cronin, and ILLINI fans are waiting for him to take that next step. If he can finish a quarter of his shots, he would be an AA. Two-time national qualifier. Renteria has more talent at wrestling than I have at anything I've ever done in my life except hyperbole. The light never came on last year. Next year? Who knows. On the bench is Sammie Hayes (a tornado in a bottle) and Brandon Morvari (true freshman, will redshirt, two-time Minny champ). 133. A Very Pissed off Lucas Byrd. AA, title contender. Kole Brower, Brian Beers and redshirt Goebel Hudson form a power-packed bench. 141. Danny Pucino. Had been ranked very high during the season but had a B1G tournament. He's very exciting to watch, and I look for him to take a giant step this season to not only qualify but win some important matches at the NCAA tournament. As a true freshman, he beat Dylan D'Emilio and Frankie Tal Shahar. He beat Tal Shahar again at the dual this year. Needs to get bigger and stronger. Will Baysingar is the blue chip recruit who will take a redshirt. 149. Jake Harrier. This fellow really came on last year. Like Pucino at 141, he was small for the weight, so a second year in the starting lineup will really help him get bigger and, of course, more experienced. I expect him to qualify. Charlie Fifield on the bench. A big-time recruit in Kannon Webster will likely get some spot starts at this weight. Kannon is still growing, and who knows where he ends up. 157. Anthony Federico/Joe Roberts/Luke Odom. Roberts started the year before last, Federico started out last year at 149 and finished up as the starter at 157. Odom has seen starts the last couple of years. I will be happy with an NCAA qualifier here. Cooper Wettig is in his second year, and Logan Swaw will redshirt. Everybody except Odom need to get bigger. 165. Danny Braunagel. He was a Covid honorable mention AA, but hasn't gotten the elusive podium. He's in a very competitive weight, and he's been injured every year at the most inopportune times. I think he has the biggest cut on the team. I watched him at the US Open, though, and I've never seen him fight so hard. That's saying something for a Brawlnagel. He wrestled angry. Possessed. He's been ranked as high as #6 in his career. Healthy, he can AA. Braeden Scoles is another blue chipper. The Wisconsin 4xer, will take a redshirt and probably give Danny some nights off. He's the second of the incoming Freshmen who were Who's #1 wrestlers. 174. Edmond Ruth. This is his year for an AA finish. Caden Ernd is another quality backup, while Chris Moore will be redshirting. 184. Dylan Connell. Four-time ILLINOIS high school champ had a very nice NCAA qualifying year as a redshirt freshman. He's been adding muscle and bulk like Cartman on Weight Gain 4000. He will qualify for NCAAs again and win some matches. 197. Zac Braunagel. He has missed out in the blood round two years in a row. By one point two years ago at 184. He was another Covid AA. Everybody should be pulling for him this year, even his opponents. I've got him down as an AA. The bench behind the Brawlnagel is pretty awesome: Joey Braunagel (2x finalist at U20s recently), Isiah Pettigrew, Chase Waggoner and red-shirter Peter Marinopoulos. 285. Luuuke Luffman is back! Judging from his recent duty at the US Open, tangling with some real big Greco boys like Adam Coon, he will be an AA threat. Daniel Renshaw is the backup: 4.0 in Biological Engineering. I'm going to say the over/under is three AAs. In likelihood as follows: Byrd, Zac Braunagel, Ruth, Luffman, Danny Braunagel, Danny Pucino and Dylan Connell. This past season, the ILLINI had five matches in which a win meant an All American. It didn't happen. I expect they win those matches next season. This was the bad luck the ILLINI had last year in the form of a binomial probability calculator:

Besides Luke Luffman, the ILLINI have Joe Roberts at 157 and Justin Cardani at 125. The latter two will have to win back their spots in wrestle-offs. The Orange and Blue should be pretty fierce top to bottom.

Homerism is highly underrated. Before the World Cup, I watched all of the Iranian's matches I could find. He is probably the most physically similar to Gilman, although Suriano isn't far behind. I think Gilman is likely stronger and certainly more experienced than the both of them, and so I tried to find the weigh-in and match schedule for Final X. It's not out yet. I expect 57 kg will be wrestled sooner after weigh-ins, yet there will be Women's and Greco divisions to be wrestled on the same day, at the same site. Will have to wait and see on that. Granted Zane is himself going to be a very heavy 57 kg wrestler by the evening of June 10, but I think it will be Gilman having the tougher cut. As for other aspects of his style, I haven't done my Moneyball look at all of Gilman's matches during the last three or four years. Once I've completed that, I will have more to say on the clash of styles.

I've seen this type of argument before regarding Zane Richards and Nick Suriano. Very recently, too.

Yeah, in my bombastic way, I'm just getting the conversation started. It's important to give Zane Richards his due for an amazing transformation. It is also a mildly entertaining way to introduce arguments and facts like these that I forgot to mention in my post: In 2022, Thomas Gilman beat a Mongolian by the name of Zanabazar Zandanbud by the score of 5-1 at the World Championships. Zandanbud went on to win a Bronze medal. Later that year, Zandanbud lost to Zane Richards by the score of 0-10 at the World Cup. Check.

I didn't know that. Thanks!

I watched Searching for Bobby Fischer yesterday. It's a pretty remarkable movie with a 100% score on Rotten Tomatoes. Near the end of the film, the seven-year-old prodigy plays in the championship game. After calculating a long winning sequence of moves, he said to his opponent over the chess board: Then, the child chess prodigy played the thirteen (I counted them) moves that led to a forced resignation from his opponent. Is that where we are with the Gilman versus Richards matchup in Final X? As you know, Zane Richards beat Nick Suriano at the US Open to advance to Final X. He has improved by leaps and bounds by training in Russia and Azerbaijan with the ILLINOIS RTC. There is also a resident athlete at the IRTC named Erdenebat Belhbayar, who is a two-time lightweight World Medalist and Olympian for Mongolia. He was in Zane's corner for the US Open final. It goes without saying that Bryan Medlin, the head coach of the IRTC, and Belhbayar, are working days and staying up nights focused primarily on Thomas Gilman. Is the NLWC wrestler receiving the same amount of individualized attention? I would guess not. There are other Freestyle athletes in the room that will demand scouting and coaching and weight training attention from the staff. That's not to say that they won't do a great job because they will. But will it be enough to get past a fellow who now has a 2700 Wrestling ELO rating? WRESTLER RATINGS LIKE THE ELO CHESS SYSTEM I realize that international wrestlers are ranked by UWW and some media such as Flo and Intermat. What if there was a performance rating for what you've done recently as a wrestler, a rating like they have with ELO in chess. In the past, I would have given Zane Richards an ELO Chess rating of about 2450, which is what you would expect from an International Master. Lately, though, his imaginary chess rating would have ballooned to over 2700. Maybe not at 2800+ like Magnus Carlson, the one-of-a-kind former World Champion of Chess, but Zane is certainly now a Grandmaster in Wrestling. But you say, unlike Bobby Fischer, isn't Thomas Gilman still at the top of his game? Didn't he just tech Darian Cruz to win a Pan Am title? Yes, Gilman may still be at the top of his game, and he certainly teched Cruz in Argentina, but last January Zane Richards also teched Darian Cruz while he was injured. LATEST RESULTS For Thomas Gilman, there was the recent Pan Am Championships where he wrestled a veteran pro in Darian Cruz. Zane Richards also wrestled him this year, and, in addition, he wrestled and beat Jakob Camacho, a very talented young Freestyler, teched the Mongolian World Bronze Medalist at the World Cup, beat the Iranian decisively in the World Cup Finals and beat Nick Suriano in the US Open Finals. SO, CAN WE EXPECT A FORFEIT? Of course not. I just like clickbait titles. Thomas Gilman is a proud champion, and he will wrestle as hard as his battered body, which has had to make 57 kg for years, will allow. He will wrestle fiercely with as much guidance as his somewhat-distracted coaching staff can provide. My prediction is that we will see three matches and that Zane's intelligence, and the skills he learned from Russians, will prevail in the end. Please note that Richards himself would never, ever boast about his chances or his past glories. He is very modest and humble. After big wins, he attributes his performance to everybody but himself. So, please direct any fire for the hyperbole in this post in my direction, not his. He deserves heaps of praise for what he's accomplished, and Blessed Mother of God, I don't want to see any more of the pre-match hype like in the Flo tweet below (that I have corrected for accuracy). As for all the millions of other Zaniacs out there: LET'S GO! _____________________ Originally posted at the ILLINI Wrestling Blog and Forum and Beyond. Image credit to FloWrestling. Searching for Bobby Fischer is property of Paramount Pictures.

I guess someday my kids will ask me bout the old days. I guess that I'll tell them there ain't much to tell. Ionel posted gifs of some racy Ferraris, and when Iowa blew up, Cody Chittum moved on.

OPTION II Every D1 wrestler will be listed on a Wrestler Stock Exchange and given a three- or four-letter abbreviation. For example, Lucas Byrd might be LBY, Patrick McKee could be PMCK, while Carter Starocci would be DIC. A wrestler's stock price would be performance-based because capitalists, like you, would purchase shares in those stocks. Would you buy an under-performing stock? The University of Iowa and other institutions could also purchase shares in these stocks. In that way, a person, institution or an amalgamation of interests from say, Gardner-Webb, could purchase a controlling interest in DIC and he would then become a Bulldog and have to move to Boiling Springs, North Carolina. This framework would be exciting for fans who could make a killing by short-selling a stock or holding a stock like Nagao (GCHO), which goes through the roof. Of course, there could be a rug pull like at the NCAA tournament with SPL. Buyer beware. This would be more transparent than the current NIL situation, and it could be monitored by the SEC. It would provide the best approximation of an athlete's worth because that worth had been judged by infallible market forces. I submit that this system would be fair and equitable and not a dangerous ponzi scheme like crypto. Seriously, though, there always must be a line. The universal question is this: Where to draw the line, and why isn't "The Gopher Choker" the perfect nickname? In the before times, the rules were so restrictive, it was basically indentured servitude, almost slavery. On the other end of the spectrum is a world without rules, and that leads to chaos and anarchy. Should students be indentured to universities, or should they have the right to leave for any reason at any time even if that reason is just to avoid a killer nickname? Where do you place the line? Unfortunately, my read on the situation is that the NCAA is in the worst possible position to enforce any restriction on athlete movement, even NLI's. They are weak. An actual court case involving an NLI or a transfer would send shock waves through NCAA headquarters in Indianapolis. Perhaps, though, in the future, athletes will seek out stable environments because they (or their parents) consciously or subconsciously want that. Places like ILLINOIS. We shall see

Wow. I've got you talking with your hands. Instead of being angry, why not enjoy the humor in the post? Just don't dwell on the fact that you support a creepy Frankenstein team, stitched together from other teams.

That is possible. We don't have much data, that's for sure. The fact that they all ended up on the same team in the same conference kind of freaks me out.

I had hoped to run that schtick the whole day. Instead. Found out immediately. Cheers to you!

Wrestler X wears the jersey for Team Y at the home dual on Friday, then jumps in his car to wrestle for Team W on Sunday. He is paid in bitcoin and pizza. Is that the future you want, Wkn? Where do you want to draw the line? Now everybody's breaking up somebody else's home. Before somebody else starts breaking up their own, let's set some ground rules.

Needless to say, anything that makes Northwestern wrestling fans cry is a big plus for me [See Figure 1 below], but the creation of the Stanwestern Wolvercats maybe goes too far. You've probably heard by now that Michigan has taken three wrestlers from Evanston's Big Ten Team and added them to their new Wolvercats lineup. THE JOE MONTANA PARALLEL Additionally, the Wolvercats added a wrestler from Stanford, which is basically a West coast version of Northwestern, but for hippies. What Shane Griffith has done is a Joe Montana, going from sunny California to a dank Midwestern city that is home to the most overrated football coaches in history (Schembechler and that current fellow). See Fig. 2 below. To lure Griffith from the land of long hair and LSD parties, the Wolvercats may have paid more for him than San Francisco originally paid for Joe Montana: Is $85k the going rate? I don't know, that's a guess on my part. Including the outrageous cost for what folks in Ann Arbor euphemistically call "an education"--while boldly looking you straight in the face and without the hint of a smile--it may actually be more. Is this going to be worse than free agency in professional sports? FREE AGENCY IN THE PROS In college, there used to be a device called the National Letter of Intent, which a high schooler signed to join a university's athletic program. It was binding. It was basically a contract. Now, it may as well be called a "National Letter of Perhaps, or Perhaps Not." In the 1980s, professional sports saw the development of free agency. This was an end to the "reserve clause" in pro contracts which allowed owners to keep players for as long as they wanted. After the rise of free agency, a player could negotiate with other teams after his contract expired and not be bound to the one team with which he had originally signed. So, it appears that at the present time, even professional sports teams are more stable than college teams because of that initial contract. See Fig. 3 below, featuring Lionel Hutz. Today, in college wrestling, in football and in basketball, athlete movement can be as volatile as a swinger's party in Palo Alto before Aids. Take the case of Aaron Nagao. He was wrestling last year for Minnesota but then transferred to Penn State for this season. My theory is that he jumped ship because of my nickname for him, "The Gopher Choker." It was too damn good. He fled that nickname, knowing that "The Penn State Strangler" was basically a rip off of Nick Simmons and probably wouldn't catch on. As you can see in Figure 4 below, Nick Simmons seized that nickname and won't let go. Nagao, instead of embracing his new moniker, transferred to a new school to avoid it! That's right. He transferred schools to avoid a nickname. A MODEST PROPOSAL Some folks believe that the pendulum has swung too far. Other folks don't know what a pendulum is. I suggest to the former this reasonable solution: Give wrestling coaches the authority to trade athletes to other teams for other wrestlers, cash and/or a practice room partner to be named later. With this authority, a coach could see that one of his wrestlers had entered the transfer portal, and, before that wrestler could come to terms with another team, he could be traded to a third team. Problem solved! It is either that or wrestlers can decide to choose a school with an incredible staff of PATRIOTIC AMERICANS who will value them as human beings and not as a commodity, who will mentor them, and who will work with them to become overall better citizens of this the greatest country on Earth, the UNITED STATES of AMERICA. Kind of like the ILLINOIS staff. See Fig. 5 below. ___________ CODA I literally cannot recall whether I did the photoshop art (below in Fig. 6) for the three-time California state champion Nevills or the four-time Cali state champion Nevills. Or, was it the pure-blood wizard from Hogwarts? ___________ The original article was posted on The ILLINI Wrestling Blog and Forum and Beyond here. Come for the wrestling, stay for the Pizza!

He's gonna beat some good D1 wrestlers next year. If you wrestle 174 to 184, you might ask your coach to skip the Greyhound Open next season. Strong, smart, tough mat wrestler, and a wit. I'm a Greyhound fan now.

FYP. Also, if you get caught vaping at Oklahoma State, the Mayor gives you a key to the city.