ILLINIWrestlingBlog

Although the topic may have seemed frivolous to some, it has now taken a deadly serious turn. We at The ILLINI Wrestling Blog and Forum and Beyond have officially petitioned the Mayor of Buffalo, the Honorable Byron Brown, for a city-wide proclamation heralding November 1, 2023 as National Singlet Day. Here is the petition in the form prescribed by the City of Buffalo:

Back in the day, we used to do this because when you had the whole team in the room--called "the sweatbox" as the coach kept the thermostat very high--you'd only have a tiny area to drill in. After a short time, that area would become a sweaty waterpark. Slippery! Gross! That is, unless you tucked in your sweats. And if you wore plastics, you didn't dare break that seal until you were back in the locker room.

Yes. Clearly. It's entertainment, showmanship, glitz, pretty girls, clickbait, etc. That's how we turn a humdrum day into NATIONAL SINGLET DAY.

To get your brain juices flowing with ideas and to rev you up for National Singlet Day, here are some examples published by https://www.instagram.com/proudsinglet/:

You can see what was written on the receipt in the image below. We need more of this! As a community of Patriotic American Wrestlers, we need a National Singlet Day, a day during which Singlets are worn proudly, all day, in all walks of life. If you are a doctor in the operating room or a state legislator on the floor of your state house, wear your singlet! If you are an auto mechanic, a student, a panhandler, a stay-at-home dad or a murderer, wear your singlet proudly! We want everybody to wear singlets! Mathematics will tell you that there are approximately 40 billion singlets out there. You have 250,000 high school wrestlers every year, 7,300 NCAA wrestlers, another 5,000 NAIA wrestlers and 5,000 who are post-graduates. Walmart, Casey’s, classrooms and the doctor’s office; police stations, murder scenes, and in and around food trucks—these are places where you can wear your singlet on November 1, 2023. That’s the first day of the college wrestling season, which begins with the Buffalo Bulls Quad Meet against Brockport, Seton Hall and NCCC. That’s National Singlet Day Be sure to take a picture of yourself in a singlet. A panel of Singlet Experts will judge all submissions and award a prize package for the most controversial and the funniest use of a Singlet. The prize package will include an ILLINI Wrestling Blog and Forum and Beyond t-shirt, two Chunky bars and a piece of wire. Originally posted at The ILLINI Wrestling Blog and Forum and Beyond.

This tweet was on my mind when I wrote the original post. Insanity.

As brother @bnwtwg has noted, the Freestyle preseeds are out for the World Championships. I personally believe that the best three wrestlers at the weight who will be wrestling in Belgrade are not included in UWW's seeds. Top four if you include Thomas Gilman. There is certainly a case for Abakarov being in the top four, though. He's seeded #2 and deserves it as returning World Champion. The wrestlers not included in the top eight seeds are Zavur Uguev of Russia, Rei Higuchi of Japan and Zane Richards. There's an interview of Higuchi posted on the UWW website that I think is pretty revealing. In my mind, he was going over his top threats. He had this to say: "But a lot has changed at 57kg since he last wrestled internationally at this weight class. Most of the wrestlers have changed weight classes or have retired. Zaur UGUEV is the defending Olympic champion. Zelimkhan ABAKAROV (ALB) is the world champion. Two youngsters are champions in Europe and Asia. Iran has lost its stronghold on the lightest weight. But Higuchi is updated. 'I don't care about the World Championships,' Higuchi says. 'I watched Final X and Zain [sp] RICHARDS (USA) winning it. AMAN (IND), Abakarov, Uguev, Aliabbas RZAZADE (AZE). I watched them all.'” Except for Rzazade, but including Higuchi himself, I think that his list contains the names of everybody who can win the Gold Medal. So excite!

This is almost exactly my story, except I only had to drop to 155.

This is a good time to talk about this ... before the kids start losing weight for the high school and college seasons. I had major problems making 155 my sophomore year in high school. No more diets for me after that! Too many nightmares.

That was not indicated. All that that human said was what I quoted. I wrestled heavyweight in college even though I weighed 190 to 200 at most. I could still lose 9 pounds in an afternoon if I wore plastics. What the NCAA does regarding weight loss is pretty solid in my mind, but I'd like to hear from people who have recent involvement in the process. What the UFC does is insane, and I think somebody is going to die because of it. Still, probably better than the Subway diet.

This is a testimonial on a national radio advertisement for Plan Z and the Crave Control Spray™. An actual human person during an actual human radio commercial actually said this. I was wondering what wrestlers think about that.

I'm rooting for them, but I don't want them to be that good. By the way, I think calling that schedule ambitious is an understatement. It will get them experience in a hurry, though, and that's good for down the road.

One of the best locks to win a Gold Medal at Belgrade will not be there according to the list put out by UWW. That is Zavur Uguev of Russia. He's won 12 Gold in 15 tournaments since 2017. In the other three tournaments, he medaled. Now, is his absence because there is some unmet stipulation for the Russian athletes? If so, what happens if the stipulation is eventually met? To add to the mystery Belarussian wrestlers are listed but they are given the "under the UWW flag" designation. For 57kg, that means Aryan Tsiutryn, who was a Bronze Medalist last year. Still another mystery is the double listings for some nations. At 57kg, you have the exceptional Rei Higuchi listed along with that country's multiple age-level medalist Yuto Nishiuchi. Can you list multiple wrestlers if the main wrestler has a nagging injury? Are these practice partners? At 74kg, Dake and Facundo are listed. Why wouldn't Nolf be listed if Dake was flirting with an injury? In any event, even without Uguev the weight looks like the toughest at the World Championships, although perhaps it falls behind heavyweight if Uguev doesn't show up. Without him, there are still two returning World Champions from last year: Zelimkhan Abakarov (57kg) and Rei Higuchi (61kg). Besides Zane Richards, who I rank above all of the wrestlers including Uguev because I'm a complete Homelander, this is how I see the tournament shaping up: Rei Higuchi of Japan. He won 61kg last year, and he's a threat to win. Silver at 2016 Olympics. Zelimkhan Abakarov of Albania. He won last year at 57kg. Zane beat him in a practice match. Will be #2 seed. Former Russian. Aman Aman of India. Also goes by Aman Sehrawat. Dude has been on an absolute tear. Wanhao Zou of China. The #1 seed because of ranking series placements (1st, 3rd), but I don't think he stands a chance at winning. Almaz Smanbekov of Kyrgyzstan. He has finished with a 1st and 2nd at the last two ranking series tournaments. Throw Zane into that pot above, and I believe that you have your main medal contenders. However, that still leaves off previous World Championship medalists, including Zanabazar Zandanbud, who won a bronze last year, and the Belarussian Aryan Tsiutryn (another former Russian) also won a bronze in 2022. Other past World medalists include Stevan Micic of Serbia and Arsen Harutyunyan of Armenia. Finally, the Uzbeki and Azerbaijani are age group world medalists. Here's everybody listed, including the double Japanese and Canadian entries: 57kg Aryan TSIUTRYN (AIN) Zelimkhan ABAKAROV (ALB) Bofenda David KALUWEKO (ANG) Arsen HARUTYUNYAN (ARM) Aliabbas RZAZADE (AZE) Georgi Valentinov VANGELOV (BUL) Darthe CAPELLAN (CAN) Treye Colby TROTMAN (CAN) Wanhao ZOU (CHN) Gamal Abdelnaser Hanafy MOHAMED (EGY) Levan METREVELI VARTANOV (ESP) Diamantino IUNA FAFE (GBS) Beka BUJIASHVILI (GEO) Niklas STECHELE (GER) Aman AMAN (IND) Milad Jahangir VALIZADEH (IRI) Simone Vincenzo PIRODDU (ITA) Yuto NISHIUCHI (JPN) Rei HIGUCHI (JPN) Meirambek KARTBAY (KAZ) Almaz SMANBEKOV (KGZ) Gukhyeon KIM (KOR) Igor CHICHIOI (MDA) Zanabazar ZANDANBUD (MGL) Vladimir EGOROV (MKD) Muhammad BILAL (PAK) Darian CRUZ (PUR) Razvan Marian KOVACS (ROU) Gayan Kathurangana EKANAYAKA MUDIYANSELAGE (SRI) Thomas EPP (SUI) Suleyman ATLI (TUR) Kamil KERYMOV (UKR) Zane Raye Rhodes RICHARDS (USA) Gulomjon ABDULLAEV (UZB)

Add another Championship run to the supernatural ILLINI Summer. In the UWW Grappling World Championships, former ILLINI wrestler Mario Gonzalez came out on top. He had to beat the defending champion on his way to the finals where he met the Polish BEAST you see in the video below: Gonzalez was one of the strongest wrestlers ever to wear the Orange and Blue, and he liked to attempt the impossible in nearly every match. The video starts out eleven years ago with him as a Sophomore in college bumping up from 197 to wrestle Cornell's heavyweight at the National Duals. This was one of my top three ILLINI dual wins of all time. That win seemed to propel him to a Big Ten Championship at 197 a month later. Injuries then worked their evil magic on his body, but he was still able to do the impossible while beating an Iowa Hawkeye the next year. In the video, you can see Gonzalez with a whizzer while his Hawkeye opponent is in the seatbelt position. What Mario does after that has to be seen to be believed. To me, it looks like the video is running backwards! Fast forward eleven years, and Mario is a World Champion. What a Summer! Fall doesn't officially start until September 23, and I can't help but wonder what other sorcery the ILLINI and the ILLINI RTC have in store for us.

It's never cool to kick somebody when they're down unless they are really, really down and you can get away with it.

The worst aspect of the decision (besides taking a finals spot from somebody who worked hard to get there) is that the decision reinforces one of the worst aspects of wrestling: The brick thrown at the end of the match. The Hail Mary Brick. In every one- or two-point match in the future, expect a brick at the end. Who knows, you might win the lotto! Even if the other wrestler is doing exactly what thousands of wrestlers have done before him or her. How can we beat the system? Start celebrating before time expires. If the "running away" is just the run up to a back flip, then what can the ref and judges do? I've seen lots of wrestlers celebrate before time has expired. Haven't seen them penalized the match for it, either.

Or, we can do both, right?

You say possible ineptitude, I say possible bias. The reason I say bias is because it is a huge decision to end a match like that. Somebody was determined.

Your rule fails to mention the literal thousands of times a wrestler has disengaged in the waning seconds without a match-determining point being awarded. I am aware of one instance. That's hard to explain, don't you think? The new aphorism: Don't leave the match in the hands of anti-American bias.

How is it leaving the match in the hands of the ref when there was no previous caution, attention or warning? That is my understanding of what happened. If that's the case, it would be like awarding a point for stalling after an NCAA finals match when the wrestler had not been given a stalling warning during the match. She didn't crawl out of bounds to deserve a fleeing or a caution. In this case the saying should be re-jiggered to: Don't leave the match in the hands of anti-American bias.

You have obviously put a lot of thought and time into this idea, and that makes me happy. It is likely that you can go even more granular with your plan, and that also makes me happy. Based upon the current state of things, it looks to me like what you have suggested is more of an end product. That's okay. It gives us all something to dream about. As President Snow said in The Hunger Games: "Hope. It is the only thing stronger than fear." What it might look like to start out would be five teams in various regions, and although I really hate to suggest it, but economically, it might be that 6 or 8 weights is the way to kick off the enterprise. I would try to get some type of alliance going with the Beat the Streets organization. They have well-established facilities in New York City, Philly, Cleveland, Chicago and Baltimore/Washington, D.C. The alliance could involve use of their facilities, free admission to shows for the kids, and some mentoring/practices from the athletes with the kids, donations to the organization above a certain set net revenue. The real market would be streaming. You could sell some tickets at the door, but I would want all those screaming, jumping-up-and-down happy kids in the front row on the video that goes out. Exclamation points are free, but you can't buy authentic enthusiasm! If it catches on, grow. Add weights. Add cities.

A couple of observations: First, the anti-ILLINOIS faction likes to jump over Fargo and National Duals on the one side to get to NCAA results. Then, they need to jump from the other side over the four ILLINOIS Final X winners to get to NCAA results. Second, I think that I've proven the case historically, morally, politically, comedically and scientifically. Until your state wins a Fargo, has at least four Final X Champions AND has a Great Emancipator, the two funniest (though currently dead) humans to ever live, a two-time-Golden-Globe-winning actress and a Rap Star, get out my face!

I did not know this. I didn't even know who this was. Thanks for the education! From the National Wrestling Hall of Fame: But she's only the second most famous ILLINOIS high school wrestler to have wrestled at Highland Park High School. Coach Mike Poeta is number one.

I just wanted to celebrate a great Summer of ILLINI and ILLINI RTC wrestling, but you folks had to start attacking ILLINOIS wrestling. Well, now I'm furious! So furious I had to post about it at The ILLINI Wrestling Blog and Forum and Beyond: LOL at People Who Think Their State Is as Good at Wrestling as the State of ILLINOIS As an unbiased journalist and a scientist—a Political Scientist no less—I can prove that ILLINOIS is, was, has been and will always be the greatest wrestling state in the union. You can take the other top five wrestling states combined, and they don't equal the Land of Lincoln. Word. Let's start on July 21, 1951 when Robin Williams was born in Chicago, ILLINOIS. He would go on to wrestle in high school and without him, of course, there is no Mrs. Doubtfire, No "Goooood Morning, Vietnam!," no Dead Poets Society, Good Will Hunting, or Mork and Mindy. All of that and more brought to you by a wrestler born in ILLINOIS. Shazbot, Mother*******! If Robin Williams wasn't the funniest wrestler who ever lived, then that honor falls to Wheaton Central High School Wrestler John Belushi. Without this fellow, SNL is cancelled season one, you think Dan Akroyd could carry the show by himself? We get no Animal House. Or the freaking Blues Brothers. On the other hand, thousands of Deep Dish Pizzas and Polish would've survived at least one more day. America thanks you, ILLINOIS Wrestling! In 1985, the Rosemont Horizon in Chicago saw William "The Refrigerator" Perry and Jimbo Colvert of the Chicago Bears save professional wrestling in Wrestlemania 2. One of the referees for that match was none other than University of ILLINOIS and Chicago Bear legend Dick Butkus. Think about it like this, folks, without Wrestlemania 2 there would never have been a Wrestlemania 3 or a Wrestlemania 4. Dick Butkus may have saved the sport! Thank you, ILLINOIS, sir! In 2001, rap could've died on the vine but along came Ludacris (Chris Bridges) the former Oak Park River Forest wrestler with his platinum smash Word of Mouf. Without this former ILLINOIS high school wrestler, rap may never have bridged the gap from Jay Z to Eminem. ILLINOIS says, sarcastically, to all you ungrateful ********* ******* ******* *************, "You're Welcome!" Our 16th President, Abraham Lincoln was a senior at Carl Sandburg High School with a record of 36-2. He dreamed of a wrestling scholarship from the University of Illinois, but he was only #98 on Willie's Senior Big Board. So, the lanky rail-splitter hopped a wagon train to the Northwest Territory to wrestle in the 9 stone 7 pound weight class at Fargo. Old Timers say he wrestled like a furious shaved bear. The young railsplitter teched his way to the finals, setting up a match with the Virginia champion, Robert E. Lee. Well, my friends, that match was a sight! Over 40,000 fans, dressed in their Sunday best, watched while munching on boiled squirrel and pumpkin sandwiches. In the first period, Lincoln emancipated and proclamated for the full three hours, building up a sixty-point lead. During intermission, though, his corner had to reattach a finger, which had been chewed off by the Virginian. Forty minutes into the second period, his reserves exhausted, Lee surrendered. HENCEFORTH and THEREAFTER a table was set up in the center of the mat, and Lee formally signed "The Articles of Agreement Relating to the Surrender of the Wrestler Robert E. Lee." You can see this document displayed on the second floor of the National Archives building in Washington, D.C. Seriously, President Abraham Lincoln is in the National Wrestling Hall of Fame. He is said to have had a 299-1 wrestling record. He was also 1-0 against the South, and without him, y'all'd be barefoot and eating grits and collard greens. Unless your state has its own wrestling Great Emancipator or Blues Brother or Rap Star get the **** outta my face.

Wow! I have to agree with you! I wrote that very poorly. In fact, it reads like you have to choose between a quarterback and a physics professor for your University President. This is what I originally wrote: Ouch. That's bad. What I meant was more like: My belief is that you would want the professor rather than the QB because the professor will be around longer, will attract better students (with brilliant ideas that can lead to patents), will attract better research partners, will attract more research dollars, and will help create more patents and other discoveries. I would want the professor over the big-time coach as well, mainly because a coach is almost never a sure thing, while a Nobel-winning professor almost always is. And no, I'm not pretending that universities are run like for-profit businesses because the fact of the matter is that they are run like for-profit businesses. Instead of going to shareholders, though, "profits" go back into the university, the endowment, or some other accounting scheme. Cheers!