ILLINIWrestlingBlog

I appreciate your opinion, but I will go with Coach Austin O'Connor's.

Danny Nini of Lake Highland Prep in Florida, and more recently, the University of North Carolina is now an ILLINI. You can take him off the board. This shores up the final spot in the ILLINOIS lineup, the one at 157. Now, Logan Swaw can take his redshirt while Braeden Scoles can eat, pump iron and fill out to 165. An explanation for the image below: Nini wrestled up a weight against Haines two years ago in the UNC/PSU dual and lost by a very respectable 1-4 score. That same year, he wrestled in four other duals at 149 for UNC with ILLINI Assistant Coach Austin O'Connor wrestling right after him at 157.

We need this. Fans being fans. As an impartial and highly respected wrestling journalist, I can't take sides, but I like to see others do so. On another note, did I start the wild conspiracy theory that Iowa gambling officials were staking out Iowa dorms and wrestling facilities?

I walked beans and detasseled corn from grade school to high school. We corn folk grew up that way. Just trying to impart some knowledge about my experience with juries in a similar area. Unlike a county court, Federal courts draw their juries from a large number of counties. Iowa has only two Federal Districts, the North and the South. There are 99 counties in Iowa divided into those two districts. And, I'm sorry, but most of the counties in Iowa are full up with corn folk. P.S. I also wouldn't take the case because I ******* hate Iowa.

Because this is such a big day in the JCU, we are providing a double feature. That’s so you can get to know our new hero, Mike Grey, Boy Coach. That little rascal! Well, I oughta….

Thanks, @CHROMEBIRD and @ionel! This is a big day! Today, we introduce a new character into the JCU (The Jombo™ Comic Universe). This new comic seems really stupid and silly, but that’s why I like it so much.

We didn't see any 57 kg retirements, thank goodness. We could see some really fun non-Olympic-weight World Team Trials brackets. For example, at 61 kg: Zane Richards Vito Arujau Nick Suriano Nico Megaludis Thomas Gilman Nathan Tomasello Daniel DeShazer Daton Fix The Kindergarten Corps

P.S. I would not have taken this case on a contingency fee basis.

This is not legal advice, and I'm not going to take the time to research even the most basic aspects of the case other than to skim the article. With those caveats, here are my opinions. This is a federal lawsuit. I had federal jury trials in the Central District of ILLINOIS, which I think will be similar to the jury pool in Iowa. There were a lot of "corn folks" and those who were deeply religious on the panel of prospective jurors. They were skimpy with money on the whole. That is a good thing and a bad thing for the athletes. There will be wrestling fans and skeptics of the government in that pool. On the other hand, there will also be the religious who think nobody should be gambling, much less young adults. And even if they win, those juries are notoriously tight-fisted with $$$. But to even get to trial, the athlete/plaintiffs will have to get past governmental/qualified immunity and motions to dismiss. These are huge hurdles in this case. If I represented the state agencies and state officials, I would certainly want to argue that any information provided by GeoComply, a service that the athletes agreed to in their sign-up, could never be poisoned fruit. Anything like that that falls into the lap of enforcement agents (and is not coerced by them) is like free bacon at a buffet. Eat as much of it as you can and avoid the stomach-filling toast. Once the enforcement agents had that information, which they had every right to receive, the article states that "state investigators subsequently had warrants to obtain and search the athletes' phones...." Seems pretty open and shut to me. Still, I have read (what may be wild conspiracy theories) on social media that enforcement agents were walking around on campus searching with electronic devices and computer programs. That would be a much harder question if they didn't get a search warrant for that. I think, though, that those are most likely conspiracy theories because GeoComply would give them all the information that they needed (name of athlete, address, email, etc.) so they could just get a warrant to search their phones. My main hopes in representing the athletes/plaintiffs would be: (1) To have a very government-skeptic judge, so I hope they did some really nice forum shopping to find that judge, and (2) Ask the court to hold that the Draft Kings and Fan Duel sign ups were adhesion contracts. I haven't kept up with the law in that area, but I have always felt that the standard internet sign up provisions that suggest you read pages of small print and click "yes" or not be able to join the site are adhesion contracts. Yet, even if they were held to be adhesion contracts, does that get past the immunity question? Were the enforcement agents acting in the course and scope of their duties, and, even if what they did was eventually held to be unconstitutional, was it within the gray area to which qualified immunity would apply?

Just watched a bunch of U17 US Open Greco, and it was astonishing! ILLINOIS has dominated in Greco for years, as can be seen in the Fargo and National Duals record books and even on this year's Senior World Team, but other states are starting to pick it up, and there are some exciting kids in the pipeline. As a nation, we've sucked at the simple gut wrench even in domestic competition, but Wyatt Medlin, by himself, must have had about 20 in this tournament from start to match three of the best of three finals. And there were throwers! Really big stuff. I wish y'all coulda seen it.

I would say this about the ref in that match: Don't make a production of it. That was how a WWE ref would make the call. Especially, don't be that demonstrative in making a huge call that benefits a hometown wrestler on his hometown mat late in an important match. On the other hand, singlet pulls are very hard to see, so I appreciate the fact that the ref let everybody know what happened. I would suggest, though, blowing the whistle, signaling the call (like a normal human being), then jogging over to the head official to explain what happened. That way, it can be shared with the fans in attendance and the TV announcers. As for the ref getting run over by the action. It happens in Sumo at least once each tournament. The difference is that some of those Sumo refs are old enough to have taught the Five Point Exploding Heart Punch in Kill Bill: Volume Two. Also, the Dohyo in Sumo is almost twice as small as an Olympic-sized mat, and the ref knows everything is going out of bounds and usually at speed. Shouldn't happen in Freestyle. Did the ref blow his whistle early out of self-preservation? Could Zahid have finished that takedown?

I like the slip throw rule. The original poster writes: "No, then no one will take a chance at a throw!" That's old rhetoric. Sometimes old rhetoric is the best rhetoric. Would we ever see another arm throw in our lifetimes if slipped throws were penalized? Double over-hook throws? Headlock throws? Goodbye forever to those, my friends. Additionally, if you catch the wrestler attempting to throw and stop his momentum, you can score a takedown yourself or hit your own throw for exposure. So, there is a remedy for half-baked throw attempts that slip. What I would change is that a slip throw in the Passivity Zone would be a Caution and Two with choice of position. Otherwise, let them try! Unrelated, but I thought the image below was funny when I saw it the other day. Is that Alabama Greco? I love the internet:

Not International rules, but NCAA. It was a home dual for ILLINOIS versus Michigan. Mike Poeta is a Freshman wrestling up a weight at 165 against Ryan Churella. Match is tied as regulation time expires. Poeta hits a double in sudden victory for the apparent win. Crowd goes crazy. Ref calls an equipment grab, claiming that the ILLINI pulled on Churella's knee pad. We screamed our displeasure. I've never been louder expressing my dissatisfaction (except when I saw my toddler boy start to cross our street without looking both ways). Poeta loses by an infraction point in SV. So, in the first interview I ever had with then-Associate Head Coach Poeta, I ask him about it. He basically said, "It was a good call. I grabbed the knee pad. It was inadvertent as my fingers got stuck, but I grabbed it."

The ILLINI will be sending a powerful team: Kannon Webster, Braeden Scoles, Chris Moore, Logan Swaw, Will Baysingar and others. That's two Who's No 1 wrestlers, a true Freshman NCAA qualifier, a Big Ten Tournament starter and a spot starter. Probably have some incoming Freshmen/high school Seniors show up as well. So excite!

Greco is a manly pursuit and not for everyone.

Also featuring Matt & Hobbes (which in no way is a copyright violation of Garfield), Colonel Storny and everbody's favorite, Li'l Bormy. Today's strip is entitled "Wolverine Trap" and is a Matt & Hobbes:

Post Mortem on the Coverage: In my opinion, Peacock did an excellent job, much better than Flo. That's especially true regarding everything besides the finals. Those are usually less than impressive when viewed through a Flo lens. It was quick and easy to switch mats. The only glitches for me occurred after about :20 into a new match, the system reset. I did have a couple of short outages on day one. The cameras were top notch, and they brought you right into the action. Cameras now have zoom lenses! There were also actual camera operators who turned the cameras to continuously face the action. I was not aware that that was possible. I will certainly cancel Peacock after about a week. It offers almost nothing besides a Real Housewives for every major metropolitan area in America (and Dubai). I want to see Oppenheimer still, though. I did watch Superbad and was disappointed. The movie is a 113-minute fart joke. If you had told me that Bill Hader could be unfunny, I might have punched you. Still, I give a weak recommendation just for the McLovin character. Dude was perfect. To their credit, Trackwrestling finally fixed the information at the end of matches to show the true winners instead of only doing it for the first few matches, so that for the rest of the tournament it would always read something like "Patrick McKee wins 7-3." Still, I don't get why you have to do an extra click to "View Final Result." Whether you click or don't click there's gonna be the same amount of lag time before the next match shows up, so why not just show the final result? Track also got all of the results right, at least from what I saw. That is not usually the case. On the other hand, Trackwrestling still has this bugaboo:

THEY DID! Those NLWC refs let both Braunagels make their third-place matches, for some reason I can't understand, but Zac's girlfriend lost just now, thanks to an awful NLWC ref who hates true love.

To cool the temperature in the room, I want to provide a love story. Zac Braunagel is one match away from the third place bout just like his girlfriend, while his brother Danny Braunagel is already in the third place bout. All that despite these NLWC refs.

The Retherford/Lee referee is the same one for Burroughs/Nolf. What's a guy to do?

OMG. This is a WWE ref!

Now the refs are getting PHYSICALLY in the way of NLWC opponents. I think I saw a ref punch Zahid as well. Shenanigans!

The person not being fair was the mat referee. How do you shoot on somebody constantly backing up and running side to side and doing everything not to engage? Your response presumes that Nolf presented himself, which he absolutely did not. Now, since I have no dog in this argument, I'm out. Cheers!

No. This is a bad take I've now seen multiple times on this board. The ref blew the action dead. Then, Nolf jumped over. Let me stress this again: 1. REF BLOWS WHISTLE. 2. NOLF JUMPS OVER BURROUGHS. Yet, that same referee, after making those two awful calls that favored Nolf in the first period, then let Nolf run for two minutes in the second period even while the mat judge was calling for a Caution and One, and the other judge was calling for the match to be stopped. Very stinky.

How do you folks think you can take a shot when your opponent is constantly running backwards and to the side? I love seeing the fanatics, as I am one, and that makes it fun to argue. The Announcer said after the match that the mat judge was screaming for a caution and one, and that the other judge yelled to have the match stopped. Why would they do that? Because the mat ref let Nolf back-pedal, run to the side and hide for about two minutes. It was grievous and blatant. Burroughs needed to sit in a blind and hit Nolf with a shotgun like he was a quail. And for the record, I hate Burroughs for beating Poeta in the NCAA finals. I do believe in fairness, though.