boconnell

I agree that if you change the rules and retroactively score the match under rules neither guy was aware of, the outcome would be different.

I'm not in favor of its removal. I doubt it's removal gives more weight classes to men's and women's FS. I think removing Greco is just a sad day for wrestling. I was just pointing out that a great sport can be ruined by a lack of rules innovation, and at a high level greco has been ruined.

But without looking at who did or didn't win medals for us, there is zero context and zero relevance. Our next 65 KG guys are very different than the last ones and will compete in different 65 KG weight classes against different opponents. You mention we have 1 gold in that stretch. It's Bill Zaddick who is not close to the best American in this weight, but had a good draw and a good day. That's because he wasn't competing against the most consistently tough weight class in the world. He was competing against the 2006 66KG field. It didn't matter how good that weight usually was, it mattered who was there that day. Blaze and Forest won't compete against the guys of the past 25 years. They will compete mostly against the guys they've been competing against and the u20/u17 guys who preceded and followed them.

Greco is fun to do. At lower and middle levels it's fun to watch. At high levels it's 100% unwatchable. Nobody can score. It's a series of weird and mostly arbitrary ref calls deciding most matches. If football never invented the forward pass and they played running game only with modern athletes and every game was 0-0, the sport would be gone. Instead they figured out rules that allowed scoring. Greco cannot do that. They've tried and tried and tried. The sport cannot survive because nobody can ever score.

It's not pushing it to say Blaze or Forest have a great shot at gold. Also who won medals since 2000 in this weight class has exactly zero to do with who will win medals in the future. It's completely different wrestlers going forward than it was before these guys were born.

A good team like Mizzou never never had a chance at a title before this craziness.

Yep. The other guy just hand fought all match. His game plan was to shove and take ground. Even after he was behind he never really attempted offense.

It's weird that we both disagree and you think that makes it personal for me but not for you. I don't think it's a word issue. I think we're just disagreeing. I think you can disagree with refs and have bad body language and it can be absolutely nothing. I am less worried about Lockett or any athlete leaving the refs alone, and am more worried about Lockett and any athlete not letting any factor stop them from performing their best. I don't think there's any direct link between complaining and being taken out of the right head space. I think plenty of guys are stone faced and let their coach handle the refs and it still affects them. I think some athletes have no poker face and don't let it affect them. So I disagree that a guy winning a tight match by coming from behind is a lack of mental fortitude.

I think lots of athletes complain to the ref without it showing any lack of mental toughness. Burroughs and Dake are the two biggest complainers in the sport and maybe the two mentally toughest athletes we have. The complaining doesn't lessen their ability to wrestle and win. In Lockett's loss to Russia I think you could say he got caught up in complaining and it affected how he wrestled. That's a mental toughness issue. Complaining and not letting it affect your performance is not a mental toughness issue. It's an optics issue at worst. There were no mental toughness issues against Germany this morning.

Great win from Stanich. Russian just wanted to push before, during, and after the whistle.

Are you kidding me? You declare something is true and then say you didn't say it's a fact? That's some serious word salad. You declare what's true and then claim it's all opinion when called on your truth declarations. And all while questioning a guy's mental toughness based on him not being happy but still doing all the right things. If that's your version of enjoying the semifinals then I'll leave you to it.

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Just because you declare he lacks mental fortitude doesn't make it true. It's awesome you call it a fact and then say I have to let you disagree.

You said he lacks mental fortitude. While coming from behind to win a close match.

Yep. The way he won that close match late was definitely mentally weak. Coming from behind after a close call went against him was bad.