Wrestleknownothing

The same guys who in high school used to dream about careers in the sport are now both 33 with six NCAA individual titles, seven world championships and an Olympic gold and bronze medal among them. They swear it wasn’t all that long ago when they shared carefree summer days in which a teenaged Dake would do gainers off a 20-foot cliff into the water below while Taylor, the coveted high school wrestling prospect, was nervous just looking below. In early May, the two had no choice but to dive in as they approached their own career crossroads with the sport that first brought them together. Taylor would be introduced as Oklahoma State’s head coach on May 10 and has worked since then to try and tie up loose ends both with other business ventures and also with the friends and colleagues he left behind. “There were a lot of tough conversations,” Taylor said. “When I did accept the job, I wasn’t able to call all the people I wish I could’ve called before the news hit, but things move quick. It’s one of the highest-profile jobs in wrestling. … There’s a pretty large ripple effect with the decision that I made.” Taylor and Dake have worked together from afar to open their business in State College, all while Dake, the top-seeded freestyle wrestler at 74 kg, has his sights set on Olympic gold this August in Paris, where competition in his weight class begins Friday. “It’s almost like a grieving process in a lot of ways,” Dake said of Taylor’s departure. “It’s like, man, I just lost a guy that I talk to every day because he has other priorities now and he has other things he’s doing. … The proximity is just different now.” In an alternate universe, one that seemed realistic until the final seconds of what would be Taylor’s last match at the Trials, both would be getting ready to head to Paris. Like so many of the parallels of their wrestling careers — winning their first world championship together in Budapest in 2018, each securing a medal in Tokyo in 2021 — they’d do this one together, too. Maybe they’d head off into the sunset afterward. At the very least, they’d prolong whatever decisions had to come next. Both still say their bodies feel better now than they did in their early 20s. Dake says he’s 50-50 on training for the Olympics in 2028. The idea of competing in Los Angeles could make another training cycle a little more appealing, he said.

Excerpts: “As soon as I got called for an interview, I called Kyle and asked him what he thought and got his perspective,” Taylor said. Dake, the four-time world champion and 2020 Olympic bronze medalist, has a longtime friendship with Taylor. It’s since extended to a business partnership, too. Once wrestling rivals, Dake moved from Ithaca, New York, to State College in 2022 to train in the same room as Taylor and the rest of the Nittany Lion Wrestling Club. They’d raise their kids together here while chasing their own wrestling dreams. “With any decision, you have pros and cons, and we talked through those things,” Taylor continued. “The decision to take the job was a pretty time-pressing matter, so it wasn’t like we got to sit down and have lengthy conversations, but I tried to talk to him the best that we could.” There they were, two of the most prolific American wrestlers of all time, now trying to figure out how their wellness club in State College, the venture they spent the last 15 months planning and years longer thinking about during road trips, could get off the ground with Dake gearing up to compete in the Olympics and Taylor zig-zagging the country after accepting one of the most coveted head coaching jobs in wrestling.

Get some media credentials and stop being so whiny. Man up.

Ok, after dinner I will get on it.

With Dake about to go in Paris, The Athletic has a great article about Kyle Dake and David Taylor. Hopefully, this is not behind a firewall. https://www.nytimes.com/athletic/5643036/2024/08/08/kyle-dake-david-taylor-olympics-wrestling-paris/ If it is, let me know and I will share some tidbits.

Perhaps a fine cognac would be called for in Paris. Maybe a Remy Martin Louis XIII.

Au. Nice touch. And I love the French mother/grandmother angle. I hope he lives his drram.

DT said it himself that he felt the fire slip away before OTT. Taylor would not have performed like he did last year.

Here is the pertinent section of he rule: i) If an athlete is injured and can’t continue the bout, he will lose the match by injury. The concerned athlete won’t have to attend the second weigh-in and he will be ranked based on the points that he earned until his injury. If the injured athlete is ready to compete for his next match, he has to receive the approval of the UWW Doctor. For all the other type of injuries or diseases that happen after the first day of competition and out of competition, the concerned athlete will have to attend the second weigh-in otherwise he will be eliminated of the competition and ranked last, without rank.

This guy?

Will it be anything like the recession predicted for 2023? If so, sign me up.

Everyone wants to be the next Stephen A. Smith. I would be ok with one less rather than one more.

Yes, and Taylor's statement was that he lost the fire. Without the fire he got worse.

Brooks gets the passivity point then bulldozes a double with 11 seconds to go to take a 3-0 lead into the break

AM Brooks in the PM

And a quick TD, turn. 14-4 Lee. Tech

Challenge won. Now 10-4 Lee. we keep wrestling

12-0 Lee that was quick pending challenge

Nice Lee promo vid

somewhere LJ Black is crying

Do you control the vertical and the horizontal?

looks that way to me too on the nbcsports page

Correct

There is that. And she didn't even make the semis.