steamboat_charlie

Jake Percival

A lot of people hate Flo, period. A lot of people side with Martin and dislike the "new" (not at all new anymore) regime at Flo. Pyles represents that regime as he's been a total company man the whole time, and was rapidly elevated to running all of wrestling content when others were moved out of the way. He also has had public falling-out's with a few of their former guys, including the purveyor of this site. Other people dislike him for trying to stick by Nomad after that whole thing. There's an extreme hyper-vocal minority on Twitter that love to go after him over literally anything, and I think that tends to overinflate the feeling that he's hated.

Pyles is a solid solo commentator. If you're turning on tournament feed and he's casting one of the mats, you're in luck. Navigate to another mat, turn on any dual on television, watch the NCAA tournament and tell me who's a better option. The rest of the conjecture about over-calling the match or doing too much play-by-play is down to personal preference. That being said, how are you going to compare this to football or basketball? It's a single 7 minute match that lasts maybe, what, 10 minutes of real time? Football and basketball commentators have hours to fill during a single game.

Oh... lol. I noticed the Steveson typo of course, but my brain apparently autocorrected straight over "Crooham." That's a new one.

https://www.wrestlestat.com/

I'm a little confused by the Steveson comparison... Is Crookham for real? Yes. Is Crookham Gable Steveson? No.

Do you actually watch matches or just look at the brackets afterward and formulate your takes?

The Bono/Askren relationship not working out was just about the most predictable thing ever. I don't think anyone needs to name call on either side. Now, I think it is more than fair to question Bono's judgment when it comes to that entire situation. AWA is producing the best talent in the state, and some of the best talent in the entire country overall. Putting yourself in a situation where you might be at odds with their staff... not so wise.

I like the idea of the ghost of Nick Suriano, wandering the halls in Happy Valley, casually haunting each highly ranked 125 lb recruit Cael brings in until he can finally get his revenge. Some say if you enter Rec Hall at night when it's empty you can still hear the ghost as he knee slides and shadow boxes his way through the facility, patiently awaiting his next mark, until there are none left.

I think that's the definition of parity, not depth. Eventually another Fadzaev will come along and run the weight for half a decade, and it won't mean there's less depth. Just less parity.

Interesting. Will keep an eye on him.

Right you are. Bad copy/paste job on my part.

We're only a couple weeks into the season, but I wanted to come back and update this, mostly so that I can point out the guys that I missed. How are the guys that I pointed out doing so far? 125) Marc-Anthony McGowan - Princeton - True Freshman. Anybody know what's up with him? Guess he's greyshirting? 133) Nic Bouzakis - Ohio State - RS Freshman. Rocky start. Loss to Latona I would expect but took two losses to tough but not upper echelon opponents at Clarion open. Has a lot of things to work on still. 141) Mac Church - Virginia Tech - True Freshman. Hasn't wrestled. 149) Michael Gioffre - Virginia - RS Freshman. Not a strong start. 4-3 with a couple of bad losses in there. 157) Meyer Shapiro - Cornell - True Freshman. Looking good. 165) Nick Hamilton - Virginia - RS Freshman. OK start, not great. 2 losses to unranked guys and might have picked up an injury. 174) MJ Gaitan - Iowa State - RS Freshman. Looks sharp, albeit against light competition. 184) Bennett Berge - SDSU - RS Freshman. Hasn't wrestled. 197) Luke Geog - Ohio State - RS Freshman. Looks very good, handled a tough Andy Smith fairly easily. Missed some training with a small injury in the month leading up to the season so gas tank not quite there yet. 285) Dayton Pitzer - Pitt - RS Freshman. Took a loss to Navy's heavyweight, which I wouldn't have expected. Early days still. Who did I miss? 125) Ryan Crookham - Lehigh. Obviously. Two top ten wins in one weekend, including against the world and NCAA champ... 165) Antrell Taylor - Nebraska. Kid looks very sharp, possibly the next James Green? 197) Mac Stout - Pitt. I mentioned him briefly... looks the part. Wish Geog would've been ready to go for Clarion so we could've seen that matchup. 197 is absolutely loaded.

Let's just say Miron isn't exactly known for his cool, even-headed demeanor.

Would have to be a major gas out or injury, I think. I really like Welsh. Really impressive and doesn't appear to have many weaknesses like most true freshmen, but... Mekhi Lewis only has 1 loss in his entire career to a non-all american. And that was in his first month of varsity competition back in 2018.

In a wrestling match?

You could make this same thread about any number of high level wrestlers that have come up through the ranks in recent years. He's one of the best, and he's active on socials so you see it more, but rest assured he's not the only kid who's been training almost daily since he was in grade school. He also (so far) doesn't seem to worry much about his weight, doesn't duck difficult competition, and bounces back immediately from losses. All of those are extremely promising indicators for his future, IMO.

Nobody seems to know who's going for either team, but I'll take a stab at a prediction: 125) Ventrezca maj. McCrone - 4-0 VT - major is in play here 133) Bouzakis dec. Latona - 4-3 VT - gut feeling, may be way wrong 141) Mendez maj. Church/Hunter - 7-4 OSU - I actually like Church but don't think he's ready for this matchup yet 149) Henson dec. D'Emilio - 7-7 157) Andonian dec. Gallagher - 10-7 VT 165) Hepner dec. Brady - 10-10 - If Hepner doesn't go, I'd probably favor Brady over Wilcox by a hair 174) Lewis dec. Welsh - 13-10 VT 184) Rogotzke dec. Fisher - 13-13 197) Geog dec. Smith - 16-13 OSU 285) Feldman dec. Catka - 19-13 OSU

What has happened in the past two years that would lead you to believe Kharchla should beat Lewis in a folkstyle match? Granted, we're not likely to see that happen this weekend, but if/when they do meet I'm not sure that's a particularly close bout.

Given how insanely short he is, I have it on good authority that he uses a doggy door to get in and out of his house. Thus saving significant time throughout the course of the season by virtue of not having to open or close his door. This allows him the extra training time that's required in order for him to bridge the gap between himself and the "normal" wrestlers that are 6' and taller.

Sure, he can qualify for NCAA's, I just meant that he wouldn't be a meaningful contributor to their point total. Re: certification meaning no redshirt--can someone confirm that is the case? I think that might be specific to Ivy league, but also not remembering the particulars of those rules clearly.

Interesting re: Haines/Mesenbrink. Certainly makes a ton of sense to redshirt Haines. Couldn't Facundo also take an Olympic shirt if he wanted? McHenry I just don't think is a point scorer at NCAA's.

Brain fart on my part. Was just thinking about Truax, forgot about Nagao. Mesenbrink I wasn't figuring into the lineup. Kerk old news and pre-NIL so slightly different. McHenry I just don't think is good.

Some other things to look out for: Penn State is chasing history. With nobody well positioned to challenge them, they have a chance to put together the most dominant season in NCAA history. They have a real chance at 10 AA's and 4+ champs. Doubt they will lose more than 2 matches in any dual. 170+ points isn't at all out of the question if they're healthy. John Smith on the way out? His apparent successor has been selected and brought back to Stillwater. How long is he going to stick around? Will Oklahoma State be competitive? They have the recruiting class in house... does he stay through their tenure or hand the keys over sooner rather than later... Daton Fix chasing the elusive title. Fix has gone 2,2,2,4. Vito looks unstoppable at the moment. If Fix takes another 2nd, I think he has to go into the book as the best to never win one. He's already in the conversation. The NIL era truly begins. Massive transfer movement taking place across the sport. Iowa and Michigan heavy with transfers. PSU dropping a bag to fill their 1 hole. Expect we will see even more movement going forward.

Kids coming in to college that have had success on the international stage (especially at Juniors) are basically bust-proof. The MAJORITY of junior world champs win at least one NCAA title. We don't have a single better indicator of future NCAA success.