Eagle26

To me, it didn’t sound like retirement was a definite, but I would guess it will be. Either way, congrats to him on a great career!

I thought it was great! Made me chuckle each time

Definitely we want more weights. The issue that a lot of people don’t realize is that it has nothing to do with the number of medals. It’s all about the number of participants. So to get more weights you’d have to make the brackets smaller than 16 (which no countries outside of the top 3 or 4 would vote for), or cut Greco which might sound like a good idea to US but not the rest of the world. So we are pretty much stuck

Rivera’s bronze match has to be up there.

Honest question and I’m not sure the answer, but I get the impression that maybe we are focusing too much on heavy strength training? We see athletes with a lot of mass, and I’m wondering if that’s part of the conditioning issues? Those huge muscles take up a lot of oxygen. Look at guys like Taz, Amouzad, all of the Japanese wrestlers and you can tell they are strong but don’t have the mass like Snyder, Brooks, Lee, Parris, and Zain. Dake is probably the exception, but we know he does more “functional” training. I have no idea how these other train, so it’s just a theory, but does anyone else think this could be an issue?

I don’t think they are trying to diminish silver and bronze… they are simply looking for a good story line. That’s what the media does. As you said the medal count wasn’t even a race. The gold count is a nail biter and generates some excitement.

Sleeping in on the last day?! Disappointed lol

You are talking about two different things here. Obviously an individual would rather have one gold than multiple silvers and bronze. But we are talking about a TEAM. That is totally different. One team member getting gold and then six out seven wrestlers DNP with none even wrestling for a medal is not even close to as good as medals in half the weights and another in 5th. In what world is 4 out of 6 in the top 5 worse than 1 out of 7 in the top 5? Again, I’m not saying I’m happy with our performance. We should’ve done better. But our team is still much better than it was 16 years ago

No it’s not even close. Yes, we underperformed. Yes, we deserve some constructive criticism. But USA wrestling is not falling apart, and it’s not even close to our worst performance in 50 years. Even just back in 2016 was probably a worse performance. We only had two medals compared to 3. And as it’s been mentioned 2008 we only had one medal and even though it was gold there were seven weights and we had six other wrestlers who didn’t even come close to medaling. No way that’s better than this year! And that’s only going back 16 years…

No one would have predicted that

Wow! Good call @Spladle08

Wow! Two incredible matches in a row! This is some awesome wrestling!

Rivera wanted it and his coach wouldn’t hit the button. Takes some balls as the coach to stand up and make the right call but he did. Watching live I actually thought there was a chance Rivera didn’t expose, but the coach had a perfect view. I went back and watched the replay… and looks like the coach made the right call. Well done

Wow!!! Incredible match by Rivera! I was a little upset the coaches didn’t challenge that 4, but now I’m happy!

So sad to hear this!

Of course

I think that would be tougher than it sounds and the takedown is irrelevant here. Basically, you could say I got to my feet and the exchange was 1-1 instead of 1-0. I’m ok with that

I agree but at that point, I think you just need to go full freestyle. The main difference between free and folk is control vs exposure. If you change that, you totally change the sport. I’d be in favor of it, but I know we are in the minority

You simply use the step out rule as it is in freestyle.

I agree. I think the best realistic solution is to implement more freestyle concepts in to folkstyle. A step out would be a great way to start

I agree with everything except the last sentence. I think a lot people (especially those only watch international wrestling once every four years) started crying doom and gloom because they thought USA was so much better than the rest of the world. Then others had to chime in with how it’s not as bad as it seems because the rest of the world is just phenomenal too. As usual there’s a little truth to both sides. Zain and Snyder both ran into a better wrestler. Their game plans and preparation looked sound IMO. I think Spencer could’ve opened it up a little more but he needed to slow down Higuchi, so not a real bad strategy either. Brooks made one rookie mistake and it cost him. Your suggestion would help with that, but I’m not going to crucify Brooks over that one mistake after wrestling folkstyle his whole life. Dake and Parris definitely had bad matches and I can understand some criticism there. They did not make in match adjustments and that’s a problem that needs fixing. I think all your suggestions are excellent… I doubt #3 will ever happen though

Gotta spray it on the lungs because that’s what it helps most Love it!

Maybe thats one thing he can beat Steveson at?

Wow! Ugly way to win but he finally got that elusive Olympic gold

Tough to go from thinking you won the Olympics to having to wrestle but that’s the right call