BAC

Here's what kills me about that. If you scroll down, you get: Kenneth Allen is the 282nd ranked of 291 Who are the 9 guys ranked LOWER than this guy?

For the record, I hate Ohio. Sorry. Normally I crap on Ohio every chance I get. But the wrestling population there is enormous, knowledgeable, passionate, and lets face it, there's not much else to do there other than sit at home and OD on fentanyl. Cleveland set an attendance record when NCAAs were there (as did Philly and Pittsburgh, two other places high on my list), its dirt cheap, and it borders on criminal that USA Wresting has ignored it as a venue for decades. I'm surprised Ohio folks still pay their USAW membership dues; they should've gone on payment strike a decade ago.

Convention bureaus showing interest would be great but lets not overstate their role: they aren't gatekeepers, they're marketers. Whether a venue hosts an event isn't their call. If venue owners or their agents don't go to USA Wrestling then USA Wrestling must go to them. Its not enough for USA Wrestling to just wait for bids to float in when they have an event to plan -- that's not doing their job nor fulfilling their organizational mission. When corporations want to attract diverse talent, they go to where the talent is and sell themselves to solicit an application. USAW should do the same. Most venues have an RFP link on their website. If they struggle, there's plenty of brokers out there with the relationships and knowhow to get it done. Or apparently you, since it sounds like you're neck-deep in this stuff right now. Agree with your options. Tempe is a strong choice out west. In NJ, Newark is horrifying but there's multiple shore options and the Cure arena near Trenton draws on the wrestling-rich Lehigh Valley population, and of course NJ wresting fans are already used to going to AC to see wrestling.

I've seen sporadic attendance figures but not sure if they're collected anywhere. JB is right that none of them are going to be all that high. Some of the possible venues I mentioned would draw more. Some would draw less. But the point isn't as simple as maximizing attendance. It is spreading around events to various parts of the country to make sure everyone gets a fair chance to see good wresting, to make sure that travel costs aren't always borne by the same areas every single time, and to draw in new fans. For example, if the Coralville attendance was around 2K, how many of those were also at OTTs and the World Cup last year? Probably the vast majority. Put it somewhere else and you're drawing in new fans. I should also clarify that I'm not sure how the selection process works. I'm dumping on USAW, but the World Cup is UWW. But its a good guess that USAW played a significant role in convincing UWW that somehow the Iowa City area should host *another* major freestyle event. Sigh.

On what basis? Dude. Read the rest of my post, just not the first sentence. Other cities to target? Pittsburgh, Cleveland, Philadelphia, St. Louis, Chicago, Fresno, Atlantic City, Minneapolis, Bethlehem, Suffolk, Tempe...

JB, you know I like and respect you and your work. And I agree with much of what you wrote. But I strongly disagree on the venue issue, particularly as it pertains to USA Wrestling. There is no excuse whatsoever for USA Wrestling to shoehorn so many domestic wrestling events into Iowa, time and time again. Why does USA Wrestling exist? Yes it coordinates programming, but to what end? To make money, like a corporation that answers to shareholders? No. Their own mission statement gives the answer: "to create interest and participation in these programs." (https://www.teamusa.org/usa-wrestling/about-us/our-mission). You don't grow the sport when you jam wrestling events in the same 20-mile radius time and time again, with the same 70,000 people. That's how you kill a sport. You are gaining no new fans as almost all attendees have been there, done that. And that doesn't even address the basic fairness that USA Wrestling owes to its members, only a couple percent of which are based in Iowa. They have a duty to make these programs available to everyone, but it isn't even close. The west coast gets virtually nothing, virtually ever. The east coast virtually nothing, virtually ever. How many USAW events have there been in the entire states of California or Pennsylvania (the two biggest wrestling states, combined population: 52 million) in the past 25 years? Answer: Fewer than Iowa City area (population: 70,000) got in the last 2. USA Wrestling has over 200,000 members and it is blatantly shirking its duty of fairness to the vast majority. And that's to say nothing of the racial tone-deafness of jamming every almost wrestling event in an area that is virtually all white, despite "diversity" ostensibly being a USA Wrestling "core value" per the above link. Am I say its all self-dealing by USA Wrestling? No, though I need to bite my tongue here. But at best its gross negligence. I get that some of these remote venues make a more active, concerted effort to secure these events. Good for them. And they may offer a better financial deal. Again, great. And some venues in preferred areas may not respond to RFPs. Rut-row. So if you don't care about your job or mission, its easy to just take the deal you get from the guy you know and move on. But USA Wrestling's job isn't to just to take the best financial deal, from those who push hardest. That's just lazy, and will only land us in the most remote regions of the country, time and time again -- which is EXACTLY what has happened. They need to get off their butts, think about where wrestlers actually are, aggressively and actively solicit bids from those areas, and put events there -- fairly and evenly distributed among the USAW constituency, with additional outreach to targeted growth areas. (A good albeit rare example: Bout at the Ballpark dual in Arlington TX in Feb this year.) I'm not saying this sort of branching out is easy to execute, and I'm not saying attendance will suddenly explode if we do. But we must end these years of jamming events into Iowa (and occasionally other forlorn places). If we branch out more, sometimes the attendance figures will be higher, sometimes lower, but at least it is fair to the membership and reaches a new audience. Sometimes the revenue will be lower, or venue cost higher -- sometimes much higher -- but again, USAW's charge isn't to send dividend checks to shareholders, but to grow the sport. And it is an investment in the growth of the sport: more new viewers and participants means more USAW members and more money. Reasonable people can differ on which venues are ideal, but this much is evident: dragging the same 500 lookalike Iowans to the same events in the same slingshot radius, year after year, is the EXACT OPPOSITE of the growth, fairness and outreach that USAW must do. End of shout into the void, and sorry to hijack a college-oriented topic.

In the international styles, no. Not even sure there's any Iowa natives on the senior world teams, and the Hawkeye Wrestling Club has been famously dormant the last few years. If there's an argument that Iowa is an "epicenter" in the international styles, its that Iowa is the place that USA Wrestling annoying shoves all of its events. Not that I'm bitter about that, but USAW uses the same crappy rationale that it is "central" and "affordable" and sometimes they trot out the ol' "the only place that would make a bid" rationale. Its offensive and scandalous. You also get the "Iowa fans show up" line, ignoring that they have maybe 2-3% of wrestling fans and yet garner about 70% of events, yielding attendance figures that are a fraction of what they should be. Its a bunch of Iowans self-dealing to other Iowans, preventing the sport from growing, and feeding into the stereotype that its a sport for farm hands when they aren't chewing hayseed. Again, not that I'm bitter about that. As for college wrestling, give credit where it is due -- the U of Iowa is regularly at the top or near the top of dual attendance figures. I don't think that makes them the "epicenter" as PSU has comparable turnout. And I think you'll find a far greater population of wrestling fans in other wrestling hotbeds like the greater Pittsburgh and Cleveland areas, with comparable regions in numerous other states. There's also easily a dozen states with more wrestlers with Iowa and they are still just a tiny fraction of the overall fan base. Even so, Iowa fans show up and support their team and that's awesome.

This thread is more than I've learned about the US Greco program in the last 5 years, and it still isn't much. Why is everyone so quiet? Certainly USA Wrestling should say more. They fire Lindland without explanation, then force out (I assume) Ivanov without explanation. Then they drop this doozy last week, buried in an article about Herb House: "At this time, the organization is not seeking a General Manager, Greco-Roman Programs, nor a National Greco-Roman Head Coach." See https://www.teamusa.org/USA-Wrestling/Features/2022/December/05/Herb-House-hired-as-Assistant-National-Coach Why? They won't say. OK, so how about the wrestling media step up? Every single article I've seen about Lindland and Ivanov's departures merely states the fact of their leaving, and parrots the press releases -- without asking a single question, nor making a single observation, nor securing a single third-party comment. And as for the biggest Greco story of the year -- G'Angelo Hancock dropping out of Worlds just before it started, in purported "retirement" -- I'm aware of a single article (from flowrestling.com), and I couldn't help but laugh at Flo's penetrating expose: Hancock, 25, was only getting better. Now he’s gone. And no one seems to care. When was the last time a high-level athlete retired weeks before the biggest competition of the year? . . . . It just doesn’t happen. If it did, the media would analyze it for weeks. Bye-bye, G’Angelo. Hope you enjoyed your stay in Greco. See https://www.flowrestling.org/articles/7965845-gangelo-hancocks-departure-from-greco-left-many-questions That's Flo's hard-hitting piece: gee, how come the media isn't analyzing this. No interviews, no attempts to reach out to G'Angelo or any coaches or teammates or anyone at USA Wrestling for comment. Just "Bye-bye, G'Angelo." You'd think that flowrestling doesn't consider itself, you know... wrestling media. Apparently not, since they dropped the question just as quickly as they raised it. OK, so the media won't do its job -- TimmyHands excepted. But here we are, with a new forum, no longer under the thumb of USA Wrestling with its censor-button at the ready. I'm pretty sure Willie couldn't give a crap if people air USA Wrestling's dirty laundry here. Yet even with many of the posts here, while more than I knew before, are just so... cryptic. Doing something "a bit unethical"? What's that all about? What's with the constant coaching turnover, the sudden retirement, the refusal to hire a new head coach? I realize most commenters are as out-of-the-know as I am, but I'm sure there are also people in the know who read this. Make an account under a pseudonym and spill the beans. What's going on and how can it be fixed? I get that Greco has bigger problems than secrecy -- e.g. limited interest, limited exposure, minimal funding, USAW indifference. But if you're a bright young Greco prospect or his parent, and you see all these secretive behind-the-door machinations with no one talking -- the sort of stuff you see at a university right before it drops its wrestling program -- would you continue to pursue that interest or move to something else?

The Snyder v Ghasempour match reminded me of Snyder's first match against Sadulaev when the latter bumped up. Like Sadulaev, Ghasempour was able to go with Snyder for the first 3/4ths of the match, but soon learned how difficult it is to be undersized and have to deal with Snyder's blend of endurance, power and pressure. Sadulaev wilted, and that's what happened to Ghasempour too, and Snyder steamrolled at the end. The only real difference is Sadulaev is a bit ahead of Snyder and Ghasempour technique-wise, so he was able to score on Snyder before wilting. I get the sense Snyder and Ghasempour are on similar levels technique-wise. So while Sadulaev was able to beat Snyder when he bulked up and had improved (but still inferior) conditioning, Snyder will still be favored against Ghasempour even if he bulks up into a full-sized 97kg, as I don't think he has the skill set to overcome Snyder's superior conditioning and pressure.

Lots of high-profile losses based on questionable officiating. One is Lockett's. You never like to see a kid lose 2-1 where all the other kid's points came from cautions for petty technical violations (toe not touching the line). I'd have to rewatch it to see how legit/illegit the calls were, but tough to watch either way. Blaze's loss to DeLuca was based on a fleeing that mat call induced by DeLuca doing a throw-by on the edge of the mat. Insane call. Plainly wrong. Glad to see Blaze get revenge in consies. Bailey's loss might get the prize though. Takes the kid down in OT and puts a leg in, and is riding a bit high -- and ref doesn't call the TD, instead lets them wrestler for another 6-7 seconds until the other kid gets the reversal, which the ref THEN calls as a TD.

I don't hear anyone saying the tongue wag was a major infraction, just that it was over the line. And it was. Not a big deal, but in a dual with a political rival where perceived disrespect can be magnified, athletes need to avoid stuff like that. Overall I thought the sportsmanship was exceptional on both sides. There were passionate celebrations, but not inappropriate. Some mildly flared tempers at 70kg and 97kg, but just normal chippiness and all outweighed by how respectful the competitors were to each other at the end of each match. Not that competitors should feel obliged to hug it out at the end, but almost all matches ended with embrace and demonstrated respect. Great dual to watch.

You're giving me too much credit. 55kg should have been 57kg, and 60kg was doubly wrong because I meant to say 61kg, but it shouldn't have been included at all since its not an Olympic weight, only worlds.

Just a brief note to acknowledge my idiocy on the weights. Typed from memory, and clearly my memory stinks.

I know no one had "Ethan Laird" on their 197lb NCAA champ bingo card, but we're sleeping on him nonetheless. He's been around forever and just keeps getting better. Won 3 matches at NCAAs in 2019, 3 more in 2020, lost in blood round in 2021 before redshirting last year, when he finished 3rd at 97kg WTTs. Wins over Elam, Gear, Woodley, Beard from his 197 days, then last 2 seasons up at HWT, and now back at 197 and unbeaten. Yes, Dean is a marquis win, but Laird is a load who should be on everyone's NCAA radar.

To be fair, I think there's a mutual respect among US and Iranian soccer players too, just as there is among wrestlers. We saw that before, during and after the game this week. I've always been impressed with Iranian athletes' sportsmanship, and US athletes have generally reciprocated it. If there's a difference, it is in the sports' governing bodies. Can you imagine USA Wrestling sending out a tweet that desecrates the Iranian flag, as did US Soccer? Not in a million years. I'm all for human rights and all, and I'd love to see Iranian women have more freedoms, but what the US Soccer Federation did was beyond disrespectful. USA Wrestling, to its credit, has NEVER mixed politics and sports that I can recall. I guess there was a little dust-up last year about some Iranian staff members being denied their visas and then refusing to send their team to a dual in the US, but I think the Iranians understood that was the Department of State, not USA Wrestling.

Seeing that Penn State just received an award from USA Wrestling for its Olympic support (https://www.teamusa.org/USA-Wrestling/Features/2022/December/01/USA-Wrestling-honors-Penn-State), I got to wondering: How would an Olympic team (if it were in 2022) fare if composed of ONLY current PSU wrestlers? Its a surprisingly strong team -- better than any recent roster of current collegiate wrestlers I can think of. 55Kg: Howard. He's injured now and he wouldn't be a medal threat, but he's made a multiple cadet world teams. Took 5th once and a Youth Olympic gold. A weak link here but could win a match with a good draw. 60Kg: RBY. He has multiple folkstyle wins over world silver medalist Fix, and his style is well suited to freestyle with his neutral prowess. He'd be a definite medal threat. 65Kg: Bartlett. Though he isn't lighting it up in folkstyle, his freestyle background is strong. He's a past junior world medalist and a PanAm champ. Could he medal at the Olympics? Well, not now. But competitive? Yes. 74Kg: Starocci. He made the senior world team last go-round. After JB and Dake, he's already right there in the mix with the likes of Marstellar, Vincenzo and Dieringer. He narrowly lost at U23s this year and took a bronze. Probably not likely to medal but a threat? I think so. 86Kg: Brooks. Has multiple folk wins over Olympic bronze medalist. Heir apparent to DT. A plausible medal threat. 97Kg: Dean. Don't know much about his freestyle background, but the weight class is pretty barren after Snyder. Not a medal threat, but has beaten multiple age-group medalists in folk and could sneak in a win. 120kg: Kerkvliet. 1x Cadet gold, 2x Cadet/Junior silver, 1x U23 5th -- all from 2019 and earlier, before his level jump at PSU. Just beat past U23 champ Cassioppi in folk. Tough to medal at senior level with how good the top 3 are internationally but still a threat with the right draw. OK, so its not like they'd light it up, but nor would they embarrass themselves. Curious to see how many of these guys end up with senior level medals.

Didn't Metcalf get unceremoniously spladled and pinned, and still won the Hodge? If Lee and Yianni win NCAAs they're co-Hodges.

What are you seeing that would make you say that? I agree he looked excellent last night but... Hamiti is good but not THAT good. I think O'Toole's a coin flip at best against Carr (I'd pick Carr), and only slightly better odds against Griffith. He has no senior level credentials to speak of. PFP, I don't see how he's in the same conversation as Lee, Brooks, RBY or Yianni (despite his loss), and personally I'd have at least Fix and Starocci ahead of him too. But I know you've been around the block so I'm curious what makes you put him above all the other multi-time champs and senior world medalists.

My main takeaways: -- Gomez is streaky but for real. He level-jumped big time. When he turned it on against Sasso, he was unstoppable -- 3 TDs in 30 seconds. No one takes Sasso down like that. I see Gomez mailing it in a couple more times this season for a couple more losses but winning a NCAA finals barnburner with Yianni. -- Brooks is as good as any wrestler in college right now. I'd love to see him and Taylor in the PSU room. Toss in Dake and Starocci, and the PSU room is the only place Brooks is going to find any competition this year at all. -- Kerkvliet will win an NCAA title this year. He has the same offense he showed last year, plus extra size and strength. He won't lose to Iowa again and he's now good enough to beat the ASU kid too.

How is this even debatable? Both guys have one loss, but Yianni's is more recent and Gomez one the head-to-head, so he's ahead.

Its fine as long as monetary exchanges are forbidden. You can allow sig bets, maybe even bets for charitable donations, but not actual money exchanges. Individuals can do that on random threads while you look the other way, and you're fine -- but if you're going to set up a whole separate forum designed for "bets," where money can change hands -- and then play an enforcement role for non-payment! -- then you're in the gambling business. Whether or not you take a rake. Lets try to make it through at least the first day before getting shut down by the state Attorney General's office, eh Willie? :]

Shout out to Willie and his team at IM. Appreciate you guys keeping this alive.

He looked amazing in winning a Cadet world title this summer, but then came back to earth a bit when little Ferrari majored him at Who's Number One a couple months ago. He has a dynamic offense and will be a good fit at PSU.