BAC

Not just the top 3 current recruits. Each have a legit claim to being the best high school wrestler of all time. Other guys may have been as good, but the accomplishments of these three while still in high school stack up favorably to (as good or better than) every other guy before them. All three have multiple NCAA champions on their hit list, and I don't think there's anyone besides these three to make the finals of making senior US freestyle team while still in high school -- at least not since Jimmy Carr in early 70s. To my eyes, they've been jockeying for "best overall" the past year, with the top spot changing multiple times. Bassett is great too but I'd have him and Lockett a notch below.

Thoughts: --Lee looks as good as ever. Not as quick, but yet he outwrestled Luke in neutral. Expected him to dominate on top, but thought Luke would be closer on his feet. --Woods' style seems to have really opened up. Mich was a good move. Don't see him medaling but you never know. Feel for McKenna. Yianni should've been here. --Holy cow, PJ. Does this settle the "best high schooler of all time" debate? Knocks off 2 defending NCAA champs and now a 4x'er. I guess Jax may have something to say in a month. That said, Yianni looked small. He should be at 65kg. --Carr got it done. Could easily have gone the other way. The cut in Mesenbrink's head was probably his biggest enemy as it caused lots of stoppages. Carr's just so quick though, and if he can keep his conditioning in top form, he can keep winning this matchup. Carr can medal. --Levi looks good and methodical, but I'm not sure I see a medal. Dake should be here. --Really happy for Zahid. He's really putting it together and you can tell how he's improved with Taylor. His conditioning is better too. Dake has no business being here. That's 2 world teamers that we lost because they're too lazy to cut weight. Sorry not sorry. --What a war. Psyched for Trent. Good battle. Trent can medal. --Snyder looks smooth, though I'm not sure Zillmer had much for him. --Wyatt got exposed there a bit. He can medal but needs to tighten up a bit. He's not going to be able to gut guys at worlds like that. Fun though. 2nd match, and 2nd match of PJ/Yianni, were ones for the ages. (Side note: CP needs to learn the difference between a 4-pointer and a 5 pointer.)

Um...

... would she look just like a female version of him, and win multiple NCAA shot put titles? Answer: Yes and yes. https://www.msn.com/en-us/sports/other/mya-lesnar-proved-she-s-brock-lesnar-s-kid-with-a-second-ncaa-title/ar-AA1GEVok?ocid=entnewsntp&pc=U531&cvid=f8561602a2544561bd3b58c625a51541&ei=13

I got: 57kg: Lee 2-1 61kg: Arujau 2-0 65kg: McKenna 2-0 70kg: Yianni 2-1 74kg: Mesenbrink 2-1 79kg: Haines 2-1 86kg: Dake 2-1 92kg: Hidlay 2-0 97kg: Snyder 2-0 125kg: Wyatt 2-0 Should be some good ones.

To quote Andy from Shawshank Redemption: "Don't be so obtuse." The title of the team they're assembling is literally the "2025 NCAA Quarter Century Team," according to them. Not the 2025 Quarter Century Team. It's about NCAAs. A NCAA title is a prerequisite. They could have made a world/Olympic medal a prerequisite. They didn't. Read their description of the finalists they selected for 125 (here). Spencer has an Olympic silver. They don't even mention it. Abas has an Olympic medal. They don't even mention it. They don't mention international accomplishments at all. (Two of the four finalists have none.) They *only* mention NCAA accomplishments. Which makes sense, since it is -- again -- the "2025 NCAA Quarter Century Team." If your point is Flo didn't impose specific rules or criteria for fan voting, that's true. If you want, you can vote for the guy with the longest win streak, the stubbiest nose, the nicest haircut. But it would still be nonsensical to say, "Just wait til Abas gets his sweet haircut this weekend, that'll make this discussion moot." The fact that they don't rule out a given criteria doesn't mean its determinative, or even relevant. To be fair (and I posted this earlier), I do think freestyle is relevant when someone's earned a medal during, or immediately after, their NCAA career -- especially if they do so using largely folkstyle technique. They gives us broader insight to how good they were at their NCAA peak, and helps us compare wrestlers across generations. Apparently Flo agrees, as in the 133lb discussion, they mention Vito's world title between his Jr and Sr years. Rightly. It suggests the peak he reached after his Jr year was super high, and helps offset the significance of his losses to Crookham the following year. At the same time, a world medal well after graduation is less relevant, since the greater the delay, the harder it is to use as a proxy for how good someone was when they were an NCAA wrestler. So for example, JB's gold just months after graduating (knocking off the 2x defending Russian world champ) is more telling than, say, his gold in 2022, or DT's world gold 4 years after he graduated. A lot happened in between. Back to Abas/Lee: Both got an Olympic silver 2 years after graduating. Not super relevant given passage of time, but does show a world-level skillset at a somewhat proximate time. Had Abas continued to win world medals after that, it wouldn't really tell us any more or less about how good he was as an NCAA wrestler. Same with Lee. It'd move them up on Flo's freestyle-heavy "top 100" list (here), just not this one.

Chael put out a video update. I hesitate to link it at all, since it sounds like he's largely just parroting the unverified stuff that's already out there on social media, but it does seem he's trying to be careful.

That's right, I forgot the process. Looking at the article I linked, experts picked 45, then fans picked the top 5 in each weight category. And, looking at the nominees, there was no doubt a recency effect at play there, too, with very few old-timers on that team.

I'm not sure what I'm saying that's confusing you or that you disagree with. I think I'm being pretty clear.

What, at Worlds? I'm pretty sure the "quarter-century" team is focused on folkstyle, not freestyle. Lee winning Worlds wouldn't move the needle on Abas being the clearly better pick at 125lbs in folk. Heck, if it were focused on freestyle, both Abas and Lee would be behind Gilman and Cejudo, whose accomplishments eclipse both of them. I'll grant you that if Lee wins Worlds this year -- and I'll be screaming my head off for him to do so -- it'll mean he's had a better freestyle career than Abas, who never won a title. Abas was pretty darn good though -- Olympic silver, and in 2003, he upset the 2x Russian Olympic champ Mavlet Batirov (but ended up 5th). Retired too soon, though came back in '08 and lost in OTT finals, 2 matches to 1, vs. Cejudo who, as we know, took gold that year. It's funny, in 2005, when selections done by a panel of experts rather than the whims of brand-new fans, Abas was named to the NCAA's 75th Anniversary team, as one of the 15 best collegiate wrestlers of all time (here). The only other wrestlers deemed worthy to be mentioned alongside Abas in the lightweight division were Brands (Tom), Gable, Smith and Uetake. Fast-forward 20 years, and Abas can't even get picked over a guy who took 6th as a senior, and Pyles' last video has Abas behind even 1x'er Robles. Sigh.

So if only Abas was smart enough to MFF out of NCAAs his freshman year, instead of wrestling back and taking a loss en route, THEN (and only then) he might be as good as Lee, since he could say he has "only one loss"? C'mon. Stop rewarding guys who don't compete. No one said Lee isn't mentally tough in general. Dude's endured a lot. But on that day in March, he wasn't mentally ready/capable of wrestling back, so he is only 6th best that year. That equates to three Ls/presumptive Ls.

Some great picks here. I'm just going to add a few in who left an impression: 125 - Chris Fleeger. Never got it done but so much fun to watch. 133 - Eric Jurgens. I hated how good he was. 141 - Michael Lightner. Soooooo smooth. 149 - Darrion Caldwell. The giant slayer! 157 - Bryan Snyder. Best I ever saw to not win a title, and the real reason JB got so good. 165 - Donny Pritzlaff. Incredible on his feet. 174 - Chris Pendleton. Even Askren could never touch him. He was just leaving the scene as Flo was entering it, and slips under the radar. 184 - Greg Jones. Could watch that guy on his feet all day. Just so slick. 3x'er. 197 - J'Den Cox. He's the real #1 here, but I'm not sure he can win a popularity contest with Nickal, or maybe Flo screws him by slotting in Cael, Snyder or Brooks here (despite them only having 1 year at this weight). His defensive style wasn't much fun, but he knew how to hold position and win. HWT - Tommy Rowlands. Big guy who wrestled like a lightweight.

That's not how I remember it. Ramos rag-dolled Lee earlier in the season, running up the score to 8-1 before Lee got on top and pinned him. That wasn't the only time Lee got put on his back that season either. The NCAA semis loss was an upset, no doubt, but it wasn't a fluke (Ramos would've won without the pin), and I don't think many following closely thought Lee was untouchable. He was erratic that season--as dominant as ever on top, leading to insane stats, but vulnerable. Abas, meanwhile, finished his career with a win streak (95) almost equal to Lee's total number of wins (98). Unbeaten his last 3 years at 125 (omitting his bump-up loss as a soph to then-2x defending 133lb champ Guerrero, 5-3, one TD each). I don't think he had more than 2 or 3 takedowns scored on him in that entire stretch. I recall the gasps of the arena when Fleeger hit him with an incredibly slick inside trip in the 2002 semis. Abas still majored him, but the idea that someone could score on Abas, let alone beat him, seemed inconceivable. I'm a big fan of both. But we shouldn't give any weight to the subjective "wow" factor that Lee gave you unless you also saw Abas compete. (Not picking on you, Bruce; I saw you picked Abas in the other thread.) Objectively, when comparing two 3x'ers' careers, inability to get it done as a senior is more problematic than inability to get it done as a freshman. Abas wins on the numbers. I'm especially unsympathetic to the "but he lost twice at NCAAs" argument about Abas's freshman year. Nothing is more annoying than assigning consy bracket wins to wrestlers who choose to default out instead of wrestling back, especially when they're physically able to compete. In my book, Lee lost 3x at NCAAs as a senior. I'm not saying he was wrong to default out; if he simply wasn't mentally collected enough to compete, then maybe that was the right call. But mental toughness is part of the sport. Those are losses, both technically and actually. Abas's 4th is qualitatively better than Lee's 6th.

7 times, according to this article here. Then he redshirted. But man, from RS soph year on, he was nearly unbeatable. (Even though it always seemed like he could widen the gap if he really felt like it.)

If Clooney's producing it, it's a good bet it won't be directed against Ohio State generally so much as Jim Jordan specifically.

I know, I hate my questions too. It feels insane to not have Snyder first team.

Except Burroughs as a senior was about as good as any NCAA wrestler, at any weight, over the past 25 years, arguably behind only upperclassman Cael. Does that count more than DNP'ing as a freshman? We also know Burroughs owned Dake for years in freestyle, without ever really altering his technique all that much from folkstyle (i.e. all takedowns). I don't think there's any serious question that Burroughs as a senior at 165 would've been strongly favored in folk over Dake as a senior at 165. If that's not enough, so be it, but to me, I just can't overlook how good Jordan got by the end of his career.

I'm pretty sure it's intended to be a pure folkstyle list. If it weren't, it'd be a sin to not have Cejudo or Gilman on the 125 list, as their freestyle accomplishments are better than anyone else here being considered. That said, I feel like it's defensible to look to freestyle as one factor to break a tie between two guys from different eras, who have otherwise comparable folkstyle stats. Especially where they didn't alter their style much from folk to free, and still picked up medals close to their college years.

I mostly agree with this, but there's sort of a psychological barrier here (besides the fangirl stuff): 1. Do you really think of Snyder as a HWT? 2. Would you really pick Snyder over Gable in a folk match at HWT? It's tempting to slot in Snyder at 197, even though he lost in his only finals appearance at that weight. But I assume they'll put him at HWT where he'll be runner up to Gable, and they'll justify it as saying that it doesn't mean Gable was better, only that he was better as a HWT since Snyder's sort of a 'tweener. Not sure I even disagree with that, though it seems crazy for an all-time-great like Snyder to be 2nd team.

Maybe it's just me, but I feel like if they admit their bias they ought to do something about it, or if they won't, then just call it a "last-15-years" team. There's a lot of early-2000s Hawks that are going to barely be a footnote here, as time has forgotten them. Juergens, Schwab, even one-loss TJ Williams. Metcalf probably still retains enough notoriety to make the proverbial finals with Zain, but even that might depend if they stick Yianni at 141 or 149.

Jordan Burroughs might have something to say about who was the best 165lber, considering he won worlds just a few months after. Like Taylor and Dake, JB won at multiple weights too. No doubt it gets pretty tight in the middle weights, and I'm sort of expecting Flo to rig the weight choices a bit to steer the results. Good question about Snyder/Steveson, though it may be moot as I'm half expecting this crowd to pick Wyatt.

How do we feel about this? Flo's going through the weights, one at a time. They just finished 125, now turning to 133. Personally, I don't have a lot of confidence in their process, since there's definitely some recency bias at work. Part of that is because it's largely dependent on the fan vote, but Flo's commentators are all pretty young and have a recency bias of their own. Hard to see the guys in the first half of that 25 years getting a fair shake. For 125, they had Robles in their final 4 over a number of 2x'ers, and then picked Lee in a landslide. Choosing Lee is defensible, but I'd have picked Abas. Both are 3x'ers, but I'd take Abas's 4-1-1-1 over Lee's 1-1-1-6, particularly with Abas finishing on a 95 match win streak. Lee has a couple Hodges, which helps his case, but it's not Abas's fault he existed at the same time as Cael. (He was runner up to Cael in Hodge voting 2x.) Lee was better on top (and a higher bonus rate as a result), but if you lived through the Abas era you'd remember how untouchable he was on his feet, and how utterly inconceivable it was that he'd lose. For 133, Flo's "final 4" includes none of the 2x'ers from 2000 to 2010 (Thompson, Jurgens, Valenti), but instead includes only the most recent multi-time champs. I'm guessing Stieber's 4 titles will get him the spot, as it should. But still, it's a shame the less recent wrestlers are treated as afterthoughts. It would've been better if Flo called it the "Last 15 Years Team." Still, it's a fun exercise. It'll be interesting to see where they serve up wrestlers who spanned multiple weights equally.

Whenever the contentious issue of trans sports comes up, I like to bring up a wrestling example: Mack Beggs. Usually we hear about it in the context of bio men identifying as trans women, and competing in womens' sports. Although I personally think this is a nuanced issue, the political parties have made a blunt instrument out of it, and many states have passed laws requiring that kids must compete with the sex that aligns with your birth certificate, irrespective of gender identity. Texas (unsurprisingly) is one such state. Enter Mack Beggs. Mack is a biological female. At some point as a young child, Mack identified as male, and started to transition early on, taking (legal) hormones for muscle mass. In high school, he wanted to compete on the men's team. They wouldn't let him, so he filed a lawsuit, arguing it was unfair to himself (as he identified with men) as well as women that he competed against (as they were disadvantaged). He lost. So against his strong preference, Mack competed against girls, as his love of wrestling was too great to not compete at all. And he absolutely slaughtered them, going undefeated winning the Texas state title in the girl's division in 2017 and 2018. There were lots of boos, but the ironic thing is that EVERYONE in the arena wanted Mack to compete against men. Mack wanted that, his opponents wanted that, his coach wanted that, opposing coaches wanted that, fans wanted that. The only people who did NOT want that were Texas politicians, who said no, you belong with the girls. Because, according to Texas politicians, the birth certificate is everything. You can read about it here: https://www.texastribune.org/2017/02/26/transgender-wrestler-mack-beggs-identifies-male-he-just-won-texas-stat/ As a postscript, Mack ended up wrestling in college at Life (NAIA), on the men's team. He was in a Hulu documentary, and a recent interview is here: https://www.thehiddenopponent.org/post/mack-beggs-the-trans-athlete-changing-the-game. What I like about the Mack Beggs story is that it shows how narrow-minded the debate has become. Most people are all-or-none: either you compete based on your genetic sex, or you compete based on gender identity. Hopefully, the Lia Thomas example, and various others, have shown how unfair it is to biological females to allow trans men to compete against biological women absent adequate safeguards for fairness. But Mack's story shows how the "bio sex is everything" crowd is shortsighted as well. I won't get into my own views on the issue (which are nuanced, and I doubt anyone cares). But I don't think anyone with half a brain can read Mack's story and dispute that he should've been allowed to be on the men's team.

Same.