SocraTease

I'm not particularly interested in defending Nickal, but Ono has been training at Penn State for 2 or 3 months, particularly with Zain Retherford, Jordan Conaway, and Cody Sanderson. Nickal has his MMA facility there and so I'm sure he is in the room alot. He also probably just enjoys taunting the Iowa faithful.

Lee never threatened Ono. Couldn't get to his legs or break the head-hands defense. If you can keep Lee from scoring in the first period, you have a good chance to winning against him. He's not known for his gas tank. It will be interesting to see if Ono goes to 57 KG. I'm curious how Blaze might fair against Lee. RBY kept it reasonably close recently. Carr, I guess, was tonight's U.S. star.

Winners in red: 62kgs: Nathan Tomasello vs Daniel DeShazer 97kgs: Marcus Coleman vs Jay Aiello 62kgs: Xochitl Mota-Pettis vs Melanie Nahomi Jimenez 57kgs: Amanda Martinez vs Zeltzin Hernandez 86kgs: Nate Jackson vs Kennedy Monday 62kgs: Austin DeSanto vs Seth Gross 72kgs: Bryce Andonian vs Austin Gomez 88kgs: Zahid Valencia vs Trent Hidlay 76kgs: David Carr vs Daichi Takatani 59.5kgs: Spencer Lee vs Masanosuke Ono

Winners in red: 62kgs: Nathan Tomasello vs Daniel DeShazer 97kgs: Marcus Coleman vs Jay Aiello 62kgs: Xochitl Mota-Pettis vs Melanie Nahomi Jimenez 57kgs: Amanda Martinez vs Zeltzin Hernandez 86kgs: Nate Jackson vs Kennedy Monday 62kgs: Austin DeSanto vs Seth Gross 72kgs: Bryce Andonian vs Austin Gomez 88kgs: Zahid Valencia vs Trent Hidlay 76kgs: David Carr vs Daichi Takatani 59.5kgs: Spencer Lee vs Masanosuke Ono

Ben is searching for tickets to attend this year's NCAAs in his home-town of Philadelphia and, if necessary, to revise his reputed remark with the conditional: "... and perhaps Penn State wrestling."

My only personal hope is that for the sake of fans in the stands and online that the dreaded match-ending leg lace or trapped arm turn doesn't come into (near) immediate play and thus transform the bout into a less than 10 second termination for either of these guys. Let's see what they can both do on their feet and in different wrestling positions, scrambles, and attacks/re-attacks, and defenses. I'm not the first (and won't be the last) to suggest that the UWW needs to place a limit on turns—let's say 2 turns (4 points) in a row and then stand the wrestlers back up. Like most good things if life, athletics is (and should be) based on necessary limits within which excellence can occur. Time limits, space limits, limits to weight, and limits to allowed repetitions.

One of the best pieces (actually two different videos) I've seen is Jason Nolf breaking down and discussing in detail the Ono vs. Lee match. He both talks about what Lee does well and shows what Ono is likely to do, including how Lee might reasonably respond. Nolf is a master technician and tactician and is clear with his explanations. Here is one of the videos:

They don't breathe (not "breath", which is the word you use) like humans outside of utero, but they do take in oxygen-rich blood from the mother's placenta through the umbilical chord. I would say that counts as a practical form of breathing unless we want to parse and define words narrowly. Fish also breathe, but not like us either. Same with scuba divers and astronauts, who are not breathing on their own but with the aid of a prosthetic device. PS: Since you want to get technical, I said they "shared the same breath in the womb". The breath came from their mother. I didn't say they breathed.

The Ferraris and Nickal are from the same high school in Texas, and they both possess Texas-sized egos. Some of us enjoy watching them lose. The Germans call that Schadenfreude.

Here's the baseball equivalent of wrestling from your knees (pic below). It shrinks your strike zone. I recall wrestling really short guys. It was very hard to get to their legs. (I looked forward to the second and third periods when I could throw in legs, then ride and work for the turn.) Guys that wrestle from their knees basically cut their height in half and greatly reduce their exposure to being taken down. Bernie Truax was another wrestler who was sometimes on his knees in neutral, though I seem to recall him doing it only for a few seconds and then come up for an attack, particularly a sweep single. This man was 26 year old, 3 feet, 7 inch tall Eddie Gaedel. Gaedel was signed by Bill Veeck to a Major League contract of $15,400 ($100 per game), which was the set minimum one could pay a little person performance act, per event. Gaedel was an evenly proportioned dwarf (the term for such a person at the time was “midget”, with dwarfs who were disproportionate in some way being called just dwarfs). When Veeck began scheming ideas to bolster attendance for his newly acquired, struggling team, the St. Louis Browns, he specifically requested a midget as it was more socially acceptable in that era where dwarfs were unfortunately often relegated only to the “back stage” or freak shows. Further, Veeck felt a midget would look more athletic in the uniform over other dwarfs. After reviewing several candidates, he settled on Eddie Gaedel, who already was something of a showman, appearing in circuses, rodeos, and the like, and was a member of the American Guild of Variety Artists. He also held more common jobs like being an errand boy for a newspaper and during WWII he worked as a riveter. His small size particularly suited him for this job as he was able to crawl into places on the planes that most workers couldn’t fit into.Veeck anticipated that Major League Baseball would be against this signing, so submitted the contract for review late on a Friday, which would result in it getting approved without anyone looking at it too thoroughly. On Sunday August 19, 1951 before the second game of a double header against the Detroit Tigers, Veeck had Eddie Gaedel pop out of a papier-mâché cake and announce to the crowd of 18,369 that he was the newest member of the St. Louis Browns. Initially people thought Gaedel being a member of the team was a joke and that he would not actually be playing. When he stepped up to the plate to lead off in the second game of the double header that day, to pinch hit for Frank Saucier, at first the umpire, Eddie Hurley, wasn’t going to allow him to bat. However, Veeck showed the umpire Gaedel’s signed contract and the official roster for the team and he was allowed to lead off. Veeck had given Gaedel specific orders that he was not to swing. Further, he was to crouch low in his batting stance to minimize the size of the strike zone (in this crouch, the strike zone was estimated to be just a few inches). Gaedel did not do the practiced crouch in the actual game. Rather, he stood up a bit more, so the zone was a little larger than it would have been, but still quite small. Veeck’s plan worked and Gaedel managed an easy walk. With the first two pitches, the opposing pitcher, Bob Cain, did try to throw a strike, but finding this too difficult, he just lobbed the ball for the next two pitches. Gaedel then took his base, stopping to take a bow twice on his way, and was lifted for a pinch runner, Jim Delsing. As he walked off the field, Gaedel was given a boisterous standing ovation. Two days later, American League President Will Harridge voided Gaedel’s contract and he was out of a job. Further, Harridge officially banned midgets from being able to play in the American League and removed Gaedel’s walk from the official records (it was put back in a year later). After this was announced, Gaedel complained in the media that Harridge had just robbed him of what would have been a lucrative baseball career. Veeck responded to the banning of midgets from the American League with, “Fine. Let’s establish what a midget is in fact. Is it 3 feet 6 inches? Eddie’s height? Is it 4 feet 6 inches? If it’s 5 feet 6 inches, that’s great. We can get rid of [MVP] Rizzuto.” Veeck even threatened to request MLB officially rule on whether Phil Rizzuto qualified as a midget or not. (Future Hall of Famer Phil Rizzuto was officially listed at 5 ft, 6 inches, but that’s “baseball inches” which aren’t always too accurate, especially with shorter players whose height numbers tend to get padded.) Despite the public show, Gaedel hadn’t expected to get to serve out the whole contract and he even waved his normal right to 30 days of severance pay, which would have been about $3000 ($25,000 today). This had always been more of just a one day gig for Gaedel. However, had Major League Baseball by some miracle approved the contract, Veeck had planned to have Gaedel used regularly in such situations as when the bases were loaded and a walk would force in a run. Gaedel ultimately did get a lot more than just $100 out of this performance. He cashed in on his new-found fame, booking a variety of appearances including TV and radio spots and even playing in an amateur game (striking out in that appearance). All total, it’s estimated he earned over $17,000 ($140,000 today) in the few weeks following his Major League at bat alone. However, it wasn’t all sunshine lollipops for him after this. Due to the extreme discrimination against little people at the time and that his fame tended to result in a lot more attention (often negative) than he otherwise might have received, he understandably developed something of a temper with people who made fun of him for his stature. He also began to drink heavily, which compounded the problem, where he’d become combative even when no offense was intended. This all came to a head on June 18, 1961. Gaedel got drunk at a bowling alley and apparently got in verbal confrontations with several people before leaving. Whether as a result of this or that he simply got mugged, at some point between the bowling alley and arriving home, he was beaten up on his way home. His mother found him the next morning in bed, dead. He had been having heart problems and the beating he took exacerbated the issue, resulting in a fatal heart attack. He was just 36 years old.

This response can be a form of "what-about-ism"? If the other wrestler is pushing the action, yes, it can be a form of stalling. If he is on his knee(s), then, no (not necessarily), because it is an understandable response to the lack of action (aka stalling) initiated by the guy on his knees. Why should he make an effort or step into a trap? Freestyle forces the wrestlers to act (i.e. wrestle). Folkstyle tends to tolerate much more passivity from all positions: neutral, bottom, and top (e.g., parallel rides, two boots in, hooking the leg, etc.)

We could subject this situation to the insightful perspective and understandable response of the innocent person who was lured to the match by a friend and fan of wrestling: "Hey, let's go get some popcorn, nothing is happening here. It looks really boring":

Aren't twins (the Brands) almost by (biological) definition a conspiracy of sorts since they shared the same breath in the womb and probably will continue to do so (in a broad sense) until the tomb? Conspire: literally "to breathe together," from com/con "with, together" + spirare "to breathe"

100 percent stalling. It is also extremely difficult for the other wrestler to attack or be offensive, so it slows down the entire match. It is comparable to a bottom wrestler bellying out or curling up not to get turned. Ayala wrestles from his knees sometimes. Dake has used it in freestyle. I think both Ferraris use it because they are taller and their legs are exposed. I bet both would get taken down a lot more if they weren't allowed to stall. It can be effective as a stall tactic, but it should be called stalling.

Especially in the Big 10 (actually the Big 14) and Big 12 (actually Big 13) conferences.

Anyone else think the potentially dangerous call in the SV part of the Plott-Ferrari match was rather quick and perhaps unnecessary. I would like to see the sequence again, but it appeared to me that Plott was close to the TD and could have worked for it or maybe gotten it with the 3 second exposure rule. The ref seemed to be calling most everything quick and tight

The CHA referee (sometimes)?

Some oxymorons: Rational fan Objective fan Dispassionate fan Fairminded fan If you find any of the above, please hire them as a referee.

Some of the possible semifinals at NCAAs might prove be more exciting than the finals. Perhaps it could be like football, where the matchups before the Super Bowl are more competitive or interesting than the final game. Hendrickson vs. Kerkviliet Haines vs. Hamiti or KOT Barraclough vs. Caliendo Buchanan/Barr/Ferarri (some combination) -------------- Bartlett/Mendez/Alirez (some combination) Keckheison vs. McEnally Shapiro/Kasak/Teemer (some combination) Van Ness vs. Lovett (redux) Robinson/Figueroa/Ramos (some combination)

The Ferrari Family: it's like watching a tacky Jersey Shore family show set in a house full of mirrors. The kids all hanging out in a room full of weights and listening to loud, bad music. The mom pumped up on plastic surgery. The Dad still in love with flashy sports cars in the driveway. The police having to break up late night parties. I'm surprised they haven't tried to make it into a reality show. The boys could invite over the Kardashians and make scatological jokes that are only funny to 9 year olds.

I bet Ferrari is like his brother ... not a team favorite at Iowa

Living on a knee in neutral should be called Stalling ... because it is. Ayala does that too

Can someone put Ferrari on a clock to see how long he wrestles on knee? If he does that on the edge, double the amount of time.