1032004

Got it, mostly agree although I guess depends on your definition of “harmed.” Maybe not a significant number but I think we definitely lose some fans particularly in the short term if college switched to freestyle. We probably lose some youth wrestlers too assuming we make the switch at all levels. The biggest challenge IMO would be coaches. I’d guess something like 90% of youth/high school coaches have little if any freestyle experience.

Were there any mens FS weights where it would have helped the guys to have competed more and earned better seeds? Maybe Zain? That seems like about it

Cool photo

He revealed his secret, drinking beer:

I said in the match thread but I didn’t realize how good his gutwrench was, it saved him in his last 2 matches

Bronze match has been posted to youtube by NBC https://youtu.be/3j91dLAsZd0?si=skhH8mqF6ba4DW9d

Didn’t Spencer Lee’s mom already do that?

I was lol’ing because the guys we sent had already proven to be elite. Snyder Olympic champ, Brooks had to beat an Olympic champ to make the team, Zain and Dake world champs, Parris world medalist. I’m not sure why they didn’t wrestle up to their potential, but the only one that wrestled “bad” IMO was Parris. Lee wrestled well but Higuchi wrestled better. Brooks was a second away from the finals, and Zain got beat by a buzzsaw. There could be some slowing down of Dake and Snyder due to age. Amine didn’t even medal, seems odd that you are praising his performance but criticizing the US guys’. There could be something to be said for the US trials being so daunting that the transfers have an advantage by not having to deal with that, but that’s evidence of how strong we are which is contrary to your claims.

Lol c’mon. We didn’t have a good tournament, but our men’s FS team is still elite. Doesn’t Amine train at the same place Parris does? How did RBY look?

I think the answer to the title of the thread depends what the goal is. If the goal is to improve our international performance, there is probably some benefit to switching to freestyle from folkstyle. How much, I’m not sure. If the goal is to increase viewership, I don’t see how it would help. I agree that the tribe aspect would mean we shouldn’t lose many of the existing fans, but I’m not sure where new ones would come from unless colleges recruit a bunch of guys from India or something. Continuing on my last point, isn’t the fact that NCAA swimming doesn’t have many fans evidence that switching college to freestyle wouldn’t mean more viewers?

The gold medalist Ramazanov from Bulgaria that beat Brooks represented Russia until 2019 (seems you acknowledged that one). The guy Brooks beat in the bronze medal match from Uzbekistan represented Russia until 2015 - https://uww.org/athletes-results/javrail-shapiev-20647-profile The guy Brooks beat in the first round from Kazakhstan may actually be from there best I can tell. So Brooks wrestled 2 Russians.

Is there any chance Snyder goes up to heavyweight? If not and Brooks goes to 97, does one of them leave NLWC?

The field would have been even tougher with guys that actually represent Russia, but I think most would agree that all the Russian transfers make the field as is tougher than it was in most prior years

How did Musukaev get an extra 2 after the challenge?

Seems even more subjective than stalling to me, don’t like it. I guess we need @LJB here to enlighten us all about it being about “keeping your butt in the center.” I like the shot clock in theory but seems like most guys just concede the point (maybe because they know it’s likely the other guy will get put on the clock later).

I didn’t realize Rivera had such a good gut wrench. Saved him in his last 2 matches

WOW. congrats seabass

It was disappointing, but worst in 50+ years seems like a stretch. I’ll take this output over 2008 (1 gold + 6 other guys no higher than 7th).

1. Did you consider it “parity” when only 3 different teams won titles between 1989 & 2010? 2. This makes no sense. As I said earlier the majority of US fans come from the NCAA, and that is where the athletes can become “marquee” to use your word from a different post. If college and the Olympics were the same style we might get more people to watch the Olympics, but you have it backwards. Besides, we ARE competitive on the Olympic stage. Yes, several guys didn’t do as well as we hoped this year. But Tokyo was the MFS team’s best medal output since 1996 when there were 10 weights. In 2008 with 7 wrestlers we only had 1 medal and only 1 guy even wrestling for a medal - https://www.themat.com/team-usa/olympic-team-history 3. Disagree. As I said earlier, freestyle may be marginally more exciting but not by much, and I think a big reason it is is because of criteria, which IMO would be confusing to casual fans. And folkstyle IS evolving to incentive action - neutral danger, 4 point nearfall, 3 point takedown, top stalling rules, etc. There can certainly be more changes made but they’re trying. 4. Agree that a dual championship would be great. But there wasn’t a dual championship 10-15 years ago. And actually, if you look at the biggest duals, most of the teams do send out their top guys. The main change vs 10-15 years ago is the number of matches scheduled to begin with, with I believe the decline largely coming from tournaments (and that’s also where we see the most “ducking” IMO). But 1) nothing changed to “incentivize” this other than coaches thinking too many matches might actually be harmful (the guy leading the charge with this of course wrestled 159 matches in college), and I believe part of the reason in recent years was also to allow guys to compete in some freestyle. And 2) I doubt the fact that Midlands and Scuffle aren’t that good anymore (although CKLV is) has any impact on NCAA viewership. If anything “NCAA’s being the only thing that matters” might help its viewership.

I’m not saying there is nothing wrong. I’m saying the same things were wrong 15 years ago, heck with some of the recent rule changes less may be “wrong” now vs 15 year ago. What are you saying has changed to cause this alleged decline in popularity?

Maybe if he was in the semis, but even then I’m not so sure