1032004

I think we should be as good or better than Iran, but worse than Russia. I think the performance was a slight underperformance. I’ve seen people say if you go person by person it’s about what should have been expected which is fair, but I would say the fact that no one won gold was disappointing because they pretty much all had a chance to (except for maybe Zain). You could make the argument that “the US should be the best!” for pretty much every sport. I think the answer for why we shouldn’t is earnings potential of the athletes. Let’s be honest, the top overall athletes are going to play football, basketball or baseball because they can make millions. Whereas in Russia it seems some of the country’s best athletes are wrestlers.

I obviously don’t know what our guys weight training looks like and I’m no expert, but I think weight training can certainly be beneficial for wrestling. Spencer Lee seemingly has picked up his weight training and IMO it appears to have helped him. Snyder and Zain didn’t appear to really use their strength much, and if anything Brooks maybe could have benefitted from a little more weight training.

I think a Happy Medium is best, but I’m not sure a “lack of attention” has anything to do with any perceived underperformance by the NLWC, except for maybe whoever forgot to tell RBY how par terre works. I know their guys downplay it but I can’t imagine it’s ideal to be in the room everyday with guys you’re competing against to make the world team. It’d be great IMO to have like 4 evenly matched RTC’s, and then hey maybe they could wrestle a couple matches against each other which might help build some fans.

I believe Cormier didn’t start wrestling until high school. And I hear that guy he lost to in the NCAA finals was pretty good

Freestyle also encourages a crotch lift/chest wrap which often results in that guy ending up on bottom. Have there been many successful folkstylers who “get in the habit of letting their opponents get to their leg”? I know there are some but don’t think it’s common IMO. And heck Dake seems to do it now in free but didn’t in folk that I can recall.

How is “rolling across your back with scrambling” bad in MMA? In terms of “bad habits,” in all styles of wrestling being held on your back is bad but in MMA it seems to be a common defensive position. I would think being able to get out from bottom would be a good skill to have in MMA as opposed to freestyle where you just have to lay flat for 10 seconds and not get turned.

Sounds like JB is in?

Maybe I’m misremembering but wasn’t he like the one US rep that did actually wrestle in other events? I wasn’t sure how many others he could have entered to improve his seed by much

I would definitely say folkstyle due to top/bottom IMO.

And Romania was even wearing Rudis too lol

So he could have been #1 seed if he wrestled in more events?

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?