BruceyB

I don't think guys leaving will ultimately effect OSU much. They will each likely give it 2 or 3 years of attempting to make the starting line-up and transfer for their last year or two of eligibility if that's what they want to do. The guys on the roster will still have plenty of training partners on the college roster and with the cowboy RTC to where training shouldn't take a hit. OKST will massively benefit from all of these guys knowing that their spot isn't guaranteed and knowing they can't take a day, or a match off.

That's quite the reach. You're predicting the #1 seed true freshman, 3rd place finisher, and Final X wrestler to win? The thread title is 125 dark horse. Who is your prediction at 165?

To what..?

I think it's fair to fixate on Lockett's match. He's so damn tough that to see a score like that is notable. That being said, I'm not questioning the talent. One or two mistakes in freestyle can end up in a tech pretty easily. It's hard to have too much to say without seeing the entire match. But I've been riding on the Doucet train since all of the talk started after the season about OKST needing a transfer. He was solid, but obviously not great, his first two years in the line-up. I thought a year of training, the new staff, and the clearing out of so many seniors at heavyweight makes him a top 5 threat this year at NCAAs. This match only furthered that thought.

where did you find results?

I was just going to say the same thing. Although if he is just wrestling at his walk around summer weight, being ~15 pounds over 149 in late July seems pretty reasonable. Not to mention, there isn't a bout at 70kg. Similar to Facundo wrestling at 86kg who definitely won't be going 184. For the Pokes line-up, however, Swiderksi and Teague battling for the spot at 157 is probably best case scenario. 125: Spratley 133: Figs 141: Hughes/Vega 149: Jamison 157: Swiderski/Teague 165: Lockett 174: Facundo 184: Ryder 197: Merrill 285: Doucet That line-up is salty. It's crazy to think this is only the beginning for OKST's revival. They are going to be absolutely ridiculous come 2027-2028.

@Truzzcat @flyingcement any links to match-ups for the dual? It's kind of amazing how there was no noise about this (that I heard at least).

If Vegas had a betting line for Suriano to even show up to trials in 2028 it would have to open at plus money. Predicting where Suriano will be, or what he will be doing in 3 years time seems like a fools errand.

I'm assuming I misunderstood that. When he said between 50 and 55 I thought he was referring to KG. But given that Seabass said they could have real goes, it makes more sense if he was talking 150-155 pounds. He definitely doesn't seem like a full 150 pounds.

I am admittedly someone that was in full support of the three point takedown when it was announced. That being said, I never once heard anyone argue that the extra point for a takedown was going to result in an excess of third period stalling. The argument that almost everyone made was that it took away from mat wrestling. You no longer "had" to take bottom, and a riding point didn't cancel out a first period takedown like in the past. Maybe you were ahead of the curve, but I didn't hear any push back about how much extra stalling a wrestler could do in the third prior to the 3pt takedowns implementation. But that has been probably the most notable result.

Let me get a decade window.

Who ran from Carr and Mesenbrink? I agree the big dogs all exited the weight, but I'm not sure who is running?

I'll owe you one if I'm wrong, but Caliendo is never going to beat Mesenbrink. Also, @ionel are you familiar with Messinbrink? Also, David Carr could easily have been a 4x champion. He was a #1 seed that suffered a massive upset in the R16, and he lost in the finals to KOT after he had beat him twice that season. David Carr and Mikey Caliendo is a ridiculous comparison. Caliendo is an absolute stud, but comparing him to Carr isn't fair.

I mean he lost to #24, #13, and #19 during the season. He was a #12 seed at NCAAs that finished 4th. It was a great year for a freshman that no one had on their radar. I'm really curious to see how he progresses moving forward.

There is no doubt that Mesenbrink is an outstanding wrestler, but I do think people underestimate how incredibly weak 165 was last year. The only truly consistent guys were Mesenbrink, Caliendo, and Hall. Just compare last years NCAAs versus the two years prior.. Seed 2023 2024 2025 1 Carr O'Toole Mesenbrink 2 O'Toole Mesenbrink Hall 3 Hamiti Ramirez Caliendo 4 Ramirez Carr Barraclough 5 Q. Monday Hamiti Ramirez 6 Kennedy Caliendo Mantanona 7 Caliendo Olejnik Garvin 8 Olguin A. Taylor Amine 9 Griffith Hall Steed 10 Kharchla Amine Sparks 11 Amine Cerniglia Scoles 12 Olejnik Thompson Minto Edit: Forgot to say that I am excited to potentially see Joey Blaze and Lockett at 165 if they both go this season.

I know that you're a newer poster, so just an easy tip, if you type @ and then the users name you're responding to, or simply quote them with the "quote" button under their post, it tags them in your response and they get notified. Welcome to the board though! And I won't bother with the scenario of 30 seconds with no stall warning, because you can basically do whatever you want in the amount of time and even with how I would like a match to be officiated, there is nearly anyway to justify hitting a guy twice with 30 seconds left. But with 1:00 left, I would tell my athlete not to stop wrestling. Be conservative and don't take any unnecessary risks, but a minute is too long to avoid wrestling. But be defensive in the ties to slow your opponent down and make it difficult for your opponent get find an opening, if he takes a bad shot and you can reattack for find a front headlock, you stay there and "look" like you're trying to score and eat time off the clock. If you have an opening to get to a leg (which often happens when a guy is in desperation mode late, drop in on the leg and eat time that way. With a minute left, I look at the goal as to be just active enough not get give up your first stall warning, and then once you get down to the final thirty, you can pretty much just disengage. Like I said above, 30 seconds left with zero stall warnings, you aren't getting hit twice for stalling. And I know this reply is already too long, but one last point: my argument was mostly in regard to the topic of this thread. With the three point takedown, you often have a wrestler enter the third with a 4-1 lead, in a 1 takedown match (obviously), and with 3 stall calls to give. In this case, they have 3 stalls to give before it effects the outcome of the match. My suggestion with quicker stall calls is to prevent matches where the leading wrestler can dance around the mat without engaging for an entire period with impunity.

You're still missing my point, apparently. I'm not criticizing the referees abilities. I am criticizing the current way that wrestling is regularly officiated where a lot of blatant stalling is permitted without consequence. I'm not doubting the referees abilities to recognize stalling, I'm questioning the point at which the stalling is egregious enough to be called. I'm not advocating for more rules. I'm advocating for obvious stalling to be called stalling. Just because you have a lead doesn't mean you should be able back up to the edge and step OB anytime you get into trouble for the final minute of the match.

With weight allowance, 176, but correct.

To be clear, your examples are.. Ben bumping up a weight class and beating beat a returning national finalist (the score was 5-1 with 30 seconds left.. Ben cut him with looking to score another takedown.. he gave one up at the end and the match finished a deceiving 5-4) and Ben making the Olympic team at a non-ideal weight class 1 year after graduating college.. Both examples show him failing to beat the top guys zero times. Again, who are these "top guys" you speak of?

I don't disagree with anything you said in your recent post. My initial disagreement was that in the current state of college wrestling, leading wrestler's routinely fail to fulfill any requirements for "not stalling" and still don't get called.. on a reset with 30 seconds left, the leading wrestler can immediately move backwards off the whistle all the way to the edge and virtually never get called for stalling the first time they use this tactic, once their opponent closes the gap, they either wrestle on the edge where they can kick OB if in danger, or they will literally run in a big circle to "re-center" taking more time of the clock refusing to engage in contact. They aren't disguising or fooling anyone, and the refs are still swallowing their whistle. It's the job of the referees to call stalling when it's clear, and the referees have allowed egregious stalling tactics for too long. Maybe we're in agreement and misunderstood each other's argument. I understand good stalling tactics, but one of the main tactics I see used today is blatant stalling and betting that the referee won't make the big call. Ayala should have been hit half a dozen times in the finals against Byrd.

Ben shot all the time. I'll agree he didn't have the best shot or cleanest finishes, but he had enough to get his hands locked around a leg, and once he got there, he wasn't going to lose from that position. Ben knew that if he could just get in on a leg, he could create scramble situations that favored him. And what Ben did wasn't invent scrambling. Scrambling has always existed. What he did was turn what seemed like a spontaneous sequence of events into a calculated and technical aspect of wrestling. In the "Funky" flo film, he talked about a particular scramble situation (I want to say far ankle but I'm not sure) and off the top of his head he goes through "If I do A. he can either respond in 2 ways, if he does A. then I do this, if he does B., then I do this, then we end up in this position.." and so on. He is truly one of the greatest wrestling minds of all time IMO.

You keep referencing the win after college in freestyle. I think you're putting an awful lot of weight into a 2-1, 1-0 at a random open, Ben wrestling up a weight class, while he already had multiple MMA fights under his belt. That result being as close as it was doesn't really influence my opinion either way, especially considering that Ben would be the first to tell you that folk fit his wrestling style much better than free. I will just leave it at this, I think a match between SR Pendleton and SR Askren would probably be in my top 5 hypothetical matches that I would love to see play out.

I want you to answer genuinely. Whose career would you rather have? 4x finalist with over 90 career pins, 2 undefeated championship seasons and two Hodge trophies. (How many 4x finalists were there in the history of college wrestling in 2007?) 2x finalist, 0 undefeated seasons, 0 Hodge trophies, but you beat the guy above 6 out of 7 times during his first two years of competition?

Literally the only argument you can make for Pendleton over Askren is that junior and senior Pendleton was better than freshman and sophomore Askren. Pendleton's an amazing two-time champ that dominated the series against a future all-timer. That argument is extrapolating that they were on the same trajectory and that Ben Askren wouldn't surpass Pendleton as he continued to develop in college. I'm not going to take a stance in either direction, but I do think it's worth noting. The bottom line is that if you are putting Pendleton above Askren then you are giving Pendleton points because of what Ben would go on to do. Pendleton did not beat a 2x Champ and Hodge winner, he won 6 or 7 matches where he was the favorite over a very tough underclassman.