BruceyB

Welsh also gets a ton of credit for making the NCAA finals when his best win in the tournament was Edmund Ruth. Starocci, Lewis, and Griffith all being on the topside due to the Starocci 9 seed really paved a path for him. I obviously think that Welsh is very good, but McEnelly will be my pick when they wrestle for the first time.

We're talking about youth participation, and I don't have the numbers handy, but wrestling participation at the high school level is the highest it's been since the 80s. The cutting of college programs has literally nothing to do with high school participation.

Doesn't the fact that half the kids choose shirt and shorts prove my point? I'd assume the majority that choose a singlet come from a wrestling background and have been wearing singlets for years. I do agree that the issue isn't participation but lifelong fans. Most of my core group of high school friends were former wrestling teammates, but not a single one follows the sport today.

I don't think the singlet is a major factor in wrestling's overall landscape. Most kids that begin in youth wrestling do so because wrestling is in their family. Their dad wrestled, their brothers wrestle, cousins, someone. The singlet isn't going to matter because a lot of these kids are either signed up at an early age or they want to wrestle because someone they know wrestles. They want to wrestle. I think where you are hit the hardest is in recruiting kids that didn't wrestle growing up, especially at the junior high level. There we a number of people I went to school with that said they'd never wear a singlet. Coaches have a hard time recruiting football players because they don't want to wear a singlet. Being from Washington State, there is hardly a rich tradition of wrestling, especially in the more metro areas. Maybe in the mid-west and more traditional wrestling states, the singlet is a smaller obstacle. But I know first hand, especially with kids in Jr. High, a lot of kids have apprehension about coming out for wrestling because of the singlet. How many potential athletes are we losing? I don't know, could be 0.5%, 2%, 5%, who knows. But regardless, objectively, the singlet is ridiculous. If our memories were wiped and we were shown the WNO uniforms and a singlet and asked which you rather wear, literally no one is picking a singlet.

I believe the numbers are the highest they've been in decades, but not all time, not that it really matters for this argument. Yes, numbers of participation are higher than they have been at any other point this century, but that isn't the point here. The question should be asked is, are there any barriers that prevent kids from getting involved with wrestling? If you say that the singlet does not deter kids that are on the fence about going out for wrestling, you are lying to yourself and everyone else. We're on this message board because we are die-hard wrestlers/fans. We aren't the audience to ask about if singlets are a problem, because we already love the sport and that has always been a part of it. Saying things such a "grow a pair and put on the singlet" is just gatekeeping the sport we love from insecure kids that aren't comfortable wearing a singlet in front of their peers. What is the upside of limiting our potential athletes to just those that aren't afraid to wear a singlet? If a change in uniform would get even just a small percentage of new athletes involved in the sport.. what does that hurt other than our nostalgia? Eventually, I do think fight shorts and a rash guard will be the standard in wrestling, and when that happens future generations of wrestlers will look back on singlets the way my generation looks back on how goofy the shorts and tights look of the 80s was, and they won't be able to believe that our sport used to make us wear such a ridiculous uniform.

The muffin top being unleashed is less revealing than a heavyweight titty slipping out of a singlet. Everyone certainly does not have the option for the two piece. How many youth programs give the option of a singlet or two piece? Finally: Making kids wear a singlet to practice would be a deterrent, not a positive, for participation. I can only imagine trying to grow participation at the junior high level and demanding that your team wears a singlet for 2 hours at practice once a week.

This topic has been discussed heavily on this forum even in my 10 months since joining. I don't think many of us here will disagree with your argument. The ol' junior high comments (I went to a school which had 0 wrestling tradition) of "two sweaty guys rolling around in spandex" will always be there as long as the singlet exists. At least in fight shorts and a rashguard, it resembles MMA w/o strikes. From the viewpoint of those that have never watched a wrestling match, it massively changes the first impression of the sport. I do believe that many more kids that grow up with exposure to the UFC and see former wrestlers being these tough guys would inherently grow youth participation once you remove the barrier of accepting the singlet.

They brought it up on FRL. It was a wild sequence where Medlin may not have realized he gave up a stalling point at the end there, may not have realized the riding time, or maybe just had a mental lapse and thought he could let up because he assumed time was going to be out. But I agree, having never seen either wrestle, I was more impressed by Howard.

And SOLD to the highest bidder.. I won't be surprised if they end up in Iowa by enrollment time.

Nebraska is absolutely an elite NCAA program and fields a trophy contender year after year. But the 2025 tournament was probably the most improbably run that has ever happened at NCAAs. It was amazing to watch, but you had wrestlers outperform their seed at: 125: Smith 7th place (9 seed) 133: Van Dee 7th place (17 seed) 149: Lovett 1st place (2nd seed) 157: Taylor 1st place (3rd seed and pulled a significant upset over Shapiro to make the finals) 165: Minto 4th place (12 seed) 184: Allred 7th place (12 seed) 197: McDanel 8th place (20 seed) 7 of their 9 wrestlers outperformed their seeds, and they had 5 wrestlers outside of AA seeds make the podium (I'd imagine that has to be the first time that has ever happened). Their only two "underperformances" were #1 seed Hardy taking second and #8 Pinto falling in R12. Take out this historic overperformance and in the previous 5 tournaments they finished: 2024: 9th 2023: 8th 2022: 5th 2021: 12th 2019: 10th They will absolutely be in the hunt for trophies, but like Truzz, I have a hard time picturing Nebraska keeping up with some other programs (as of now) beyond this season. I'd pick them to be battling for a top 5ish spot at NCAAs before finishing second again with their current roster/commits.

The Mills boys are all college 133s or smaller with the exception of Jaheim (that I'm aware of). That being said, I'm assuming tOSU staff plans on having Davino move up after this year and Bouz sliding back into 133 for his senior year, and a battle at 125 between Munaretto, Mills, Kilkeary, and McCrone in 26-27. Then at some point a Munaretto, Mills, Davino 1-2-3. The Mills family is definitely worth investing in. I'm extremely curious to see how good he'll be by his senior year, and then you'd think it's likely that the next brother coming up, Aviyahn, will probably be pretty tough as well.

If only this fine young lad too up the time to look-up the definition of "irony." He's definitely the toughest guy on the internet. I messed with the wrong kid. Sorry, @WrestlingRash I won't question your opinions again after such menacing and mature threats.

That is quite disgusting

FTFY

You're an antagonistic poster that makes claims while not providing any insight to why anyone should believe you. Claiming Bassett won't AA more than twice is a baseless, asinine, and just simply a hater comment. Keep rooting against high schooler kids, tough guy.

Oh, one other takeaway: Zinkin IIRC was literally the only Senior that was still 17. Every other athlete that I recall was already the age they should be turn by completion of their grade (ie: 16 for Soph, 17 Jr, 18 Sr) or older. Ariah Mills is already 16 as a Freshman. I knew hold backs were common, but I didn't realize that everyone was a year older for their grade. I'm sure a couple of athletes are the natural year for their grade and just have September/early October birthdays, but I'm assuming the vast majority of these athletes will be turning a year older during this school year. The holdbacks don't bother me but I couldn't help but notice.

Yes. The Mills family has 19 children.

@Truzzcat Sorry I missed out on more back and forth banter. Had to make dinner and pause the stream for a while. Key takeaways: Dekraker vs Wolbert was frustrating for me. Dekraker got that clean throw by, and then for the rest of the match basically just let his head get buried and clung to elbows to prevent any action. I get that it's kind of tough to stall calling there, but I think he should have been hit at some point as he really shut it down for 2/3 of the match and Wolbert was pushing the action that entire time. Ariah Mills was my MVP, I get some people may disagree because it was 106, but I am extremely curious how good he is going to be. He absolutely dominated a Fargo champ. Zinkin needs to improve his short offense. It felt like half the match was spent with him having a front headlock and Sidun clinging to an elbow. But Sidun struck so fast and scored very cleanly multiple times. Merrill is going to be an absolute problem to score on for anyone. But man, his matches are absolute snoozers. If Mendoza can clean up his finishes, he is going to be so good at the next level. He seemed to have a huge advantage when it came to attacks in neutral, but Raney was able to get an ankle and prevent him from converting. Then the cradle happened.

Clutch late takedown. But was that the worst post match backflip you've ever seen?

The whole Mills family and having 19 kids and the wrestling background with the brothers is fascinating to me. Looking forward to this match with Antonio and seeing Ariah later on.

Miller dominates despite a very uninspiring performance. He looked sluggish and like he didn't really want to be there IMO. I liked Dhabolt's compete considering the only thing I knew about him going in was that he'd been teched each time they met before.

I'll be curious if anyone else joins or if we'll just be chatting back and forth for this one.

Was not expecting the match to go like that.

Whitney Conder (now Whitney Cox since she is married to J'den Cox) was a 2x Washington State placer at the highest division (4A) at 103 pounds. I believe she was the first girl to place at boys state in WA. She went on to make 5 world teams. Camie Yeik was another girl that placed 2x at WA boys state a couple years later.

Knew I could count on you. It should be a good watch.