Wrestle620

The lack of criteria is what makes this more fun. I like the eyeball test/who wins at their peak but we all gotta remember how that has failed us in the past. I can think of several examples where my eyeballs would've had me putting big money on one guy, and it just was flat out wrong. Metcalf-Caldwell in '09, Askren-Herbert in '06, and Gable-Hendrickson this last year come to mind. It's easy to rationalize those after the fact but they were not at all obvious beforehand. To me that stuff makes the Gable-Snyder hypothetical more interesting. My eyeball test says Gable at his peak but the way the paths people found to beating Gable are things I could 100% see Snyder executing.

100% the OK State archetype. On top of what you mentioned it was pretty well-known that he was cutting a ton of weight which probably explains some up and down performances. I believe he lost wrestle offs at least twice, but when the lights were on he could find it.

I'll try to pick guys who aren't the obvious # 1 picks because "remember that guy" is fun. 125 - Agree on Abas. The '01 finals were the first I ever got to watch D1 wrestling, and Abas vs. Stritmatter was the first match. His quickness and technique was unreal and to go back and watch those videos now after watching the sport for 25 years it holds up 100%. 133 - Travis Lee. Another neutral wizard. Honorable mention = the Ryan Lewis/Johnny Thompson rivalry. in '02 Lewis WBF during the season (I believe it was tied late at the time) then Thompson won by the skin of his teeth in the finals with a few lung timeouts thrown in; in '03 Lewis won in the regular season and Thompson won again in the finals. I wanted Lewis to win so bad, but man when you go back and watch Thompson highlights he was must-watch (if he decided to wrestle). 141 - My nostalgia goes to a single match = Darrion Caldwell-Ryan Lang Quarterfinals in 2007. Insane. 149 - Metcalf. I. can't remember anything like him before or after. Being relatively new to following the sport still, anytime a freshman won I was thinking "is this the next 4-timer?". Everyone thought that when Schlatter won as a freshman. Then Metcalf beat him in the big ten dual with a forearm face mush to end the match and a message board god was born. 157 - Jordan Leen and Mike Poeta were gems. Leen beat Poeta for his title in '08 and Poeta beat Leen in the semis in '09 before losing to JB in the finals. Leen had a memorable match with JB at CKLV; I remember watching JB beating these guys was the point when I started realizing just how good he was. Both were slick, quick and technically sound but JB had an answer for everything they threw his way. 165 - Mark Perry. Probably because of how much I wanted to see Johnny Hendricks lose. Wrestling twitter would've broken had it existed during the Hendricks-Churella final in '06. But also Perry was really unconventional for Iowa and was pretty interesting to watch. 174 - Easy Ed Ruth. I don't think anyone has ever made wrestling look cooler than him. 184 - Quentin Wright was super fun to watch and probably won't make any all-time lists. I'm always fascinated by the guys who can put some bad results behind them and turn it on when it counts and that was definitely his MO. 197 - Damion Hahn had some pretty memorable matches. Wild last-second comeback wins in the semis and finals in '03. 285 - Mocco. Who hits foot sweeps at heavyweight? The Bear.

In some of these who gets in the top 4 is more interesting than who's # 1. At 125 I think Flo probably got the top 4 right, but there's a case to be made for some other guys. For me, Jesse Delgado is right on that bubble. Not as fun to watch as McDonough but he was an absolute nightmare to try to finish on, beat some real hammers (Nahshon, Megaludis, Cory Clark), and like McD had an injury-plagued senior year.

RBY on their top 4 for 133 is insane recency bias. To me the biggest snub is Juergens. His career losses at NCAAs were Teague Moore and Eric Larkin (who he also beat later in that tournament for 3rd). He’s the only person to beat Abas at the tourney (twice at 118 in 1998), and also had wins over Johnny Thompson, Aaron Holker, and Cody Sanderson. The win over Sanderson clinched the title for Iowa over Iowa State in 2000.