Jim L

What is old is new. In 1968 Columbia had widespread and even more radical student protest where students took over university buildings https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/1968_Columbia_University_protests The protests came to a conclusion in the early morning hours of April 30, 1968, when the NYPD violently quashed the demonstrations, with tear gas, and stormed both Hamilton Hall and the Low Library. ... approximately 132 students, 4 faculty members and 12 police officers were injured, while over 700 protesters were arrested Violence continued into the following day with students armed with sticks battling with officers. Frank Gucciardi, a 34-year-old police officer, was permanently disabled when a student jumped onto him from a second story window, breaking his back. The Wiki article mentions that there was long term effect on the university. Columbia suffered quite a bit in the aftermath... Applications, endowments, and grants for the university declined significantly in the following years. "It took at least 20 years to fully recover. Interestingly they don't mention how they have not had one single NCAA wrestling champion since the protest

Mekhi has a Jr World Title which he won reportedly. with almost no FS training. I think his history of injuries make hos ranking about right

I think the old perception of strong like bull, keeps attacking, good cardio with limited FS techniques and tactics should be obsolete. This seemed fair for the last generation of guys, like Brent Metcalf, who could never really break through on the international level, but with all the Golds we have been getting at all age levels it would be foolish to still generalize in this manner.

My thought for "fixing" GR is to allow trips and foot sweeps etc. but continue to allow leg grabbing (any hand below the waist techniques) This opens up a big variety of techniques and also should cause more positioning/action leading to more traditional GR throws. This wont happen because this is essentially Judo without a gi and the Olympic committee does not want different sports that are too similar. It is a radical change to the style, but Judo made a similar radical change about 15 years ago where all leg grabbing techniques were banned. Any touches below the belt, at the time, became an immediate disqualification. The change seemed to be because ex-wrestlers (a Mongolian in particular) were winning gold medals with blast doubles and people did not like it. They thought it did not look like Judo even though those techniques have been part of Judo since the beginning. There was lots of complaining from traditionalists and ex-wrestlers (like me) who had their most effective techniques banned. All these years later, I think the controversy has mostly gone away and people mostly accept that is what competition Judo is.

In Judo you don't get penalize for a missed throw. Your opponent has to stop your momentum and then force you to the mat (to your back to score). After a missed throw, the action isn't stop and so the punishment is you have to defend on the mat, this should be adopted in GR. There is a time limit within you have to attempt an attack or you get penalize for passivity. So if you pretend to throw and immediately bail out you can get a penalty for a false attack. Mindsets about what actions deserve points can be very different across very similar sports. I was explaining slipped throws in GR to a non-wrestling Judo friend and he just could not understand how all wrestling does not have that rule. Getting points for your opponents making a bad move and you doing nothing did not make sense to him. What clearly should be worthy of scoring point to someone used to one system does not make sense at all if you are used to different rules.

It has been decades since I did a very limited amount of GR. And even then it was a lot better sport to participate in than to watch. Same can be said about almost every wrestling style

Folkstyle embodies the purpose of wrestling that you are used to. Other grappling styles have other purposes. Judo & Greco, the purpose is a throw. BJJ wants to have a submission. To a submission grappler, seeing Folkstyle mat work is completely non-sensical

Definitely this. GR at the highest level is hard to watch because it so hard to score/throw a world class level athlete. They don't get out of position. And the consequences of a failed throw are so great it does not make sense to take a lot of (any) chances. Many high level Folkstyle matches suffer from the same issue. Yes, I talking about you, Daton Fix and Will Lewan, if you are reading this

Those are criticism of how International tournaments are run, not of the style of wrestling. I assume if you changed the format of tournaments to double elimination with full wrestle backs you still would not be a GR fan

The rules of Greco Roman are not ancient. There are lots of forms of grappling that don't allow any hold below the waist. It's history really starts with the modern olympics

There was a small improvement this year. My personal preference is to have 2 min on the feet and then back to the old rules where there was only one period of a ride outs and bottom would win with an escape and top would win with a ride out. Too dependent on a coin flip but better than pretending that a few seconds of riding time determines who the better wrestler is

All those things can be true at the same time.

Fair enough. The land of opportunity is definitely and opinion and a biased American one at that. However, number of foreign students is not: And every ranking that I can find of the academics ha the US with at least 50% of the top 25 schools

Wouldn't that make Purdue at least part of the conversation? Also, not sure what the recruiting rules are now for students enrolled in other universities, but wouldn't it make sense for any college recruiting the younger Blaze to also go after Blaze the Elder?

Isn't the Blaze from Purdue his brother?