Jim L

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?

I do like how we can determine world class athletes' motivation level and state of mind by what they are saying publicly or posting on Twitter. Of course, they are going to say things are going great and their training was the best ever Or by reading their body language during the tournament, which shows they don't really care about winning anymore.

I always liked his wrestling style, constant shooting and going full speed, so I was able to ignore the off the mat stuff. Good to hear that he has matured and now seems like a decent person. Hopefully he has a future in the sport as a coach and mentor

Not true. The grounding rule is a detail in the pushout rule. The part of the rtules can be tweaked and improved. I don't think I have see anyone saying criteria decision is great. Some posters accept it and understand why the rule is the way it is. No one loves it. Folkstyle OT rules are also a mess.

A giant portion of the world wants to come to US for college. We are still the land of opportunity and still have the best universities in the world by far

Steel sharpen steel. The top guys in the US will get better bytraining with better athletes.

10 seconds is a very long time if nothing is happening. If the bottom man does not need to work for an escape he can just turtle up and wait out the clock... 20 seconds would be an eternity. Best compromise would be to let the mat wrestling continue if the top man is making progress, no one wants to seeca potential NF situation get stopped after a 20 second click expires. This puts the decision in the referees hand when to stop the mat wrestling. Not ideal but it is usually not a hard call and there can be guidelines on how much time the top man has to show progress.

I had not thought about this, but this would be a huge benefit to USA wrestling and also another way to drive increased number of wrestlers at programs that are enrollment driven.

I like Freestyle more than Folkstyle, but am very aware that it is very unlikely that the US will ever switch. Absolutely a pushout rules with possibly some modifications would be a huge improvement for Flk

Syracuse

No I will never give an inch on an Internet argument on an obscure topic. This is so important to me that I will continue to repeat the same arguments until the end of time

Not actually lying and I can ignore rule changes that are no longer in place.

Yes, I can ignore it. The FS I wrestled 30+ years ago looks pretty similar to what I see today. They had a bad set of rules and thankfully dumped then and came back to the best rule set we have ever had