BuckyBadger

Freestyle - Iran with 3 silvers, one bronze. Japan with 2 golds and 1 silver. US with one silver and two bronze. Greco - Iran with 2 golds, 1 silver and 2 bronze. Japan with 2 golds. Cuba with 1 gold and 2 bronze. And Kyrgyzstan with 3 bronze.

We have 250k high school male wrestlers that wrestle folk style. Probably a small fraction of them train in freestyle as their second style. The fact is our system trains our wrestlers very intensely in folk style through the early 20s while the rest of the world regularly produces wrestlers that are having great success on the senior level when they are in their early 20s, sometimes younger. So I’m not sure if I agree on the US winning the participation war. But I do agree that how we train is the issue. Our whole system uses folk as a base. It’s not surprising that the majority of our guys are not good at throwing, uncomfortable locking up in many positions, and don’t typically score back exposure off of their opponents offense. These are all critical freestyle skills. Dake is really the only guy I can think of that has those skills and he even forces things that aren’t there (as evidenced by his last two Olympic appearances). I don’t think we’ll drop folk style in the US, because it’s our domestic style and it has a fan base. But I think it’s also the reason why we won’t reach our freestyle potential.

Does the US as a country have the ability to be the best in the world? Yes. But the reason they aren’t consistently above the competition, like we are in basketball, is because wrestling is not even in the top 5 of sports that kids in this country pursue. Maybe not even 6-10. And on top of that, most wrestlers in this country don’t even wrestle freestyle! While Iran/Russia/Georgia etc have a smaller total population, wrestling is much more popular there. In Iran I’m guessing it’s top 5 (maybe even top 3). In southern Russia (Dagestan, Chechnya, Ossetia) it might even be number 1. Wrestling is a big part of the culture in that part of the world. Even non-wrestlers over there follow the sport and feel invested in their success. That’s not true in the US. I think another reason much poorer countries are able to do really well is because wrestling is a poor man’s sport. You really don’t need much in the way of equipment. It’s kind of like dirt poor East African countries that produce the best middle and long distance runners. It’s in their culture and you don’t need any significant resources to do very well. Having said all that, the US results the last few cycles have been really good. We have been on the verge of being team champions. For a sport that probably is not even top 10 in terms of popularity here, we are holding our own and continue to produce many cadet/junior world champions. That was not the case 10+ years ago.

I turned it off after regulation ended and it looked like Vali v won. Then later I see Zhamalov advanced in the bracket. What happened, and was it legit? I didn’t see anything controversial during the match.

WWE didn’t work out, NFL is unlikely to work out. I suppose he could pursue MMA. But if not, that leaves wrestling.

For 2028 I could see: 57: Spencer 65: Yianni 74: ??? 86: Brooks 97: ??? HWT: Gable That’s a solid 4 weights. There will be other guys that step up between now and then for the unknowns. The golden age could still be going strong, just with fresh faces.

The future looks bright for other weights. Brooks, Yianni has shown that he can compete on this level, Vito. All solid building blocks.

Hard to see Spencer being done. He is still fresh from his finals performance and emotions are running high. Not surprised to hear some of his comments, but with some time and perspective that may change. Maybe he takes some time off, but I think he’ll be back for another cycle.

I remember thinking in 2021 that the way he lost was going to haunt him. And then in 2024 he almost has it happen twice. That would have been torturous. Glad to see him finally get the Olympic gold.

Whew!! Glad he pulled that off.

Oh man, if Geno loses this match…

Asian countries dominate in weight lifting at the lower weights.

Japan is excellent in lower weights, and also produce some stud middleweights (but with less consistency). Very rarely do they have a competitive upper weight.

I’m surprised a lot of folks seem to be writing off Higuchi. He is looking just as dominant as Lee and he’s an Olympic silver medalist. Lee might be wrestling a guy who is superior on their feet, which I’m not sure has happened in a long time. It’s going to be a tough match.

I think the issue with Brooks is he didn’t do a lot of international tournaments prior to the Olympics. Remember when Taylor arrived on the freestyle scene it took him a while to adjust before he became what he has been the last 5years or so. I’m always a bit worried about a guy that is so new on the scene and the Olympics are their first major senior level tournament. Simply having been there before counts for a lot on the big stage.

Can I take that back?

Lee is looking really good but Abullayev has some really funky dangerous stuff. It won’t be a cake walk in the semis.

What was that call to overturn the pin?

She can go to college later on. I would imagine she is able to earn some money through endorsements etc from her recent success. Why go to college now when she is arguably the P4P in women’s wrestling? Even if she gets injured at some point, it probably makes more sense to pursue international results as opposed to a scholarship to college.

I’m still not clear on the rules. I saw plenty of matches where they seem to put both down automatically, regardless of the action. Other matches where they put one guy down and that was it.

Do they automatically put both down, or are they only supposed to put the guy down not controlling the middle?

I’ve seen a number of matches where wrestler A is the aggressor while wrestler B is more defensive. Wrestler B gets put down for passivity. Then A continues to be the aggressor but he gets put down. It’s like the refs automatically put both down regardless of who the aggressor is. Anyone else see it the same?

Perhaps, if the Iranians are aware of Brook’s previous comments.

What do you mean “full blooded”? Are you saying American is an ethnic group?

Easily the gymnast.