JMill

But everyone knows Folkstyle is more exciting… nothing gets me pumped up than a 1-1 match decided by seconds of riding time after a hard fought scoreless ten minutes.

Not that he really had to get up for them, but he already wrestled three matches today before the finals. Now he has to cut weight and wrestle another five tomorrow.

At some point we have to consider whether or not Spencer Lee has been cursed…

Some of them wrestling their first matches of the day.. others, their fourth.

My guess is 2/3. also have Greco finals matches 2 and 3 for 82kg and up.

U20 match on mat 3 has to finish up…

Working for me… 74/79 are on the mat.

I’ve seen it called that way (correctly), too, but it’s pretty rare that it does. Putting the head down is used with the same level of gamesmanship that dropping to the knees to avoid a step out had before the rule change. One match last night I watched, the guy had a shin whizzer and put his head down off the mat. Whistle. No points. Huh?

The sport has evolved in the past decade and will continue to evolve, so if a coach doesn’t evolve, therein may lie the problem. Do you think Gable would be winning NCAA titles every year in today’s landscape using the same coaching philosophy as he had in the 90s? I think he’d consistently be on the outside of trophies looking in. Brands seems to operate on the Gable philosophies updated to the present environment to an extent. The idea of iron sharpening iron has lost its usefulness to a large degree at the collegiate level. Gone are the days of the best recruits never competing against anyone outside of a 2-hour bus ride from their hometowns. Kids are coming into college with a lot of matches against elite opponents from across the country and world. Kids are also practicing year round with the best of the best from a wide geographic area at clubs with elite coaches, not just with their high school coach, and maybe a couple alumni and/or teammates if they’re lucky. This means kids are coming into college with a significant amount of mileage on them from both competition and practice, so that’s something that can’t be ignored, either. Buddy carries up the CHA might make one mentally tough and confident in his conditioning and ability to outwork his opponent, but at what cost? Every minute spent on conditioning (particularly at the wrong time) is just extra wear and tear and time being spent on being better at exercising, not better at wrestling.

Why are some guys MFF and others DQ on the backside? Did the MFF guys make weight?

By comparing our decades old high school wrestling accomplishments to determine whose opinion carries the most weight. It’s the only way that makes sense.

Sponsored by Cael’s Cookies.

So, in theory, if your opponent is just trying to push you out (not take you down or expose you), he won’t get a point unless you drop to your knees. In theory. The thing that gets me is the defensive wrestler putting his head on the mat out of bounds to stop the action. That should be caution and one, par terre restart, every single time.

Watching on YouTube… can hear the producers talking… it’s actually kind of cool.

I think the problem is he isn’t doing anything different than he was doing 10-15 years ago. A lot has changed since then. Bono’s “Hustle, Effort, Attitude” mantra plays a lot like the Brands mindset. I think it is great for making a really solid high school team or getting a team that shouldn’t be very good to overachieve, but the technical level of wrestling and training is far beyond what it was even ten years ago, so just outworking your opponents isn’t going to get you over the hump from better to best. It’s probably why Wisconsin had a really good first half of the season before the wheels fell off. They won a lot of early matches with “grit”, which was mostly being in shape when other teams weren’t. As the season progressed, other teams got their conditioning ramped up while Wisconsin’s ramped down as wear and tear added up.

That could definitely be true about buy-outs, especially now that a lot of non-revenue coaches are making 2-3 times what they did ten years ago.

This video goes over that…. I think it’s more that kids brought up through AWA look for a college coach with a similar coaching philosophy as Askren, and it doesn’t seem like Bono’s is even close.

— Didn't win a tournament from 1981 through 1983 because J Robinson had him shooting all the time. I love that this is included in Randy’s career highlights.

Well, it was supposed to be Cael vs Sadulaev, but you said get rid of 46-year-olds… nice job.

Aitmukhan should return those socks.

He seems to only want current fighters in matches they can win or against guys who are well known/good to the point it wouldn’t matter if they lost (Cejudo).. guessing why Merab wasn’t able to take an alternate opponent. Dana is on record saying no two current UFC guys can wrestle each other

Big news is RAF signed Khamzat… that’s pretty big.

Zahid calls out Nickal… not sure if Dana will allow it.

1st 1-0 Zahid with shot clock point. 2nd 3-0 Zahid with takedown 5-0 Zahid with gut 3rd 1-5 Sinclair with step-out 6-1 Zahid with step-out 8-1 Zahid with takedown 2-8 Sinclair with step-out Zahid wins 8-2 The match probably benefits Sinclair the most, getting to experience Zahid’s speed now will help him down the road

Zahid vs Sinclair… definitely the most relevant (?) match of the night.