dodacahadron

if you know when to leave to avoid the traffic you can get to vegas from the LA region in maybe 4 hours... the more inland you are the shorter that time will be.

vibes were high in there, there was a mutual understanding that we were all there to watch wrestlers duke it out. theres a lot of small things (i can detail them more) but these were my off-mat highlights: tons of fans of all nations. iranians, armenians, russians, kyrgyz, puerto ricans, indians, uzbeks, probably way more that i didn't see, cheering for their country. ton of iranians flags, saw two armenian flags. few wrestler families supporting their kids, including the Bassett family, actually walked by them coming in. believe both families of jaskaran vs. bassett were present, the duality of jaskaran's family cheering and going nuts while bassett's family watched him lose after hanging a US flag over the railing was... a lot of "red/blue passive!" from the audience, basically the international version of yelling stalling. at some point, someone went "yellow passive!" and everyone laughed LOL. also heard "both passive!" all that yelling you hear in international competition? it's actually a dude (probably russian) from the stands screaming at the top of his lungs. pretty sure the wrestlers heard them more than their actual coaches. at one point, a group of kyrgyz dudes sat behind me and my brother to cheer on one specific kyrgyz wrestler and waved to him like they were friends (i think they were just fans). tons of wrestlers casually sat down in the stands and watched if they finished up (or were eliminated) for the day. Iran's Ebrahim Khari (61kg bronze) and Ahoura Khateri (65kg gold), strolled in and shook the hands of the iranian fans like it was an everyday thing! khari actually sat in front of me during saturday's finals; i didn't get a chance to speak to them but WOW that probably ain't happening at any other level. i saw khateri take a picture with some kids as we were leaving, he's cool like that. i'll post the on mat separately, gotta sift through the matches i saw/remember. biggest thing was how personal it felt; everyone knew everyone, and if you didn't you were still included. very cool!

hi there, lurker here who hasnt made an account prior to this, I did lol. made a weekend out of it with my dad and brother actually! bought all day passes for Saturday and it was an open seating arrangement, you could go anywhere for the most part; they were 90 dollars, which for a WORLD level event i was willing to pay for. dont get me wrong the attendance was very low, probably 500-750 people in attendance total for mfs (cant IMAGINE the ghost towns for greco and wfs...) but the camera angles were a bit misleading because they faced the side almost no one sat on since they looked to be blocked off from the top (little signs said no entry on the curtains). I assume almost all of the crowd in attendance either lived in Vegas or drove in from California, socal in particular is crazy diverse so you'll find people willing to make the drive to Vegas and pay the (inflated) prices for... basically everything to cheer on their country. cant imagine anyone flying out for something like this, out of the question. from what I saw, the people in attendance had a genuine love for wrestling in such an outspoken manner. the Iranians in particular were going crazy the whole time cheering their guys on, i guarantee that gave the iranian wrestlers a boost that helped them have a fantastic day. i can answer more questions and give more anecdotes but it was really fun. at the end of the day its still world level wrestling even if its considered "lower level".