TylerDurden

I can see the humor radar is still frozen in Minnesota. Seriously, I will be interested to see how 125KG shakes out. It has a nice mix of veterans and recent college guys. Gable, time off or not, is the favorite.

Rumor has it he wanted to avoid a fully healthy Mason Parris.

RE: pushout points. I have my doubts about this. If a guy grabs a collar tie, blocks and drives his opponent out of bounds...did he really do anything? This strategy is already employed by many wrestlers to generate a stall call. I'd argue the guy pushing their opponent out is stalling, i.e., not wrestling. Think about how this works in freestyle...a guy is close to the edge and his opponent pushes him and gets a point for...pushing...unless he's grounded. I don't like it in FS either. I think it was a well-intended rule to keep action going, but in its application, it is silly. There are some legitimate times where a guy is backing straight out to avoid a certain position, double underhooks, for instance. Those should be called stalling. I seems that the application of the rule makes it so that the official must call a stall for "backing" off the mat, even if they were pushed off or it's clear the wrestler being pushed is making an attempt to stay in the circle. Perhaps this is a rule that needs clarification and application amendments, not a rewrite to reward the behavior that seems to go against the spirit of the rule. If a guy is actually avoiding wrestling, call stalling.

The Hodge folks do need to address the number of finalists. Ten is way too many. It creates choice overload and unnecessarily complicates the voting.

Agreed. Any objective observer could see Parris should have won the Hodge this year. I'm glad the votes reflected that, even if you eliminate the fan vote. I'd probably have Starocci No. 2 on my ballot, but Parris was the more impressive and dominant wrestler this year.

In most years, Brooks wouldn't have been a Hodge finalist.

As it should have been. Congratulations to Parris.

I don't have a specific number for Lee, but I have him the same rank as Sebastian Rivera. Honestly, every program in the country would love to have a guy like Spencer Lee. I always enjoyed watching him wrestle.

Nah. You got it correct. Parris should win.

Eierman did wrestle until he was 42, but even he didn't get eight AAs! haha I think it's a tad disingenuous to claim AAs from years that Yanni didn't beat them, but I get it. It shows the type of guys he beat along the way, even if they weren't that guy at the time. I did find it interesting how some guys kept showing up in his path: Sasso, Eierman, Murin, Demas.

It's not easy to find good statistics for wrestling, no matter how well resourced the school is. I agree that not giving up a takedown is impressive. DI wrestlers are good, even the bad ones. The competition level matters, of course, but it's still something noteworthy in the era of caution takedowns and leg diving.

That makes sense. I didn't go look at every opponent's AA history. Either way, it's an impressive wins list.

He qualified for the Indiana HS state finals meet in the 110m Hurdles.

I looked at Yanni's results and I can't find 15/20 wins against All-Americans in those years. Maybe they're counting cumulative AA honors of his opponents? So you could say of his 20 wins, his opponents earned 15 AA honors or something along those lines. *are AAs in the year Yanni beat them. He beat Sasso, Eierman and Murin twice each. 2023 Demas, CP Arrington, NCSt Murin, Iowa* Van Ness, PSU* Sasso, OSU* 2022 Sherman UNC McDougald, OU Murin, Iowa Sasso, OSU* Lovett, Neb* 2019 Lipan, Rut Red, Neb* Demas, OU* Eierman, Mizz* McKenna, OSU* 2018 Zanetta, Pitt Gil, Navy Heil, OKSt Eierman, Mizz* Meredith, Wyo*

More context outside of my edit window: Parris beat five All-Americans in the season: 2nd place Kervliet (three times) 3rd place Hendrickson 4th place Cassioppi (twice) 5th place Davison (twice) 8th place Hillger (twice)

Over his career, that's probably true. Every win in the semis and final is over another All-American (that's eight without doing anything else). Guys you beat in the quarters have some work to do on the back side and those who he beat in the first/second rounds have to win a ton to make AA. I may take a look at this and put a list together to see who the other seven were.

Parris probably wrestled the toughest competition of all the candidates. Heavyweight was loaded with guys with world-level accomplishments and Parris beat damn near all of them this year. He also wrestled 33 matches this year, more than any other finalist, and had 11 pins, which leads the finalists. Base off of the stated criteria, the only other candidate with a case is Starocci. 1 – Record - if you lost, you are behind Parris here (Vito, Yanni, KOT, Brooks) 2 – Dominance/Bonus-Point Percentage - Of the unbeatens, only Starocci, Alirez and AOC have a better bonus percentage than Parris. Brooks (67 v 64) is the only wrestler with a loss that tops Parris in percentage. None have as many pins. 3 – Quality of Competition - Parris won 10 matches this year against the top eight finishers. There were four world champs and six world medalists at his weight. 4 – Sportsmanship - This is the most subjective, but c'mon, Parris is a nice guy to boot.

Sources: NIL issue - didn't get paid for the photo. He told the NCAA to stick it.

I don't know if Bouzakis is heading out of Columbus, but he and Mendez look like they could be career 133lbers, something OSU was hoping wouldn't happen. That's a problem when you have so much money tied up in them. Something has to give. Reports are Mendez isn't a guy who can pack on weight, so moving up might be hard for him. Bouzakis is not a tall person. Can't see him at 141 and I'm not sure 125 is an option either. Could Mendez make 125?

Starocci had a great year and is really impressive, but his quality of competition this year was not as good as what Parris faced. Parris beat (by NCAA seeds and scanning through trackwrestling brackets) the No. 2, No. 3 (3x), No. 4 (2x), No. 7, No. 9 (2x), No. 11 (2x), No. 17 (2x), No. 18, No. 20, No. 23 (2x), No. 29, No. 31, and No. 32. Nine of his matches this year were against top-10 NCAA seeds. Twenty matches were against NCAA Qualifiers. He beat five of the seven other placers at his weight a combined 10 times. Starocci, by comparison, be the No. 2 (2x), No. 4, No. 6, No. 8 (2x), No. 11, No. 12, No. 17 (2x), No. 19, No. 20, No. 30, No. 31, No. 33 (2x) Six matches against top-10 NCAA seeds 16 matches against NCAA qualifiers He won five matches against the seven other placers. Also, the sportsmanship is not a push for the DJ Washington match alone. Parris clears there. Heart is pretty subjective, but Starocci definitely didn't be Kemerer this year, if that's what you're implying. The only true edge Carter has is past NCAA credentials, if you ignore the Junior World title Parris won. I'd hear an argument for Starocci to win the Hodge, but I think it should go to Parris. If you go down the list: 1. push, both unbeaten 2. Parris pinned 11 guys this year, Starocci pinned five. This one isn't close. 3. Assuming your percentages are correct, Starocci has the edge, but...Parris wrestled nine more matches against better opponents and have more than double the falls. This is a push, honestly. 4. Starocci has better NCAA finishes. 5. Parris. 6. Parris 7. This is a useless, subjective criteria. Parris got healthy and mauled his opponents in the NCAA Tournament. Call this a push.

That would be an interesting development.

It may not be a relevant story for next year, but I think Ohio State is going to have a bigger problem than they originally thought they might with Mendez and Bouzakis. It seems like they're basically both built to be career 133lbers. Mendez wasn't a big 133 this season and, to me, looked a little small in some matches. Reports had the plan for Mendez to move up to 141 lbs after a redshirt, but I'm not sold on that working out. Any Ohio State people have an insight?

Everyone thinks everyone else is wrong about everything. Folks don't trust the media, except when it confirms their bias. Religion is great, as long as it's yours. My side good, your side bad. Social media censors, or does it amplify? Person X is lying, or are they? What is true? Do you even need something to be true? Facts are facts, unless you have alternative facts. 2+2=5 Everyone is a victim. We're all stuck in an algorithm. Can we lock this thread now?

That's a nice team. I'm eager to see what Seltzer can do after his redshirt.

Do you see the irony in this post?