CHROMEBIRD

I know the assistance provided to athletes is extremely scattershot, but my impression is that it's not nearly enough because athletic departments don't have the resources or scale to provide meaningful guidance around the intricacies of every deal for every athlete under their roof. Fortunately, most deals are probably legit and transacted in good faith, but athletes are still easily outflanked by bad actors if they don't have the personal resources or draw to bring on an agent, lawyer, or some other professional advisor.

Yeah, going D3 to D1/Big Ten is quite a jump. Really looking forward to seeing what he brings and how he develops

Makes sense. KOT made some comments at Nationals that he really wanted to step away for a minute to heal, go on spring break, spend time with his wife, all the stuff that had been on the backburner during his college wrestling career. He also mentioned something about his involvement in the homebuilding business(?), so I originally thought his announcement would be that he'd be focusing on getting that going.

Solid take. Agreed on all points. Now that synchronized/artistic swimming is co-ed, I think Greco is the only sport without an analogue for men & women. Wrestling gets by for now because of tradition, but Pankration and chariot racing were also events in the ancient Olympics; and wrestling during the first modern games in the late 19th century probably bares little resemblance to Greco today. Similarly, beach wrestling may one day become the de facto "wrestling" in the Olympics. Not saying I support this, just that it's not too difficult to imagine it happening.

Kind of reminds me of the dudes in this video who had necks wider than their head and

Is that international competition only? IIRC Khuzin suggested at one point that Russian wrestlers get in more reps than we see reported from the UWW and Russian Nationals, with regional and club competitions and such. Dunno if it's still that way though with the war and transfers and what not.

There's likely consensus here on whether NIL deals should be taxable; the bigger issue is that without a national clearinghouse, it's all patchwork and unregulated. There are definitely athletes who take NIL money under the table, which is also a reason why some kids are saying they aren't getting paid for whatever deal they agreed to. Other athletes are persuaded into signing NIL deals structured as predatory loans or some illiquid financial instrument to avoid taxation (and for more money upfront). I don't blame BIGSPORT kids for signing with agents to navigate all this, but it can't imagine wrestlers or other non-revenue sport athletes giving up a cut of their meager NIL deals (or agents being interested enough), nor finding the minimal guidance most athletic departments provide to be adequate.

It's a trend goign around. I've been seeing the same sort of action figures of celebs, politicians, athletes, etc. floating around lately: "Creating a toy version of yourself or anyone else (that includes pets, yup), works like this: Log in to ChatGPT, upload a photo, add a text prompt describing your ideal action figure, and voila — you’re boxed and ready for toy-store shelves (or, more likely, Instagram)." https://www.forbes.com/sites/lesliekatz/2025/04/15/ai-action-figure-trend-explained---and-how-to-make-your-own/ I don't doubt that IndianaMat created the AI prompt, though. Looking forward to more figurinos from the wrestling community

Idk man, you might be overthinking it. Carl likes to keep things simple and he doesn't care about anything except for NCAAs (and trials/Worlds/Olympics on the RTC side). He doesn't care about duals or Big Tens, even though he's probably contractually incentivized by it, or preseason tournaments. It's all noise between him and postseason hardware. Bro has his guys so singularly focused on NCAAs (and probably religion and winning in life or something) that National Duals is just another distraction. Maybe there could be more attractive economic incentives or bigger implications for postseason seeding or something, but it doesn't seem like there are a lot of levers one could pull to sway his thinking. It's just how he is.

That's a really good point about the IOC wanting to keep sports distinct. Judo de-emphasized leg shots because the Olympic committees didn't want it to be too much like wrestling. Karate tried to focus on Kata and hand strikes to distinguish itself from Taekwondo. Grappling/BJJ would probably need to make changes to their sport, among other things, or have Judo and freestyle modify or de-emphasize takedowns, chokes, armlocks, and other aspects of their disciplines to be considered for inclusion in a future Olympics. Not that they would necessarily want to. There's a whole other discussion to be had about the way sports become watered-down due to whatever requirements are needed to be an Olympic sport vs. the benefits that the Olympics bring.

*ChatGPT

A lot of folks thought Earl Hall was likely to win a title when he was recruited. He had a solid college career, but what happened his senior year? I kind of lost track of him and don't remember if he got injured or what

But the weather in Oklahoma is so much better for Dake's sun callus

Idk, does wrestling need to grow its viewership #s? Seems to be working in other sports. You don't have to participate (I don't). But it would be gravy, if nothing else, to go with matside weigh-ins.

Maybe, does weight cutting draw casuals to the sport?

You don't think it's already happening in college sports?

That's a really good $/gift ratio. Did a big booster or two open their wallet?

Matside weigh-ins + nonlinear weight order (for duals) would be fun for fans. Flip a coin to see which team gets to pick the first weight of the dual. The two guys at the selected weight hop on the scale. Weights are flashed on the jumbotron or whatever, and theywrestle their match. At the end of the match, the other team picks the next weight, and it goes back and forth until all weight classes are wrestled. Would be fun for fans to see what wrestlers weigh-in at (or if they miss weight), and for coaches to be strategic about the order of weight classes to win the dual. Lots of prop bets for sure.

OSU might be Zyn central, but I would be shocked if Gilman picked up the habit. He leads such a disciplined life, post-match antics notwithstanding. It does look like he's turned the intensity down a few notches, though. Like was this the chillest Gilman interview ever?

Pokie State?

That's the fans though, and supposedly the athletes, not the head coach.

You just want to see a Pinto beat a Ferrari. Don't forget 184.

I thought Rocky graduated. Figured Rutgers would make room for him, but training with Bastida sounds good too

That's too bad. He seemed to be enjoying his role at Ok State and it looked like the lightweights were learning a lot from him. I think he'd be a solid addition to the staff at ISU/CRTC. Speaking of RTCs, is Gilman done done competing? Maybe he's gearing up for another cycle and is looking for training opportunities away from RBY and Fix.

Whew, now it all makes sense.