wrestle87

Sweeet, more the merrier, let's keep it going.

That's awesome, he comes from deep and early jersey wrestling royalty roots. I'm not sure if Kittattiny is as good as they were when he was there, but I believe that makes Matt the 3rd wrestler coming out of the Edge to be an Ivy league coach now, the other two being Tanelli and Grey. Matt has the background and toolset to really push the level of Penn's program.

Has Matt stayed involved with the program in his other role on campus? Was that a role that the administration made up to keep him around so he COULD help with the program? As far as I can remember, he's got the best collegiate credentials of any Penn wrestler in history, emphasis on collegiate. Great time to bring him in, not that Penn's doing terribly, but he will definitely be able to claw back some of the traffic heading up to Cornell.

This is not entirely unique to wrestling, but somewhat. The only time somebody takes this route, it seems to be because it is so much more positive or enjoyable to be able to traverse the olympic process without having the added burden of dealing with qualifying. Bekzod and Gomez (franklin) had been at PSU for a long time before this became a bigger topic, and by and large, regardless of who athletes represent, the US isn't at Dagestan levels of competition, the more olympic athletes who can be brought into a particular room, the US is still in a position where middle level athletes getting to spend time around olympians is a real treat. I think we are a long way away from having a situation where more olympians in a room is a bad thing. Do they wind up competing eventually? Yes...but past a certain point, many many athletes will develop some form of relationship or friendship, it's just such a small sport once you get to the top.

Wrestling has evolved to be much more fluid and complex than when they were wrestling. The pre and post Askren and far-ankle scramble eras have made previously "good" positions much more difficult to navigate. The reshot and far ankle scramble are basically the best thing going right now, so an Iowa bruiser "push push push" style actually exposes wrestlers to a lot of attacks that really weren't prevalent in the brands days. Iowa boys can hip heist like the best of them, but successfully navigating leg scrambles and hip to hip positions is an area they don't seem to know how to enter or navigate. This is a problem considering that this is top-tier folkstyle defense at the moment. I will say though, that if some of these guys can actually get through college without too many injuries, their style is well built for the current freestyle ruleset.

Clearly lacking in reading skills, I said he was a sup-bar top-level fighter...meaning...since words seem to be hard...that amongst the top echelon of guys, he isn't very competitive... It's ok, I know echelon is a big word...echelon means tier or group...in order to get into that top group of fighters, one must necessarily beat the middle-group of fighters... So...this would put him right on the divide between middle-tier and top tier, better than most middle-tier fighters, but worst than most top-tier fighters...

And...in the course of all of this, how many times have we reminded each other indirectly that there are matches and fights on the horizon that we can watch? ...almost like it worked!

I typed a very long response...but then was bad at using my keyboard and exited the tab, so it has gone bye bye. The dude is a stellar entertainer, and clearly has written the playbook for getting paid as a fighter (hence twitter nonsense that just "magically erupts" 2 months before a big UFC card. He was, however, a lousy top-level fighter. He took EXTREMELY long breaks between fights, and had very mediocre performances in all his top outings since the Aldo fight, which was in 2015. Again, very smart from a self-preservation and marketing perspective, but really crappy overall performances when he actually fought. He never defended the 145 belt, he just held it and vacated it 18 months after winning it. And then after winning the 155 belt, he ran and hid for two years, with his only defense being against Khabib...and we know how that went. 2 of his three wins since 2015 came from opponents who knew they were never getting a title shot, and were meant to be name-builders/step-ladders for Señor Mcgregor. For reference and comparison, below are the records of Mcgregor against other top guys at his weight. He doesn't come close to matching up... Mcgregor: Charles Oliveira: Justin Gaethje: Dustin Poirier: The green-red ratios speak for themselves. If you still reflexively feel a desire to disagree, I congratulate you on your fanboydom, it is a special, particularly deep-seated religious fervor, I have many friends who are your fellow travelers...

"Once in a lifetime catastrophic events" seem to be adhering to the same schedule as the olympics... Kids these days are getting pretty good at seeing overwrought stupidity and pointing it out as same, and they sure are a heck of a lot kinder to one another than we were growing up...

Nailed it, 100%. Talking smack on social media, especially twitter is the main thing that fighters or future fighters need to be able to do in order to get picked up by promotions. If you are great with your thumbs and only ok with your hands, they will find a way to make you champion and keep you labeled as champion for as long as possible. They are still running the "mcgregor" protocol for all fighters as much as possible, and it's really very tired...but it drives headlines because media broadly functions that way now. Using mcgregor as the example, after his first win to claim a belt in 2015, the dude went 3-4 over his next 7 fights, and 2 of those wins were clearly meatball pre-arranged in results. Dude was a below average fighter, but he was an effective entertainer before and after the fight, that he made money... And...fighters understand that it is way better to make money with your thumbs than by taking a fist to the face, so they will use this style of back and forth as much as possible. Is it gross? Yeah...but it's also really smart, and is a way to make sure that guys can retire after ten fights instead of going the donald cerrone chuck liddell route.

Hahaha, well, he may have soured on that take, given that he does dungeon workouts now at PSU… But seriously, even Ohio State had that one figured out…

I guess they missed the bit about actual sunlight being rather good for athletes, and the whole facility...etc. I'm kind of amazed they missed the boat on the value of windows in a practice room...unless these pictures were taken at night?

Yeah, I was talking from a recruiting/whole package perspective.

2 questions I have, are: 1) Does anybody know anything about the NIL situations surrounding each school? Is this an entirely dark market, or is there any documentation or word of mouth as to the amount of funds that are in the vicinity of each program? I ask this after watching basketball (for family reasons) today, and hearing about how one school was able to put together a workaround to get an international athlete NIL money that allowed him to still comply with his student visa. 2) @Wrestleknownothing you are an excel-based person like I am, do you have a tab with the team race results by year that you'd be willing to share that we could take a look at by any chance? Looking at random txt lists is proving a bit difficult for my brain to visualize. I think it would be quite meaningful to this topic to be able to see exactly who is placing above and immediately below iowa each year during their tenure.

Northwestern is facing an increasingly large uphill battle against Michigan, Cornell, and the rest of the big ten. NU is the worst of the smart schools that actually have a chance to get you where you want to go as an athlete, and they are also bottom of the barrel for the Big Ten. They are closer to the Duke side of the spectrum than the Cornell side right now. Once you go too far down that road, it’s really hard to come back.

Maybe, I'm just spitballing, just sharing that I've heard there are certain intangibles about life in that corner of the country that would make a relocation to Buffalo a potentially hit or miss proposition.

This would be a very interesting hire. I feel like Kolat might be too principled to leave the Navy job.

Yeah, and initially I was going to say "hmm, I don't get why he's staying out there, he could have so many programs if he was interested..." But then I remembered what one of my brother's best friends said after moving out to Ft. Collins, which is just next to Greeley, CO. And I quote, "I miss you guys, I'd love to have you come visit, but it's awesome out here, I'm never leaving."

Saldate's going to get a lot better in that room. He's a blood round guy, went toe to toe with Haines this year, but doesn't really have a stable of guys to push him and keep him developing. He'll probably get beat on for a while, got some big whoppers of dudes in that room, but that's also the environment he came from in high school. He got good by getting tossed around by Khabib and his Dagestani buds before college. I think Saldate will be 5th/6th next year.

This was my immediate reaction as well. 1) You may not have to throw a bag of money at him, and 2) are you sure you want to?

This is true, it just seems to extend across upper classmen who are already accomplished all americans themselves. Honestly, I think it happened to Kyle Snyder when he went to that room too.

It appears you are precisely correct.

So, I'm curious, kind of bc I'm from NJ and the dynamic is somewhat similar in regards to high school talent vs viable wrestling destinations, do wisconsin fans continue to root for Wisconsin kids when they go out of state? I know from NJ, that always sort of seems to be the case, you know who the jersey kids are, and you root for them regardless of the singlet, because its good for wrestling within the state. NJ college programs have never been (and still are not) a major proven pathway to major success at the NCAA level. They won't actively get in your way or hinder you, which is great progress, but they aren't going to turn you into a champion. This has always been kind of known and acknowledged, so any time a kid can get an offer to a bigger program with more pedigree, support, and a better track record, it's always viewed as a serious win.