wrestle87

If we just had a freestyle season at the college level, we would innovate and grow immensely. And why not? They spend all year splitting time between styles. A freestyle season organized at the program level would move things in the right direction. Clearly it works for US women. Also, Greco, just…somebody please help. I love greco, it was my favorite style to wrestle, but Jesus christ we are now better as a country at olympic weightlifting than we are at Greco…that’s bad.

As a program across all styles

I’d just like to reiterate, in Dake’s bronze match that french d-bag just threw random points at cabalov, he broke every rule of review, that was some attempted cary kolat level robbery horsesh*t

Musukaev had NO answers for this guy.

This iranian is clearly the best in the world. I’m suddenly rather proud of Retherford’s performance in match 1.

We really need to get some serious technical breakdowns of Japan as a team, they are clearly the best in the world right now and we could learn a LOT from them.

Sh*t talking is dumb and people shouldn’t do it. I don’t read the more famous sources of trash talk in our sport, but the performances we have seen warrant criticism. Character attacks are never warranted, but guys getting called out for underperforming when it counts is part of being an Olympian. It is special because you are THE person representing your whole country. You are the guy (or gal) of all the others. We are also no longer in the 00’s when any medal was a gift from god, at least not in freestyle we aren’t. To make the US team, your typically have to be a world medalist to be in contention. If you are a world medalist, or champion, that is what is expected of you again. There is no nice way to say it, but, 65 and 97kg pending, every men’s freestyler has underperformed.

It’s tough when you’re a big guy who moves like a big guy, and you run into a big guy who moves like a little guy.

Really appreciate the physical beating this guy is putting on Tazh

This Kazakh guy is beautifully predictable

There it is…that’s what we were looking for. Also, I’m a bad fan blades is in a tight one.

Mus came to bang, he absolutely outclassed a very good wrestler.

Did Aliyev just bite him? what happened?

We do a very bad job of looking gently offended at every whistle as a team. The palms up hands out to the side “mr official really?” look of gentle indignation is a hallmark of strong European/West Asian wrestling.

Chest wraps have been basically legislated out of wrestling. We need to get that through our heads, officials are required to score it as an inferior attacking position.

Bad spur of the moment defensive/stalling decisions have been the name of the game this year, but it looks like seabass at least showed up ready for a scrap.

I can’t get over how much rivera’s shoes look like off-brand jordans

This iranian guy is giving off peak mohammadian vibes.

Spencer, Zain and Dake, how much of this is weight cut? We know for zain it is, bc he is literally the best in the world when up at 70kg.

Is this Iranian good enough to make the finals? And jiminy christmas we really suck at this weight, why are we so bad at 65kg?

The US women’s team is absolutely bringing it, but US-trained men’s freestyle wrestlers are not bringing front line technique these olympics, it’s really apparent. Either game plans are trash or the whole world went and upped it’s level and left us behind, but I have not seen a single US men’s freestyle wrestler just “have the answers” the way we have been so fortunate to see the past few cycles. Everyone is collectively wrestling predictably and, excepting Myles Amine, wrestling scared. Really hope Zain bucks this trend.

Kennedy Blades just put herself on 30 years of t-shirts with that throw

Thank you for wedging lunatic fringe squarely in my brain

She just did wrestling warmups…

JB has upped his game from NCAA’s about 1000%. He has done a great job, mixes action and background commentary with actual topical technical comments. I never would have thought I’d be saying it in March, but JB is doing a great job.