wrestle87

I applaud the amount of work that went into this. This is hilarious. A perfect salad of real potential outcomes, wand-waiving, and true humor.

That's astonishing. I'm really looking forward to what Dresser talked about, the Iowa and Iowa State guys taking the State of Iowa for a ride in the legal system.

Discussing 8th seeds making it, wasn't rob rohn also an 8 seed when he won in 2002?

Hahaha, that is a little import that Mexico brought in from Iran. The first time I heard it was way back at worlds in NYC. It is this little plastic horn that EVERY Iranian section brings, and it traditionally gets used to a tune/beat of toot toot toot "IRAN!" toot toot-toot-toot toot-toot-toot "IRAN!" Mexico fans seem to have come up with their own slightly simplified version for making themselves known.

Was Dan Gable the last time the US was good at 65kg? I am being entirely unsarcastic, I just don't have a good memory of who we sent at those weights over the years, but...I think the fact that I'm a pretty decent fan of the sport and I don't know who we sent at those weights likely says a lot. Could it in fact be that the gable formula of grind it to a pulp, while not great for ALL weight classes, is exactly what you need to do/who you need to be to be successful at 65kg?

This is an excellent point. They have air space they are told to fill and thus, just crank out nonsense. This 100% fits and tracks.

Compared to when Bader used to be more of a presence, it feels like 97% garbage.

Perfectly said. Wright had that same type of magic. Jaggers had a cradle, Wright had an underhook that only bosak was able to figure out for one match.

FRL has been trash for years. They learned a long time ago that chasing the least common denominator is profitable somehow. Or, that’s at least what the people beating the drums have ordained. There is a reason there has been an exodus of all of the true wrestling people from that ship over the years. Flowrestling is a textbook example of not fully appreciating how good something is until it changes. I yearn for the bader floreani front lawn wrestling matches, the fretwell roper commentated scuffle matches, and the killer bader joe flo russia coverage they used to pump out when enthusiasm for the sport was what drove the ship. It was a beautiful thing. Alas, the almighty dollar sign took a big fat dump on that hub of enthusiasm.

This is actually what made JB’s junior year matches so amazing to watch. The top of the weight class was just offensive studs. Go and find his CKLV finals match against Jordan Leen in 2008 or 2009, I can’t remember the year. it is one of the most entertaining matches you will ever see.

It was amazing. Jaggers boosted his wrestling so much at big tournaments. It was always so awesome to watch.

He finished one match for 3 minutes. It was impressive, but he blew put his ankle in the finals.

JB actually got it repaired, he had an ankle full of screws and probably brushed his teeth with toradol. Definitely a crazy impressive performance though, arguably the best of his career. edit: I’m 93% sure he got it repaired like 4-6 weeks before worlds.

Only if he wins the spot over fish-thoven.

Iowa, PSU, and Minnesota always have a few guys who come out of nowhere to make the podium. Obviously, if you are from PSU just being on that team removes the element of surprise a bit. One guy I've been really impressed with who has amazing defense is the 141 from WVU Jordan Titus. He has some impressive defense, and can scramble his face off. He definitely has the skills to be a bracket buster and send a few guys to an early off season.

I don't know what we need to do to get access to their programs, but, even though they kick our butts, I can't think of a an organization or a group of people I would more like a hypothetical daughter of mine to get to know. A bunch of gentle, patient savages. I know Japan has a lot of kooky aspects to its society, but they have to have things right somehow. The Japanese women's team is the most dominant team anywhere in the world, across styles, age groups and genders. Mad respect.

Dude, what country do you live in and when can people come visit? Your legs will take a little while to get used to it, it will be a matter of weeks as the skin on your knees gets used to the mat. Your feet and ankles will also need time to learn the rhythm of the shot, when to relax and when to tense up. Keep in mind that any shot you see college wrestlers taking, even high school wrestlers, has been hit ~10,000 to 20,000 times by that wrestler over the course of years. Figure between drills, warmups, etc they are getting in a hundred or more shots a practice, which all gets engrained. The american style of shooting is a bit different, every country seems to have a good deal of its own technique. If you are getting into club and you can do this as long as you like, go do whatever is necessarily to imitate the saitievs. They are still the gold standard across time of technique and gentle savagery taking the shape of a young tree blowing in the wind.

It seems to be that stalling calls get called on the top man in direct relation to the amount of fear the referee has instilled in him by the home crowd. The away wrestler is the only one who will get called for stalling on top in this scenario. Aka, refs call whatever the hell they want, and guidance on the matter still leaves it largely in their hands. Stalling on the top man(away from a counted hold) is still one of the most rare calls in the sport though. It is a rare confluence of events that a guy can simultaneously do little enough to look like he is stalling and be strong enough to hold his opponent on the mat at the same time.

I'm gently astonished we've made it this far without going very in depth on this, maybe I missed it, what is the deal with J'den Cox? Is he actually going 125kg or is he done with wrestling?

This is astonishing. They are only 5 years apart in age? I would have said 8-10. My gob is thoroughly smacked at that. Especially in a time where we are seeing that, for the right guys, you really can be competitive and engaged well into their 30's.

We are cut from very similar cloth. I just wonder about it from a strategy standpoint, because in the few interviews and podcasts I have watched where Askren has actually started revealing what goes on in his head, he sounds like an absolute shark. His tone of voice changes, his delivery changes, he doesn't laugh in between every other sentence, he has a very crystal clear message that gets delivered with perfect diction and a considerable amount of intention. He doesn't do it very often, I just can't help thinking that this is the real Ben Askren, and the rest of it is just a diversion in some way.

I'm starting to think he hams it up just so he can still fly below the radar in the wrestling world a bit. He gets so over his skis in random conversations, that it gives outsiders plausible deniability to not take him or his wrestlers potentially as seriously as they should. The wrestling community is still so used to the gable brands schwab j smith wear your anger on your face style that sometimes it feels like, at least amongst the coaching-age generation, that people like askren and poeta get dismissed for taking a different approach to things.

Does the entire Mizzou team have mono or something like that?

That's a condition of the human body no doubt, the ACL is the anatomical weak point when it comes to lateral force delivery up and down the leg. Prior to leg scrambling, it used to be far more common in field sports, especially among female athletes because of the relatively more acute Q angle at the knee. Less than 20 years ago, shoulders used to be the most common injury(purely anecdotal from ~14 years from the late 90's to early 2010's). The evolution of scrambling has made knee injuries the #1 injury. They are a vast second place to knees now.

I was just talking with my brother(a non-wrestler) about this while watching Iowa Okie State. He hadn't watched any wrestling in a few years. Two things have changed in the past decade that have made wrestling far more entertaining, but have done so at the cost of many many knees. Collective skill in leg scrambles and confidence in leg scramble positions has gone up in the past decade, leg scramble fluency is a fundamental requirement for walking into a college room. It is as much a part of defense AND offense as head hands defense and reshots used to be. Concurrent with this evolution, being able to do the splits, front and side has become a prerequisite as well. Wrestlers are pushing their knees and legs to positions and situations that they really aren't meant to go. If you look on most high level teams, half the guys are wearing a knee sleeve or two, or a big knee brace and a knee pad somehow. I can't think of a top team that doesn't have guys sporting fat wraps, braces, or knee sleeves by March. Leg scrambles directly resemble what jiu jitsu, especially no-gi, refers to as leg entanglements, and they are a direct route to some of the most catastrophic submission holds in jiu jitsu. I'm not surprised it happened, but goodness, please tell your wrestlers not to rely on this sort of scrambling for too long unless they have the world's strongest hamstrings (Hamstrings protect the ACL).