wrestle87

Are we talking recruited as generational or actually became generational? I think we could definitely throw Ben Askren on here for the overall impact he’s had on reshaping wrestling. Another who get’s little discussion anymore but was as good as they come, stephen abas.

I want to throw Max Dean in the ring as a potential candidate.

I have to say, anything coming from the NCAA is only for optics. And, similar to the michigan football forward scouting situation, we have ten dogs lined up who just jumped in the pool and we’re only going to declare one of them is wet? That’s how the NCAA operates, it’s political-style house of cards enforcement for obfuscation and media management, not enforcement based on principal. The NCAA and the conferences are broadcasting rights management organizations. Clipping some wrestlers is a very easy way to send a message to save football and basketball.

The Brands do things that are pro-Iowa, they do things that are good for themselves, the starting 10, and the best guys in the HWC. He’s not wrong, and likely knows that somebody within Iowa was trying to make a career move in a prosecutor’s office by going after athletes who are doing the same thing thousands of other athletes are doing daily. There is not a snowball’s chance in hell these two teams are magically the only ones who have broken this very temporary and capricious rule. Also, from a performance perspective, Brands wants Cassioppi back. Nelson got lucky and wrestled his heart out last year to place, but he’s not a reliable AA threat. He doesn’t have the offense or reactions to be that in the post-Penn State wrestling world.

I guess this brings up the next question. What determines if a school has a women’s team? Ayres is on the men’s roster, but she competed in the women’s freestyle division. This is significant bc waaay back in the day in 2005, Princeton had Audrey Pang wrestling folkstyle for them at 125 on the men’s team.

Lol I know, wrestling math doesn’t work that way even within the same style. Also, I think we can all agree vito is better at freestyle.

I’m not saying there isn’t more crowding, but it’s definitely not linear bc of the impact that such massive weight jumps has on the relative playing field. There is a reason wrestling has weight classes, and generally guys are only true studs within 10-15 lbs of a particular weight depending on their size. I don’t know enough about international teams to do the math, but how many guys who are studs at 61, 70, 79, or 92kg ever wind up making a team and being really successful at the olympic weights? I understand this is a chicken and egg situation, but at only olympic weights, some of our best wrestlers suddenly become very mediocre, either bc they are small or bc of the weight cut.

I don’t fully buy this because of how large the weight jumps are and the impact of major weight cuts on performance. For example, I don’t think it’s accurate to say that 65kg is more competitive with zain or james green in the weight, even though they are both world medalists at 70kg. Fewer weights requires guys to make gigantic weight cuts, and then freezes certain guys out just based on genetics and their build. It also becomes self-perpetuating, because guys who know they are tweeners will stop earlier because of the impact of a major cut or competing under weight. I’m tempted to make the opposite argument because of how much it drives guys out of competing. 20 pound weight class jumps are titanic. Imagine being vito, a solid career 133, and looking around and thinking man, 57kg is pretty far away, but my choice is that or go up and wrestle dudes who were career 149/157 guys? I think it leaves ~30% of the best wrestlers or best wrestling performances on the side of the road unable to do anything bc of weight.

I’m going out on a limb here, but I think it's the only way they can get coaches to agree to the matches. Historically, some of the matches are clear #1-#2 matches that would handle seeding definitively, others are more for entertainment, and are asymmetric in the upside/downside for certain wrestlers to take. Keeping it off the record allows for the wrestling to happen at all. NJ used to have a similar all-star dual every year, I’m not sure if they still do. Coaches protecting wrestlers and seeding got in the way of a lot of entertaining matchups.

It can be done. Hopkins has D1 lacrosse, all the other sports are D3.

Oof, the realest and the truest. Brought the Flo, now they hold it hostage.

This is too real

He arguably has a better resume than the guy vito beat in the world finals…

I’d like to say they’re wrong, but crookham handed vito his hat in that match. If it was a one point match maybe, but vito didn’t have answers, or crookham just had all the answers.

How much of this is due to guys, teams, and countries only rolling out the secret recipe best guys for the olympics in many cases and just taking a flyer on worlds completely?

Close but still no for me bc Zain started at 141, giving that weight a lot more establishment and roads to success. My analysis is if I had a child at this weight, where do I think they would be most likely to reach the pinnacle of the sport? Having typed that, I have to grenade all of this and ask…do we factor gilman’s growth into this?

Oh my, is this bigger than just getting poached to go to Penn State while still relatively new at Iowa State?

If that was the only point of the tournament there would be no wrestlebacks and wrestlers and coaches wouldn’t be losing their minds during quarters and the blood round.

Are you giving Iowa no credit for Spencer’s success? And based on the injury bug at 125 plus his own injury history, he would have done both acl’s in his first year then done them again later on. But, obviously if they were able to develop and maintain another 125 guy through graduation with some success, that would put this topic to bed. It’s not a surprise that Penn State has good big guys and Iowa is always good at lower weights, coaches teach a style and a skillset that works to their weight and bodytype.

They do at 125 and heavyweight as well under Cael. Care to keep going with that equivalency, or shall we look a little deeper than just one number?

I think we can all agree at this point, if you are 141 or up, Penn State is your room. For whatever reason, the formula just doesn’t translate to the little guys. What works for big guys gets the little guys hurt, worn out, and seemingly burnt out. I hope Cael’s dialing up Nico to find out how he was able to do it, bc they’ve been wrestling with 9 weight classes since then.

Can someone far more in the know please give an overview of who the teams are to watch? Obviously the Hawkeyes, but this feels to me like it is getting no airtime. Ostensibly these will be our future olympians, so I’d like to be less than completely ignorant about the structure of the season, conferences, an NCAA tournament, etc. I consider myself entirely ignorant at present besides the fact that it is in fact freestyle wrestling, and I know Iowa and Princeton have teams.

This is a great point.

My bad, I shan’t speak it’s name.

@Husker_Du What kind of support is needed to be able to set up streaming coverage of tournaments? I think every person alive would happily pay for a higher energy, more positive and/or less corporate broadcast. Any chance you know someone or you could get the old boys back together who were actually worth having? ie joe flo, mike mal, fretwell, roper, all those dudes who actually know wrestling and make the streams exciting?