billyhoyle

Folkstyler because I know if they get up, they are going to be way less dangerous from neutral. I'm assuming a freestyler can know a basic stand up technique.

But do you think we should be #1? I'm not asking whether we are doing the right things to be #1, but whether based on participants/resources/etc, you think we ought to be.

Yoel Romero was like 40 when he joined MMA. Couture was great-I guess Greco is helpful too (Lingland more evidence of this). I just don't think Folkstyle is special when the Russians seem to be great MMA fighters and the folkstyle specialists like Rosholt, Konrad, Hendricks, Palmer etc were good but not as successful as the freestylers.

Both JBs did a great job! I actually liked this duo better than when Smith was there. Smith is a wealth of knowledge, but from a pure announcing standpoint, I think he rambled too much. Burroughs was to the point and had great insights on the rules/scoring. He was able to predict most of the replay results, and also allowed the main play by play announcer to do his thing.

Khabib was probably the best wrestler in MMA history, along with GSP. They definitely did not have a folkstyle background. Cormier had done folkstyle, but was a much better freestyler than he was at folkstyle (0X NCAA champion, but long time world team member with medals), and had not done folkstyle for about a decade when he transitioned to MMA. Cejudo barely wrestled any folkstyle. When he was competing in HS tournaments in AZ, he was taking people down and letting them up-basically practicing his freestyle wrestling. The best way to train for MMA with wrestling would be to do freestyle neutral (as it discourages rolling across your back with scrambling and encourages clean finishes) and then to also train BJJ. Folkstyle top/bottom does not substitute for BJJ and if anything might just teach some bad habits.

There has been a lot of discussion about whether the U.S. Men's Freestyle team underperformed, performed to expectations, or outperformed expectations. I think the answer depends on how good you think U.S. Freestyle wrestling "should" be. If the answer is that the U.S. should be in good years at best on par with Iran and still worse than Russia, then this was an average or good performance for the team. Based on my expectations going into the tournament, I was disappointed. But in retrospect, I think they performed about as well as we could have expected, and as fans we should all appreciate that effort. But why do we have these expectations? In Iran, soccer is the most popular sport. Wrestling is more popular in Iran than it is in other countries, but Iran itself struggles resource-wise to support athletics. The only sports they medal in are wrestling, Taekwondo/Karate, and Weightlifting. In Russia, of course Dagestan is the absolute best place in the world for wrestling. But the population of Dagestan is 3 million. They are the gold standard in the world from a relatively small number of participants, who like Iran, are under resourced. What about the U.S.? There are youth wrestling clubs throughout the country. 300,000 high school students participate in wrestling. We have a number of very well funded NCAA programs, and avenues for our athletes to compete on the international circuit if they are the best in the country. We have more participants and better resources than every other country in the world. So, based on this, should the U.S. be the #1? If not, why shouldn't we be?

The best wrestlers in MMA have been Cormier, Cejudo, and Khabib, so the answer to your question is freestyle.

And neither did the US until recently. 0 gold medals until 2016, and only now is women’s wrestling starting at the D1 collegiate level. The difference is the women are focusing on freestyle their entire lives. If women’s NCAA wrestling gains traction, and we get even 1/5th of the participation numbers of men’s wrestling, there’s no doubt in my mind US will surpass Japan. BTW, the countries that are supposedly impossible to surpass in men’s FS like Russia and Iran barely support the men’s sport as well. I was talking to a friend from Japan (lived there his entire life until 4 years ago), and he had no clue Japan even is good at wrestling and had no idea how people in Japan learn it. We have orders of magnitude more athletes competing in wrestling at the youth level compared to these better countries, and our ncaa athletes have significantly more resources. The difference is we compete in a completely different style that kneecaps our athletes against the best in the world.

You can ban high amplitude throws. Or maybe ban them in HS but not college. Or maybe allow them if the attacking wrestler can ensure the opponent lands on his back and not neck, kind of like we have now with folkstyle where you can throw and mat return, but only if it’s under control. There are ways to adjust the rules so that there are still the awesome throws we see in freestyle, but not the ones that are super dangerous.

If Kennedy can pull this off, it’ll get huge coverage on NBC because they’re playing up the gold medal race between the US and China.

He’s past his prime, but still a great career. Hopefully Brooks moves up a weight.

Except when I see Walz talk, normal isn’t the word that comes to my mind. It’s all strangely exaggerated. Normal people don’t act the way he does. Kamala seems much more normal to me in the way she acts than he does.

Russians transferring countries for the Olympics is not new. This field is weaker than any of the prior years with only 6 weights. If you want to make an argument that it’s tougher than the 8 or 10 weight years, I could see that. But then also you should have JB ranked as the greatest US wrestler ever (ahead of smith).

That was incredibly impressive. I bet John Smith loved that shot and the laces.

They took it slightly better this time though.

Let’s goooooo!!!!

Going after a VP candidate for retiring early from the military isn't going to be effective. I'm not sure why Trump and Vance are wasting so much time on that pointless line of attack. Who are they going to convince-the people who DID serve 20+ years in the national guard and didn't retire? It's not like Vietnam where dodging the draft became a contentious issue. But there is something very unsettling about Tim Walz to me when I've seen him. I think it's his exaggerated movements whenever he does or says anything. It seems completely contrived. It reminds me a bit of the face Nixon put on to the public.

Because if you acknowledge that there is a problem, you open the door to potential actions that might address it.

Starocci and Messenbrink both wrestle with styles that are meant for FS. Hopefully Lee can stay healthy. Maybe Gable comes back when he’s cut by the bills next month. And then maybe one of the recent U17 world champs has a breakthrough like Snyder or Gable did. Also I heard AJ Ferrari might be going to Michigan and competing for Italy.

Dake left it all on the mat in both the semifinals and his bronze medal match. He’s 33, competing well beyond his prime-and he competed despite not being able to fully prepare for the games. And he even suggested in his post match interview that he might continue to compete.

1. There is zero parity and we know who is going to win the team race every year. 2. We don’t market the athletes. If more were competitive on the Olympic stage, it would help drive viewership of NCAAs. 3. Folkstyle is boring compared to freestyle. Sports evolve. NCAA lacrosse added a shot clock. NCABB added a shot clock and 3 point line. MLB added a pitch clock. Wrestling needs to evolve as well. Folkstyle fans talk about folkstyle incentivizing “control”-well people want to watch ACTION not control. 4. There’s no incentive for teams to compete during the season. So there’s much less build up for NCAAs. I don’t understand how the dual championship still hasn’t officially happened-this would incentivize teams to send their guys out during duals to qualify as a team for it. I also don’t have all the answers, so I’m sure there are other changes that could help as well. Adapt or die.

NCAA Baseball, NCAA Lacrosse, and NCAA WBB are all seeing increased viewership for their championships....And the drop in wrestling viewership isn't parallel with the drop in households with cable, but has instead fallen dramatically over the past two years. But sure, nothing is wrong with NCAA wrestling's popularity. No changes need to be made. Let's keep telling ourselves that. When programs start being dropped because of NIL, I guarantee you that the same people saying that there is nothing wrong (and you are not the only person who thinks this-it is most people who do) will say that we did everything we could.

That's not true. 15 yers ago, every round of NCAAs were streaming as well on ESPN3/ESPN+/what ever it was called back then. There were also matches from Big10s, BIG12s, and duals on BTN and other channels, and streaming. Lincoln Mcilravy wrestled 30 years ago! Do you know what year we are in or who the president is?

I don't think it will be tier 1 either. What I'd like is for it to just be close to as popular as it was 10-15 years ago. Sports like Lacrosse and Women's Basketball are growing, while wrestling is shrinking. But yeah, nothing is wrong.

People care more about their schools than the athletes. Once they're no longer scoring team points, a lot of fans lose interest.