billyhoyle

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.

Folkstyle is action packed if you enjoy riding time. Why is it decreasing in popularity compared to 15 years ago?

We are failing our athletes by not doing this. Yes, some manage to succeed despite this huge disadvantage. But I think about how much better off guys like Metcalf, Askren, and Herbert would have been if they didn’t look like fish out of water wrestling freestyle. I don’t want to post anything negative about the guys who just competed because they all wrestled their asses off, but it is tough to be fluid in freestyle when most of your time is spent wrestling a style that doesn’t disincentive neutral exposure. I guess at least with NIL some of these guys can make money from folkstyle, but they would be way better off if we optimized how we prepare them to compete at the Olympic stage, where they have the most potential financial opportunity.

Retherford is as tough as they get.

The NCAA wrestling product is less exciting compared to freestyle. We also have fewer marquee athletes at NCAAs than we would if there were world/olympic champs regularly competing (which there would be if we wrestled freestyle). I’m not saying that’s the only issue driving the decline in the popularity of the sport, but it’s a major one.

Taymazov was pretty good. So was Sharifov.

Oh you mean that guy who won gold convincingly? Adding 6 medal contenders to the field would have made it more difficult to medal. And Russia has been sending athletes to other countries for many cycles- it didn’t seem to be at any greater rate than they normally do this time.

Why? You can keep the “control” aspect of top bottom once an athlete completes a takedown. Just don’t count exposure points until an escape has been awarded. You can even keep riding time!

Yeah, the folkstyle fans just want to root for their schools and then ignore the athletes once they graduate.

Russia didn’t send their best athletes. How many medals do we have if they did? Do we think Iran, Japan, and Russia should all be better than the US? Look at the TV ratings of NCAAs by year if you don’t believe that there are serious problems.