As if all this wasn't enough, New York state outlawed fracking, which is the main cause supported by actor Mark Ruffalo, the man who plays Dave Schultz in Foxcatcher.
And yet the biggest surprise of the last week was none of the above.
Henry Cejudo made weight, won his UFC debut and then said something nice about the sport of wrestling!
While I'm not sold that he can be a top contender in the UFC, I was impressed with his ability to strike and balance that with good conditioning. There is at least a chance that he's been reading some of his criticism and has decided to rededicate himself to greatness.
I'm not sure there is a wholesale change of character and I'm still hyper-skeptical about his career projections, but a note of congratulations are in order for Henry who proved to be game on this walk into the octagon.
Note: There will be no mailbag next week. Go spend time with your family.
Q: Is the NCAA championship the highest attended wrestling tournament in the world?
-- Tom B.
Foley: I've always found attendance records to be somewhat flawed. The three-day NCAA wrestling event accumulates the total tickets sales for each session and at the end comes up with an attendance number usually around 100k people. Does that mean 100k people came to the event? No. It normally means 15-20k people showed up six times.
There are at least three other large tournaments that come to mind with audiences as big, or bigger than that of the NCAAs. The Mongolian national Naadam tournament is held in a stadium that holds 25k people and is usually filled. In Senegal traditional wrestling matches average well more than 50k people. The Kirkpinar oil wrestling festival in Edirne also hosts 15-20k people per event.
There is a lot of fluctuation and though not the largest, I do think the NCAA tournament is among the top five events in terms of attendance.
Q: Well, so much for Gabe Dean running the table. Looked pretty human in losing twice at the Cliff Keen Las Vegas Invitational. Brett Pfarr had him beat too except for an inexplicable non-call by the ref. Do you take your crow salted or not?
-- Eugene L.
Cornell All-American Gabe Dean fell in the semifinals of the Cliff Keen Las Vegas Invitational to Oregon State's Taylor Meeks (Photo/Tony Rotundo, WrestlersAreWarriors.com)I'm a believer in Dean's ability, but I think we are looking at a two-time NCAA champion with one or two more losses. Not exactly modest expectations, but also not quite to the level of Ruth.
You may be right, however, that the hype surrounding Dean's sophomore season was premature. He's talented, but in losing those two matches showed that he's not yet competing at the top level in 2014-2015. His sluggish start could have something to do with an offseason filled with training and competition, or maybe he was sick, or injured.
Who knows, but to answer your question, I prefer hot sauce (chili oil) to any salt, or pepper, or other dry spice.
Q: Given the recent decisions by the IOC to allow different formats of city bidding and more sports in the Olympics what do you think are the chances of wrestling adding more weights to include more competitors, what would those weights look like in a most favorable to the U.S. team standpoint. And who do you think best fills them?
-- Jimmie D.
Foley: I'd think that two non-Olympic weight classes are the limit to what would ever be added back into the Games. While we want more weight classes, we still have yet to have any country qualify all 18 wrestlers for the Olympics, which means there is not yet a high enough concentration of talent to demand the extra spots.
However, I do think that the Agenda 2020 opens the door to new styles and that could create a new energy behind the sport at-large. Beach wrestling and other new styles may finally have an avenue for inclusion.
As of yet a lot is unknown, but I do think that the growth of the Games and the reformatting of the mission can be beneficial to the sport of wrestling.
Multimedia Halftime
New USA Wrestling Room (via Jessica Medina)
Grapple at the Garden
Q: Could someone please explain the purpose of a medical forfeit in a finals or consolation finals match. Many times the athlete is not injured. Does the champion or third place winner receive a win on his record? If so, does the wrestler using the medical forfeit receive a loss? If the athlete is not injured, isn't this kind of like using a rule to avoid a loss? I thought the rule was truly for medical/injury purposes, but I see it in more and more tournaments as a way for wrestlers to avoid opponents. I thought the sport was wrestling? Not avoid wrestling!
-- Dennis R.
Foley: I can leave this alone, because you understand what is occurring at many programs. Suffer a loss, default out and don't risk having your crappy day affect seeding at the NCAA tournament. Sometimes the coaches pull athletes who have minor injuries, but just as often they try to protect them from bad days.
I agree. Life and a wrestling career are way too short to micromanage. Throw down while you still have the knees and inverted triangle back. Be a warrior, kids.
Q: The InterMat top 100 recruits is a very prestigious honor, but in no way is it an indication of how you will perform at the collegiate level. Is there anyone who was not in the top 100 recruits in high school wrestling today that is a national championship contender? Maybe you and Josh Lowe can put together some statistics on how the top 100 recruits of the last few years have performed at the NCAA Division I level? Also, who was the biggest disappointments out of the top 100 recruits in recent years? Some guys just didn't live up to their recruiting profile.
-- Beau E.
Foley: We have published features around this topic. Most recently, in April, Josh Lowe re-ranked the top 100 recruits from the Class of 2009 ... based on what we know in 2014.
Here is the link.
We'll do another one this April, looking at the Class of 2010.
Q: I have noticed lately that there have been several forfeits. It has been across the board JC, NAIA, D3, D2, & D1. What is going on? What are your thoughts? I understand if a smaller program doesn't have 40 kids in the room. I just don't see why a Big Ten team has a forfeit.
-- Keith T.
Foley: I think that there are a lot of wrestling programs at the lower levels, and that's brilliant. However, just like the Olympics, more programs means fewer athletes in each room. Fewer wrestlers means more chance that something can and will happen.
Also -- and I know this from my days as a coach -- guys don't always end up in the weight class for which they were recruited. The lightest guys often find food and booze and puberty to be a hindrance on their weight control. There is no replacing a 125-pound wrestler because you can't bump anyone up. The wrestlers on some teams just group and if there are a few injuries and the need to redshirt someone, it's often easier to forfeit.
I'm not against reducing the number of collegiate weight classes, but would only do so is we could see that more schools would add programs, something I don't think we'd be able to guarantee.
RANT OF THE WEEK
By Patrick S.
In response to your assessment of the Iowa wrestlers looking upset with themselves even after victories, I just wanted to make an observation. Of the guys that are currently in the Iowa lineup, I don't get the true "goer" vibe of a guy who is going to go out and wear you down with his gas tank and impose his physical and offensive will from anyone. I'm not saying that some of them aren't quality wrestlers (Clark, Evans, Gilman, etc.), but I just think that this "Iowa style" mentality was only truly in existence and followed to the fullest extent during Gable's tenure.
In the time after Gable, I think that what they are doing is going through the motions and following what the people who wore the black and gold before them used to truly believe. They aren't actually that upset with themselves when they win 14-2 instead of getting the tech against a D3 opponent in a 41-0 dual. I just think that they feel obligated to act upset when they don't live up to that precedent of intensity. I see it as a sort of hollow charade for the fan base and even for their coaching staff. They need everyone to see just how much they care about winning. Tom Brands has a certain expectation of intensity and he obviously is far from OK with accepting anything less than perfection. Because of this, the wrestlers are just going to become Iowa drones who go out and pretend to be pissed when they win a close match just so the coaches don't yell at them and the fan base goes, "Look at him! He won and he's still mad! He must really care! What a guy! He's the kind of kid we like to have here at Iowa!"
It's so transparent when a guy like Nick Moore, who has never been an offensive juggernaut in college, wins a close decision against a quality opponent and runs off the mat with his head down like he just got majored. Why does he do this? Because his coaches have planted this false image in his mind that he's a Lincoln McIlravy or a Mark Ironside. At some point you have to be realistic and understand that you're not going to go out there and tech everyone you wrestle, especially when the offensive Iowa style has essentially become extinct in Iowa City. Basically, it's annoying to watch a guy wrestle for seven minutes, not be Gable/old school Iowa level offensive, and then then run off the mat with all of this false disappointment and self-hatred because he didn't pin his opponent. Stop acting like you are wrestling with the same intensity as the 1980s Hawkeyes. You only get the act upset when you match the success and excellence set by the people you're trying to imitate.
You want people to like you more? Wrestle harder. Show some offense. Cut the fake perfectionist act when your level of effort is mediocre compared to some of the historical teams that have rolled around in your practice room.
Sincerely,
Not an Iowa hater, but good luck trying to convince anyone of that
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