Opinions are as numerous as the physical activities that qualify athletes for consideration. This week, Sports Illustrated attempted to tackle the question by rating their top 50 fittest athletes. Overall the sporting news stalwart fared well, including a few outlandish and dubious selections, but mostly choosing the greats within sports to be their poster men and poster women.
The most laudable of their decisions was to include five-time world (or Olympic) titlist Jordan Burroughs among their top ten athletes. The consideration was decent mainstream publicity for a sport that often gets overlooked during print listicles, but they did the world a favor and chose Jordan Burroughs to be included in their top 50 fittest men.
While the WWE "Charlotte" did make the list, USA Wrestling's three-time defending title holder Helen Maroulis was left off. The UFC saw a few of its fighters creep on, as did water polo and a half dozen track and field athletes.
When breaking into the mainstream, wrestling -- especially women's wrestling -- faces a number of biases. For starters, despite the increased media coverage of our athletes and their athletic prowess, disengaged sports fans mostly associate wrestling success with extreme mental toughness and hay-bailing strength. To the commoner, wrestling is still a collection of rapid weight loss techniques, pre-dawn sprint workouts and singlets. The overall athleticism of the sport is minimized by the myopic, tough-guy façade promoted over the last several decades.
Helen and women wrestlers of her success are still being punished for that failure to properly promote the athletic and healthy nature of the sport. The Skirt Bias, which implies that male administrators (like those in the NCAA) are unwilling to promote women in combat sports, is limiting the sport's sphere of influence in the mainstream. While Helen's Olympic accomplishment was one of the most-watched moments of the Olympic Games, not enough of the story focused on her incredible strength-to-flexibility ratios and technical acumen.
Wrestling fans and former wrestlers can do something about this stereotype. When peers ask about the sport, or start in with the antiquated assertion about the sport, point them to something positive. Tell them about the techniques required to be successful, or forward them a video of wrestlers like Frank Chamizo performing acrobatics on the mat that are usually reserved for Cirque du Soleil. Go to the United World Wrestling Instagram page and find any number of photos or highlight videos that show our athletes performing stunts in real time that most other athletes would need weeks to rehearse.
We are the best press agents for our sport and we are the ones who can reverse the biases that have kept us from the mainstream for generations. Show the sport.
To your questions …
Jordan Burroughs (Photo/Tony Rotundo, WrestlersAreWarriors.com) and Buvaisar SaitievQ: Jordan Burroughs vs. Buvaisar Saitiev in his prime, who would you pick? Does Saitiev make your list of the five greatest freestyle wrestlers of all time? Does JB make the list?
-- Andrew F.
Foley: Burroughs. Saitiev wouldn't be able to handle the level change to a double and would find difficulty in the new rules set keeping his scrambles in bounds. JB's second shot ankle pick and the angles he creates in snatching ankles would give Saitiev absolute fits.
My top five freestyle wrestlers of all-time: Buvaisar Saitiev, John Smith, Aleksandr Medved, Sergei Beloglazov, Jordan Burroughs.
Q: It's pretty obvious to me that Jon Jones has been cheating/using steroids for much/most of his MMA career. UFC cracked down on performance-enhancing drugs when USADA was implemented in 2015. Because of that, I consider Daniel Cormier to be undefeated in his career, since his only losses have come to the cheater Jones. Do you look at DC as one of the best MMA fighters ever?
-- Mike C.
Foley: Jon Jones deserves to be told the truth. So far it seems few have delivered the message.
He is not the greatest fighter to have ever lived. He is not special. He is not a hero or a villain.
Jon Jones is nothing. He has accomplished nothing in his career and any honor he had in risking himself to the cage was so obviously mitigated by his consumption of steroids that it proves almost non-existent.
Steroids are moving out of MMA and for those that fight clean it means a sport that rewards intelligent training and mental toughness. Jones was doing neither. He only knew how to press harder on the gas, to undermine his future by indulging at full throttle in the temptations of the present. That's not the discipline of a champion, or a hero. That's sociopathic behavior best reserved for outside the octagon.
Jon Jones is nobody. He's no longer a fighter and he was never a true champion. Jones now has a chance to become someone else, someone new. But Jones has yet to fulfill the idea of success through hard work or satisfaction through delayed gratification. Jones is the hustler playing Three-card Monte on the corner, in search of a quick dollar even as it costs him a lifetime.
Q: Do you think the United States will have any world champions in U23 this year? If so, who could you see winning a world title?
-- Mike C.
Foley: We will have to wait and see who comes out of the World Team Trials next month in Rochester, Minnesota. It would seem likely that some of our college talent may contend for the team, but given the time of the year I don't know which wrestlers will be entering, or who might come out in the end.
MULTIMEDIA HALFTIME
The family of Aaron Hernandez announced their intention to sue the NFL for damages after it was shown that the former tight end suffered from severe CTE. He only played 38 games in the NFL.
Link: 110 NFL Brains
Q: What percent chance do you give the Gophers of winning the NCAA team title? They seem pretty strong in the lower weight classes.
-- @tommyselenski
Foley: 0.1 percent chance.
Penn State and Ohio State are running way too hot for a third team to be considered. Ohio State has seven All-Americans and three national champions. Penn State has five national champions returning and the ability to put up buckets of bonus points. While Minnesota will be in good shape to potentially finish with a trophy, they would need help and for their lightweights to outperform expectations.
Joey McKenna (Photo/Tony Rotundo, WrestlersAreWarriors.com)Q: Gun to your head, which transfer do you see having the highest 2018 NCAA finish of these three, Nick Suriano (Rutgers), Joey McKenna (Ohio State) or Pat Downey (Iowa)?
-- Mike C.
Foley: Joey McKenna has had the least amount of publicity and is entering a team filled with winning wrestlers and a coach who knows how to motivate his athletes. McKenna has always been uniquely talented and if his training situation and personal happiness have been improved by transferring into Tom Ryan's room, I see little reason to think he won't finish in the top three.
Downey has the potential, but seems he spends a lot of time on the Internet, which can be a massive distraction come the stress of the season. I wish him the best balancing the online world and the heavy hitters of the Big Ten.
Suriano should place. I just think it might not be as high as McKenna.
Q: Do you think Iran will be at the 2018 World Cup in Iowa City?
-- @Stealy_Phil
Foley: No. The only way that they will be in attendance is if Cuba can't afford to make the trip, but they almost always have made the commitment to attend. I would like to see Iran in the mix, but without them does allow for a year of new nation vs. nation storylines, which can be a positive thing for the sport.
Q: Aaron Pico has his second pro MMA fight this weekend at Bellator 183. There is significantly less hype now than he had in his debut. He fights Justin Linn (7-3). Do you expect Pico to dominate Linn? Or could we see a competitive fight?
-- Mike C.
Foley: I thought we'd see Pico dominate in his first fight and was proven (very) wrong. Pico's standup is something he'll need in the ring, but to win this fight it would be best for him to settle down and try to find an identity as a fighter. With about a minute of in-cage experience the worst thing Pico can do is rush his game plan like he did at MSG.
The key for Pico will be to soften up his opponent from a distance, cut off the cage, find a clinch against the cage and take the fight to the ground. If he can cycle through that series and feel the various aspects of a live fight I think that he will not only beat Linn, but create the momentum necessary to build a solid career as a fighter.
Kevin Dresser (Photo/Cyclones.com)Q: Of the new coaching hires, which one do you find the most interesting?
-- @Half Again
Foley: Kevin Dresser to Iowa State feels like a lifetime ago, but I think his successes and failures will be the most documented and commented on this season. I'm interested to see how the mixture of assistants and young guys come together for big matches. Given his track record, I'm sure that Dresser and his crew will manage the disappointments and encourage the youngsters to stay the course.
Jason Welch at San Francisco State is also an interesting development. We won't hear much from him or his team for a few years, but if he's able to create a winning formula I think that his personality will be a nice fit should he move up to the Division I level.
The Paulson brothers at Virginia should also be very interesting to see how they help develop my alma mater!
Q: Why is everyone under the Titan Mercury banner, along with their own clubs?
-- @Jagger712
Foley: They are only wrestling for the Titan Mercury Wrestling Club. However, they may also be repping their Regional Training Center.
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