ILLINIWrestlingBlog

This is a testimonial on a national radio advertisement for Plan Z and the Crave Control Spray™. An actual human person during an actual human radio commercial actually said this. I was wondering what wrestlers think about that.

I'm rooting for them, but I don't want them to be that good. By the way, I think calling that schedule ambitious is an understatement. It will get them experience in a hurry, though, and that's good for down the road.

One of the best locks to win a Gold Medal at Belgrade will not be there according to the list put out by UWW. That is Zavur Uguev of Russia. He's won 12 Gold in 15 tournaments since 2017. In the other three tournaments, he medaled. Now, is his absence because there is some unmet stipulation for the Russian athletes? If so, what happens if the stipulation is eventually met? To add to the mystery Belarussian wrestlers are listed but they are given the "under the UWW flag" designation. For 57kg, that means Aryan Tsiutryn, who was a Bronze Medalist last year. Still another mystery is the double listings for some nations. At 57kg, you have the exceptional Rei Higuchi listed along with that country's multiple age-level medalist Yuto Nishiuchi. Can you list multiple wrestlers if the main wrestler has a nagging injury? Are these practice partners? At 74kg, Dake and Facundo are listed. Why wouldn't Nolf be listed if Dake was flirting with an injury? In any event, even without Uguev the weight looks like the toughest at the World Championships, although perhaps it falls behind heavyweight if Uguev doesn't show up. Without him, there are still two returning World Champions from last year: Zelimkhan Abakarov (57kg) and Rei Higuchi (61kg). Besides Zane Richards, who I rank above all of the wrestlers including Uguev because I'm a complete Homelander, this is how I see the tournament shaping up: Rei Higuchi of Japan. He won 61kg last year, and he's a threat to win. Silver at 2016 Olympics. Zelimkhan Abakarov of Albania. He won last year at 57kg. Zane beat him in a practice match. Will be #2 seed. Former Russian. Aman Aman of India. Also goes by Aman Sehrawat. Dude has been on an absolute tear. Wanhao Zou of China. The #1 seed because of ranking series placements (1st, 3rd), but I don't think he stands a chance at winning. Almaz Smanbekov of Kyrgyzstan. He has finished with a 1st and 2nd at the last two ranking series tournaments. Throw Zane into that pot above, and I believe that you have your main medal contenders. However, that still leaves off previous World Championship medalists, including Zanabazar Zandanbud, who won a bronze last year, and the Belarussian Aryan Tsiutryn (another former Russian) also won a bronze in 2022. Other past World medalists include Stevan Micic of Serbia and Arsen Harutyunyan of Armenia. Finally, the Uzbeki and Azerbaijani are age group world medalists. Here's everybody listed, including the double Japanese and Canadian entries: 57kg Aryan TSIUTRYN (AIN) Zelimkhan ABAKAROV (ALB) Bofenda David KALUWEKO (ANG) Arsen HARUTYUNYAN (ARM) Aliabbas RZAZADE (AZE) Georgi Valentinov VANGELOV (BUL) Darthe CAPELLAN (CAN) Treye Colby TROTMAN (CAN) Wanhao ZOU (CHN) Gamal Abdelnaser Hanafy MOHAMED (EGY) Levan METREVELI VARTANOV (ESP) Diamantino IUNA FAFE (GBS) Beka BUJIASHVILI (GEO) Niklas STECHELE (GER) Aman AMAN (IND) Milad Jahangir VALIZADEH (IRI) Simone Vincenzo PIRODDU (ITA) Yuto NISHIUCHI (JPN) Rei HIGUCHI (JPN) Meirambek KARTBAY (KAZ) Almaz SMANBEKOV (KGZ) Gukhyeon KIM (KOR) Igor CHICHIOI (MDA) Zanabazar ZANDANBUD (MGL) Vladimir EGOROV (MKD) Muhammad BILAL (PAK) Darian CRUZ (PUR) Razvan Marian KOVACS (ROU) Gayan Kathurangana EKANAYAKA MUDIYANSELAGE (SRI) Thomas EPP (SUI) Suleyman ATLI (TUR) Kamil KERYMOV (UKR) Zane Raye Rhodes RICHARDS (USA) Gulomjon ABDULLAEV (UZB)

Add another Championship run to the supernatural ILLINI Summer. In the UWW Grappling World Championships, former ILLINI wrestler Mario Gonzalez came out on top. He had to beat the defending champion on his way to the finals where he met the Polish BEAST you see in the video below: Gonzalez was one of the strongest wrestlers ever to wear the Orange and Blue, and he liked to attempt the impossible in nearly every match. The video starts out eleven years ago with him as a Sophomore in college bumping up from 197 to wrestle Cornell's heavyweight at the National Duals. This was one of my top three ILLINI dual wins of all time. That win seemed to propel him to a Big Ten Championship at 197 a month later. Injuries then worked their evil magic on his body, but he was still able to do the impossible while beating an Iowa Hawkeye the next year. In the video, you can see Gonzalez with a whizzer while his Hawkeye opponent is in the seatbelt position. What Mario does after that has to be seen to be believed. To me, it looks like the video is running backwards! Fast forward eleven years, and Mario is a World Champion. What a Summer! Fall doesn't officially start until September 23, and I can't help but wonder what other sorcery the ILLINI and the ILLINI RTC have in store for us.

It's never cool to kick somebody when they're down unless they are really, really down and you can get away with it.

The worst aspect of the decision (besides taking a finals spot from somebody who worked hard to get there) is that the decision reinforces one of the worst aspects of wrestling: The brick thrown at the end of the match. The Hail Mary Brick. In every one- or two-point match in the future, expect a brick at the end. Who knows, you might win the lotto! Even if the other wrestler is doing exactly what thousands of wrestlers have done before him or her. How can we beat the system? Start celebrating before time expires. If the "running away" is just the run up to a back flip, then what can the ref and judges do? I've seen lots of wrestlers celebrate before time has expired. Haven't seen them penalized the match for it, either.

Or, we can do both, right?

You say possible ineptitude, I say possible bias. The reason I say bias is because it is a huge decision to end a match like that. Somebody was determined.

Your rule fails to mention the literal thousands of times a wrestler has disengaged in the waning seconds without a match-determining point being awarded. I am aware of one instance. That's hard to explain, don't you think? The new aphorism: Don't leave the match in the hands of anti-American bias.

How is it leaving the match in the hands of the ref when there was no previous caution, attention or warning? That is my understanding of what happened. If that's the case, it would be like awarding a point for stalling after an NCAA finals match when the wrestler had not been given a stalling warning during the match. She didn't crawl out of bounds to deserve a fleeing or a caution. In this case the saying should be re-jiggered to: Don't leave the match in the hands of anti-American bias.

You have obviously put a lot of thought and time into this idea, and that makes me happy. It is likely that you can go even more granular with your plan, and that also makes me happy. Based upon the current state of things, it looks to me like what you have suggested is more of an end product. That's okay. It gives us all something to dream about. As President Snow said in The Hunger Games: "Hope. It is the only thing stronger than fear." What it might look like to start out would be five teams in various regions, and although I really hate to suggest it, but economically, it might be that 6 or 8 weights is the way to kick off the enterprise. I would try to get some type of alliance going with the Beat the Streets organization. They have well-established facilities in New York City, Philly, Cleveland, Chicago and Baltimore/Washington, D.C. The alliance could involve use of their facilities, free admission to shows for the kids, and some mentoring/practices from the athletes with the kids, donations to the organization above a certain set net revenue. The real market would be streaming. You could sell some tickets at the door, but I would want all those screaming, jumping-up-and-down happy kids in the front row on the video that goes out. Exclamation points are free, but you can't buy authentic enthusiasm! If it catches on, grow. Add weights. Add cities.

A couple of observations: First, the anti-ILLINOIS faction likes to jump over Fargo and National Duals on the one side to get to NCAA results. Then, they need to jump from the other side over the four ILLINOIS Final X winners to get to NCAA results. Second, I think that I've proven the case historically, morally, politically, comedically and scientifically. Until your state wins a Fargo, has at least four Final X Champions AND has a Great Emancipator, the two funniest (though currently dead) humans to ever live, a two-time-Golden-Globe-winning actress and a Rap Star, get out my face!

I did not know this. I didn't even know who this was. Thanks for the education! From the National Wrestling Hall of Fame: But she's only the second most famous ILLINOIS high school wrestler to have wrestled at Highland Park High School. Coach Mike Poeta is number one.

I just wanted to celebrate a great Summer of ILLINI and ILLINI RTC wrestling, but you folks had to start attacking ILLINOIS wrestling. Well, now I'm furious! So furious I had to post about it at The ILLINI Wrestling Blog and Forum and Beyond: LOL at People Who Think Their State Is as Good at Wrestling as the State of ILLINOIS As an unbiased journalist and a scientist—a Political Scientist no less—I can prove that ILLINOIS is, was, has been and will always be the greatest wrestling state in the union. You can take the other top five wrestling states combined, and they don't equal the Land of Lincoln. Word. Let's start on July 21, 1951 when Robin Williams was born in Chicago, ILLINOIS. He would go on to wrestle in high school and without him, of course, there is no Mrs. Doubtfire, No "Goooood Morning, Vietnam!," no Dead Poets Society, Good Will Hunting, or Mork and Mindy. All of that and more brought to you by a wrestler born in ILLINOIS. Shazbot, Mother*******! If Robin Williams wasn't the funniest wrestler who ever lived, then that honor falls to Wheaton Central High School Wrestler John Belushi. Without this fellow, SNL is cancelled season one, you think Dan Akroyd could carry the show by himself? We get no Animal House. Or the freaking Blues Brothers. On the other hand, thousands of Deep Dish Pizzas and Polish would've survived at least one more day. America thanks you, ILLINOIS Wrestling! In 1985, the Rosemont Horizon in Chicago saw William "The Refrigerator" Perry and Jimbo Colvert of the Chicago Bears save professional wrestling in Wrestlemania 2. One of the referees for that match was none other than University of ILLINOIS and Chicago Bear legend Dick Butkus. Think about it like this, folks, without Wrestlemania 2 there would never have been a Wrestlemania 3 or a Wrestlemania 4. Dick Butkus may have saved the sport! Thank you, ILLINOIS, sir! In 2001, rap could've died on the vine but along came Ludacris (Chris Bridges) the former Oak Park River Forest wrestler with his platinum smash Word of Mouf. Without this former ILLINOIS high school wrestler, rap may never have bridged the gap from Jay Z to Eminem. ILLINOIS says, sarcastically, to all you ungrateful ********* ******* ******* *************, "You're Welcome!" Our 16th President, Abraham Lincoln was a senior at Carl Sandburg High School with a record of 36-2. He dreamed of a wrestling scholarship from the University of Illinois, but he was only #98 on Willie's Senior Big Board. So, the lanky rail-splitter hopped a wagon train to the Northwest Territory to wrestle in the 9 stone 7 pound weight class at Fargo. Old Timers say he wrestled like a furious shaved bear. The young railsplitter teched his way to the finals, setting up a match with the Virginia champion, Robert E. Lee. Well, my friends, that match was a sight! Over 40,000 fans, dressed in their Sunday best, watched while munching on boiled squirrel and pumpkin sandwiches. In the first period, Lincoln emancipated and proclamated for the full three hours, building up a sixty-point lead. During intermission, though, his corner had to reattach a finger, which had been chewed off by the Virginian. Forty minutes into the second period, his reserves exhausted, Lee surrendered. HENCEFORTH and THEREAFTER a table was set up in the center of the mat, and Lee formally signed "The Articles of Agreement Relating to the Surrender of the Wrestler Robert E. Lee." You can see this document displayed on the second floor of the National Archives building in Washington, D.C. Seriously, President Abraham Lincoln is in the National Wrestling Hall of Fame. He is said to have had a 299-1 wrestling record. He was also 1-0 against the South, and without him, y'all'd be barefoot and eating grits and collard greens. Unless your state has its own wrestling Great Emancipator or Blues Brother or Rap Star get the **** outta my face.

Wow! I have to agree with you! I wrote that very poorly. In fact, it reads like you have to choose between a quarterback and a physics professor for your University President. This is what I originally wrote: Ouch. That's bad. What I meant was more like: My belief is that you would want the professor rather than the QB because the professor will be around longer, will attract better students (with brilliant ideas that can lead to patents), will attract better research partners, will attract more research dollars, and will help create more patents and other discoveries. I would want the professor over the big-time coach as well, mainly because a coach is almost never a sure thing, while a Nobel-winning professor almost always is. And no, I'm not pretending that universities are run like for-profit businesses because the fact of the matter is that they are run like for-profit businesses. Instead of going to shareholders, though, "profits" go back into the university, the endowment, or some other accounting scheme. Cheers!

Thanks! This is what I was looking for, although Thompson and Carroll kinda break my heart. But I guess with Luffman having two more years and Ruth having at least two more years, we'll get by. Cheers!

You just know that Coaches Poeta and Medlin are thinking about this. Ermak Kardanov is already wrestling for the IRTC, and he's a Euro Bronze former Russian now wrestling for Slovakia and currently living in "RTC House" in Champaign. Cheers!

I actually acknowledged that in the post, and issued a pre-rebuttal involving all the new and talented ILLINOIS kids coming into the program. Moreover, I root for all ILLINOIS kids, but my favorites are ILLINI, and Ruth and Byrd are very much ILLINI. Cheers!

Question for the board -- Financially, which would you rather have as a University President, a five-star QB recruit like Trevor Lawrence/Justin Fields or a Nobel Prize winning research Physicist? What if the choice was between a Nobel winner in Chemistry and a top football coach like Dabo Swinney or Mike Gundy? I think there would be folks here who would disagree with me on this.

Transfers have hurt NIU bad, which is a pity. Their upper weights had been pretty strong for some years now, and not just Olejnik and Feldkamp. I have a soft spot in my Orange heart for Dekalb because I lived there for a couple years as a kid, even snuck into the football stadium to play on their track. The guy to keep an eye on, though, is Daryl Thomas at Southern ILLINOIS. He did some things at Old Dominion. On another note, with the potential breakup of the PAC10, will California kids want to wrestle in some new-fangled Mountain West conference or in front of nationally-televised audiences on the Big Ten Network? I'm sure IMAR and Jesse Delgado can talk to them about it.

And the changes are coming from the ground up. The ILLINI Coaching staff had said they want to turn the state into the next Dagestan, the epicenter of wrestling in the world, and that seems to be the course they've set. For the longest time, ILLINOIS had been behind Pennsylvania and maybe even Iowa as far as technical instruction at an early age. But the place is exploding now. In fact, it was just announced last night that ILLINI Legend Jesse Delgado is moving back to Champaign to become Head Coach of Relentless Training Center South. I'm thinking that those Fargo and National Duals results are going to start turning into NCAA Championships. Cheers!

Things are changing, my friend. Last year was very unlucky for the ILLINI at the NCAA tournament. I even did some some Science to prove how unlucky they were. Edmond Ruth, Lucas Byrd and Zac Braunagel all lost close Blood Round matches. Besides that, two of them (Byrd and Brawlnagel) were in the quarters and lost one-point matches. That means there were five matches that could've gone the other way, resulting in up to three All Americans. Yes, only one of them (Thicc Zac) went to high school in ILLINOIS, but Kannon Webster and Chris Moore and others are on the way in a Top Ten class. In any event, I promised some Science, so here you go:

I-N-I I know you are running some type of Pavlovian-type test, but I still couldn't resist even knowing it was a trap.... This is an open thread to brag about your favorite teams, RTCs or wrestlers. Good Summer? Let's hear it!

Has any other school/rtc combination done better? From the US Open (age group levels up to Senior) to the World Team Trials to Final X, National Duals, Pan Ams, Budapest and Fargo, the ILLINI and the ILLINI RTC have been killing it this Summer. I have personally counted well over 200 wins. Having incredibly gifted recruits like Kannon Webster, Braeden Scoles, Chris Moore and others wrestle at National Duals and some of them at Fargo helps to bolster the total. Sure. But there's also Zane Richards, Kamal Bey, Zac Braunagel and IRTC-Emeritus Joe Rau winning beaucoup matches at the highest Senior level. Then, there are two other Braunagels, Edmond Ruth, Luke Luffman and others winning tons of age-level matches at the US Open and WTTs. I should go back and do a winning percentage because it must be crazy— not IMAR 116-3 level crazy—but still absolute legend. At the ILLINI Wrestling Blog and Forum and Beyond, we wanted to document this by posting a video of all the winning hands raised. Soon, we realized that there were too many wins for one Twitter or Instagram video, so there is a volume one and a volume two. This is volume two: Some highlights over the Summer: Kamal Bey, US Open and Final X Champion; Pan Am Champ, Silver at Budapest Ranking Series Zane Richards, US Open and Final X Champion; Bronze at Budapest Ranking Series Joe Rau, US Open and Final X Champion, Pan Am Champ Zac Braunagel, US Open Bronze, WTT and Final X Champion Ermak Kardanov, IRTC athlete, Euro Bronze Kannon Webster, Pan Am Champion, Clean sheet at National Duals, Fargo double Champ Braeden Scoles, Clean sheet at National Duals, Fargo Freestyle Champion Anthony Ruzic, Clean sheet at National Duals, Bronze at U20 US Open, 5th at WTTs, 7th at Fargo Wyatt Medlin, Fargo Champion Joey Braunagel, Silver at U20 Freestyle and Greco WTTs Danny Braunagel, Third at U23 WTTs, 7th at US Open Freestyle Edmond Ruth, Third (tie) at U23 WTTs Luke Luffman, U23 Nationals Silver, 4th at US Open Tanner Farmer, 3rd at US Open ... and many more. So. Is there anybody to challenge this juggernaut?

Right. Stanford is in the pool of possibilities. In fact, I think they'll be next to join the Big Ten along with Cal, another possibility. Of course, it could be Virginia and North Carolina, and it could be next week or two or five years from now. The key to all of the Big Ten realignment is whether schools are AAU members. All the schools in the Big Ten were AAU members when admitted to the conference, and all of those that have been invited have been AAU members. And to be an AAU member, the school has minimum research expenditure standards. I'm not knowledgeable about Pac10 football, but my impression is that Stanford is usually quite good and sometimes great. Washington, on the other hand, is usually good but never great. Yet, Washington is an AAU member and a research king. There could be a thousand other reasons why Stanford hasn't joined yet. So, the fact is that only AAU members have been asked to join the Big Ten. And, in the conference's grand announcement of Washington and Oregon, the second sentence mentioned research partnerships.