alex1fly

Whatcha mean? Focus kids are gone, Mastro kids are gone, their projected & adjacent weights are no longer backfilled by Witcraft/Gfeller/Sheets/Wittlake/Surber/Doucet, legacy dudes are gone. I do hope it's an upward trajectory for the pokes and I suppose there's a lot of firsts: first year of new lineup, first year of Cowboy Wrestling Club competing in the offseason, first year of having Heil and Guerrero back in the room. It'll be the first year without Coach Espo and the second year of having Gary Wayne.

Didn't count matches but Okie State RTC has done well in the freestyle offseason. Thompson won U20s, Fix won U23 and gold @ Poland, Plott won U23 and bronze @ Poland. Carroll won U20s and will wrestle later this month. Jacarra won a gold at some tournament. Couple of cats are going to represent team Mexico and Puerto Rico this month. Great to see these results in what's pretty much the first year of the revamped Okie State RTC.

Y'all can really argue about anything here. It's quite impressive.

I signed in with my ridiculously long password just to say this sounds awesome. I would totally watch a dual with this kind of scoring. I don't know if its THE answer, but it sure would make duals more exciting. No more "well this match is obviously going to be a decision, I guess I'll space out for 10 minutes". It would make watching duals that I don't care about more exciting, too.

+1 Seems a little over the top to want to "punish" areas that don't already support our niche sport

As long as they shape the new facility to look like my face.

Word on the street is that Okie State has raised $7 million for a new facility. Not bad for the first 4 months of fundraising.

Thanks mods for policing the arguments without deleting our thread! Much appreciated.

What are you guys even talking about anymore I had a fever dream last night where our entire squad minus 157 AA'ed It was a good dream. Might even come true eh

I mean you could pick any wrestler and scrutinize some bad matches while quoting statistics. I've watched Daton wrestle over 100 matches and I stand by my statement that he looked monstrous for the most part in 2022-2023 dual season. But fair point about setting the bar high early - when you roll up freshman year and place 2nd at NCAAs, anything less than that is going to stand out. And I'm sure he would benefit from another perspective but luckily Okie State has brought in some All Star Pokes from the past this off season. Anyway just rambling, back to the thread at hand lol

As an Okie State fan I've seen this speculation quite a few times but I say no way to Fix regressing or needing a change of scenery. I know it's a fun thought exercise to wonder "what if" but with the crazy amount of buildup to NCAAs this year and subsequent let-down I think Fix's deal is all expectations and emotions. Doesn't matter that Vito destroyed everybody, Fix was *supposed to win* - home crowd, rematch with RBY, all that. I've matched nearly all of Fix's matches over his 15 year long (lol) college career both folkstyle and freestyle. This past dual season, Fix looked better than ever - stronger, faster, smarter, more dominant, more varied offense, more turns. Think he was taken down once and no opponent even sniffed a chance at victory. He does seem to lock up a bit and rely too much on his couple of main moves at times but it's been that way since his freshman year. And he still handled DeSanto with relative ease to make world team alternate which was part and parcel during their college matchups. No idea what happened with the Nashon match, other than speculation that Nashon prepared for Daton and Daton prepared to do Daton things. And no comment on the water bottle (well plenty of comments, no need to get into it though lol) Love the rest of the list though! Not a criticism at all. Just me being an Okie State homer I am waiting to see Retherford jump levels. He certainly has the chops but maybe freestyle's lesser focus on mat wrestling is the difference maker here. Dude was an absolute animal with turns and pins.

That's fine with me. I'll be very pleased with a confidence boosting year, getting back in the saddle as it were with a bunch of new faces. We need to worry about fielding a solid lineup and maintaining momentum more than we need to worry about other teams. Never mind the maybe-allowed-maybe-not-hopefully-nobody-looks-into-it-too-deeply methods they use to achieve & maintain success. Amen. We all had high hopes for Travis. Really nice guy along with being a mat monster. Not flashy, but stingy. Some flashes of Dean Heil - didn't blow many people away (unless they were just not his caliber) but had many, many, many solid wins and was a reliable dude in the lineup. Also a bummer he didn't get to get cheered on at Senior Night - I think he was considering another year until his latest injury at NCAAs. Maybe if he's still in Stillwater he'll get some cheers at 2024 Senior Night... dude certainly deserves it!

I don't think we need to get too gossipey about it but its no comparison IMO. Mastros hurt a few feelings, Ferraris caused long term trauma to many people in multiple categories of criminal behavior and nearly killed several in the process of several independent events... not to mention being creepy and stalky af. Either way GLAD THEY'RE GONE and hope the team vibe is better!!

"OSU cuts more weight than anybody else" has become a meme. It's meaningless to cherrypick a few OSU examples to support your argument and leave out discussion of any other OSU wrestler or any other wrestler from any other program. I don't think Flo necessarily has a handle on OSU's starting lineup, but it was cool to see the last 10 years' of NCAA finishes. I've been trying to hunt this info down, guess I just needed to look at Flo (gross but hey). As a fan these past two years have been long (again thanks Ferraris and partially Mastros for blowing up our lineup), but four 3rd place and two 2nd place finishes in the last decade is quite respectable. I'd say we've had a good run and I look forward to seeing the squad back in action this year. Last 10 NCAA Championships: 2013: 2nd 2014: 3rd 2015: 7th 2016: 2nd 2017: 3rd 2018: 13th 2019: 3rd 2020: Canceled (COVID) 2021: 3rd 2022: 14th 2023: 18th

Amen. For so many reasons

Well rock and roll, baby. Mastro at 125 beating McKee was one of if not his biggest win. Mastro showed signs of greatness but never quite put it together, and then quit the team mid-season last year. He's still in Stillwater running his zoo so seems like a HEW situation but who knows. We were pretty spoiled by 4 years of Piccinnini at 125... I remember seeing Nick's first match at OSU and thinking he was going to be something special. What a performer that guy was and still is in MMA.

Haha there's some truth in this! Maybe John should grow HIS hair out, at least to hide his scowl.

Besides Carroll and Thompson doing well at U20s, its all speculation/chatter. But those two at least have a headstart on their D1 careers, Carroll especially. Thompson seems like he has a mean streak that I'm excited to see. Don't know much about Spratley but his predecessor was a lanky cagey defensive wrestler. Also don't know much about Jamison or Alvarez but I'm glad that two of the transfers are from Minnesota so they can have that personal connection in a new place. And as a fan I hope that the new guys are fired up not only to win but to help OSU get back in the perennial trophy hunt. Of course everybody wants that for their team, but we went from taking 3rd at NCAAs to back-to-back worst finishes in program history - stupid Ferrari fiasco had half our lineup shifting weights just to fill the spots.

It's risky for sure. Mid-career RS can lose momentum. But can also come back with extra fire. We'll see!

Pros. The searchable archived matches in particular are amazing - you don't have to watch live. The yearly price is less than the price of a single night in a hotel. They cover more events than any one person could by traveling. FloArena works pretty darn well for keeping track of tourneys. The technique videos are pretty cool. Cons. They have a near monopoly. They lean too hard into the talking head/pundit side of things. Streams drop often. Apps aren't always easy to use. And this a personal beef but as an Okie State fan when the Big 12 dropped Flo and went to ESPN, Flo took every opportunity to badmouth us and make us look like idiots. Even now they have a clip on IG of Daton vs Desanto... and it's a 0-0 scramble. Not a Daton takedown, not a Daton counter, nothing about the Daton win. They seem to abhor portraying OKState in any kind of positive light. This may be a reach but it happens often enough to make me wonder. They do interview some OKState guys but it the vibe is often "we have to do this, if only it was a Big 10 wrestler I'm interviewing then I'd be excited". I'm not saying they should worship the ground OKState walks on, but the way they choose to portray our program DEFINITELY changed when the Big 12 went to ESPN. Honestly its not a bad product overall, but it might not be a bad thing if they got bought out by a real sports network that knows what they're doing and doesn't feel like a tech startup.

Serious answer: pushout points Goofy answer: Eliminating stall calls Allowing Spencer Lee to keep competing for the team at every weight class

It was tongue-in-cheek, lol MMJ is legal in Oklahoma for 18+ Getting popped for puffing ganja is hardly worth "troublemaker" status IMO but surely others disagree. If that's the worst kind of trouble Thompson gets in during his time at OSU I'll be happy about that.

If by it you mean weed then medical weed has been legal there for several years. But if by it you mean driving recklessly and rolling your car and nearly killing people and narrowly escaping death and harassing/raping women and shooting up your teammate's house and assaulting people and committing burglary then no, that is not legal yet in Oklahoma lol

I'll believe it when I see it. I'm sure it's been discussed and will continue to be discussed as we get closer to the season. Wittlake's status is is still a bit unknown (has another year, but is working through health issues, may or may not want to return), which seems to be the main reason for Plott potentially taking a redshirt.

After the Ferrari fiasco I think it'd be silly to assume anyone can stay out of trouble. But one would hope that the staff are going to have a close eye on kids' behavior and nip any nonsense in the bud.