jdowntown

Me as well.

This is a good analysis, but there is really one more dimension to wrestling. Weight classes. In swimming, the same person can compete in multiple events. Same with track, gymnastics, etc. In wrestling, you have individual weight classes that are mutually exclusive. A person can't compete at both 125 and 197 (or at least it does not make sense to). This lends itself well to the team concept of having someone at every weight. Tennis or golf, can have teams, but there is no fundamental reason to have them, as there is nothing mutually exclusive. Boxing has weight classes, but as a combat sport with longer and highly variable recovery times, dual meets or even tournaments don't naturally fit (yes they do tournaments at the olympics but it has its own problems) mostly they use the belt system with arranged one-off fights. I guarantee you if the gave out team medals at the olympics (like they do for say gymnastics), people would care about it. But they don't so it is not really a thing.

I think it was a good interview. Maybe even a really good interview. At the end of the day, as a fan of wrestling, we all have our subjective opinions of what makes for good wrestling and by extension good wrestlers. It is easy to look at records and titles and say who the good wrestlers are. But to me that is superficial. In my opinion, good wrestling is consistently working for pins and getting them. To me the real heart and soul of the sport is more on the mat than on the feet. Yes, neutral is a part of the sport, but I think it is a lesser part. You can totally win matches and titles in the sport with only takedowns and escapes (heck in freestyle you don't even need escapes), but to me you will always be lesser than those who put others on their back. So was there a double standard for asking if Spencer had a bad match that he only won 8-0, while Yianni eeks out 1 point wins all the time? Depends on your point of view. I have been watching college wrestling for the last 20 years (so I don't the 90s and earlier). To me, the top wrestlers are (in no particular order): Askren, Nickal, Ruth, Taylor, Metcalf, and Spencer with Nolf and Retherford right behind. Noticeably absent are the guys with the best record and most titles: Stieber, Yianni, and Dake. But such is the subjectivity of such lists. While Yianni is undoubtedly a very good wrestler, I am not particularly saddened to see him go. He was not, in that sense special. Spencer on the other hand was. I am saddened to see his collegiate career conclude, because he was one of the guys that you just watched with excitement because you knew he was probably going to turn a guy. He freaking took top in that match against Ramos AND turned him for 4 AND rode him out (who the heck does that?). That is the kind of threat the top tier guys have in my mind. And Spencer was elite in that way and Yianni was not. And everyone kind of knew that. That is why people did have different expectations between the two. Is it fair? Meh, who cares. It is an admiration and respect thing, more than a standards or expectation thing. Does that translate to real life pressure? Maybe it does. The fact that he is talking about it kind of shows that it did cross his mind. Good luck to his international career and personal life outside of wrestling. I will miss him at the college level.

Where were these extra tickets? I don't have any ties to a program to get the insider tickets. I called half a dozen different school ticket offices, none of them knew how many tickets they were getting until March, and in the end none had extra tickets to sell to me. Ticketmaster and stubhub only had stupid expensive tickets or very crappy seats in the corners and high up. I love the championships enough to fly there without tickets and found some decent seats from someone out front. But seriously I should not have had to do that with how many empty seats there were. Something is broken with the system.

I don't think I really like his suggestion for MFF (30% team point bonus on top of a pin). The problem is that it rewards a random-ish opponent, as opposed to punishing the offender. In this particular case, it would not have made any difference. Courtney from ASU and Cronin from NEB were the beneficiaries, and each would have got 1 more team point, but that would not have made any difference in the team standings. And it certainly would not have affected Iowa. And if it had made a difference in the team standings, would we like it? Say this had been the difference between a team being in 11th place vs 10th place (Iowa State vs NC State). If Iowa State won on a MFF and gets 3 bonus team points in Chael's system(2 regular points for MFF and 1 extra), is that really fair to NC State? The Iowa State kid did not even wrestle and gets big points. A fairer system would punish the team that did the MFF rather than reward the opponent. But that has problems too. What is to stop a person from taking 3 injury times right away to avoid the MFF? Or pulling a DF and self-pinning? I don't think anyone wants to see farcical matches, and I don't see how you can force someone to wrestle who really does not want to, for whatever reason.

I am also looking for 2 lower bowl tickets. Text me at 913-558-0161 or send me a DM. Thanks!