RicoSwaff

I was a perennial in youth (placed every year at state, won 2 state titles) and at the HS level (Mediapolis, IA) I am likely known as a bit of an underachiever considering I placed just one time at the Iowa HS State Wrestling Tournament. I ended up competing D3 for Loras College in Dubuque, IA for 3.5 years and was up and down. Had the capacity to pin the national champ at my weight, but also routinely lost to guys who weren’t even varsity. One time at the Loras Open I pinned Wartburg’s starter who had just won the Harold Nichols at Iowa State the week before and in the finals I got my butt kicked by the guy who was 3rd string behind him! I was able to effectively Hit a lot of; carries, cradles, headlocks and Merkles at every level; youth, HS and college. I Competed at Loras College until I dinged my knee in practice 4th year and while checking that, my doctor discovered I actually had hip dysplasia my entire life and ordered emergency reconstructive surgery on my hips… career was done, but my hips to this day feel like heaven and I am much more mobile now than I was before the surgery…. And that was about 15 years ago! My hips were maybe part of the reason I didn’t meet expectations in HS/college, for there were certain things I could not force my body to do… like, it felt structurally impossible trying to do them… for example: hitting a successful standup, turning the corner on high crotches, etc. seemed impossible. On the other hand, I was able to be more flexible while using my legs on top and in sprawl positions because my hips/legs would bend in ways that wouldn’t more most ppl. The PRIMARY reasons for not meeting expectations were; 1.) I thought 100X more about how to make weight than I did actually learning how to get better and 2.) I started going out/partying really hard as a Freshman in HS and this carried over to basically until I was 35 or so. I prioritized my social life above and beyond in comparison to wrestling and paid the price for it. Bright side with all that is that I’m the oldest of 4 brothers and was rather vocal to at least the youngest 2 bros who are 14 and 16 years younger than me about my experiences and always pounded it into their heads to not make the same mistakes as me. The one close to my age (Justin) was a 3X Iowa HS State Finalist/1X Champ/1X Folkstyle National Champ/2X Fargo AA who competed at UNI. The one 14 years younger than me (Shea) was a 3X Iowa HS State Placer and 4-year starter at NAIA Graceland. The youngest one (Brennan) placed 6-3-2-2 at state and after he couldn’t even get a D1 coach to email him back or respond to his applications, he initially went to Graceland University on a full ride for football (he was 1st team all state football, a 6X placer at state track in sprinting events and was even a state champ in Art of all things)… He went out for wrestling on a whim during Christmas break his Freshman year because he just couldn’t stand going to watch meets without competing… he would go on to win 2 NAIA titles there before transferring to Iowa to see what he could do at the D1 level and is in his final season this year… He’s one of these guys who may have been adversely affected by being a multi-sport wrestler who took his other sports just as serious as wrestling. That was a frustrating experience for him, but I doubt he would ever take back his football and track experiences for the world. Very happy that my brothers didn’t follow my path when it came to prioritizing wrestling/education/etc. As anxious as it makes me to merely THINK about any of the 3 doing what I did, it makes me feel that much more guilty for putting my parents through the stress I did. You live and learn I guess. Happy to at least been blessed with the chance to learn from it. Short Answer: Yes, I competed in D3 and won probably 65-70% of my matches there if I had to take a guess.

Meh, takes a lot for me to actively dislike someone…. Maybe if you said you didn’t like ice cream I’d start to lean that way because I know that anyone who doesn’t like ice cream is someone that I will likely disagree with about everything!

An absolutely blatant slap in the face to the sport of wrestling… One that the sport can not afford right now. Been a while since something in wrestling has made me angry like this. Ridiculous.

Holy moly you are still around?! You’ve been around for decades now! Iowa Preps or DMregister forums or something Way back when. I swear I remember you from way back to when I was posting as a high schooler! Glad to see you are still kickin it!

THERE WE GO!!! Haha that’s it!!! That’s the solution!!! I need to rally the troops and we all need to invade every political forum in existence with wrestling talk!!! haha awesome post!

Politics are pretty easy to avoid these days! Bye-golly-gee-youuuuu-betcha!!! if I had a dime for every political dispute I’ve had to babysit in the past 2 weeks on my own thing’s comment section, then I would probably have $100…. Which is nowhere near where I have to be in order to pay the electric bill this month! COME ON PEOPLE!!! PICK IT UP! THERE AREN’T ENOUGH POLITICAL DEBATES TAKING PLACE IN WRESTLING THREADS THESE DAYS! SLACKERS!!!

Have known Tanner Sloan since he was in Kindergarten (he and my bro had an “intense” rivalry from K-6th grade and met for the first of many times in the semis at state in Kindergarten…. He was one of my favorite guys in that class on and off the mat… fun wrestling style and nicest kid in the world off the mat. Great at football as well as 4H in his day as well! Easily one of my fave current NCAA wrestlers. In 2019 I interviewed probably 300 or so college/HS kids at random events that I covered for an old publication called The Predicament that I contributed for from 2007-2019… Out of everyone I’ve ever interviewed, Rocky Elam stands out as one of the most well-spoken, polite and appreciative wrestlers I’ve ever encountered. Have been a fan of his since!

Not a rival school to any college in my region that I know of (Iowa), but I am a big fan of the Hidlay brothers out of NC State, Hayden and Trent… love the way they compete… Also a fan of Andrew Alirez out of Northern Colorado. I think it’s so cool that he potentially sparked something special in his own home state! Love to see it!

He’s a great kid! Last year, I was a pretty big fan of the way Mason Parris competed. The older I get, the more I really just kind of respect and like them all as long as they aren’t dbags and if they give the vibe that they wrestle to win opposed to wrestle not to lose with their styles.

Props to whoever chose this server or whatever you call it for the forum because I can’t recall many that have been less of a headache to post pics on and I’ve posted on several over the years! So easy here….

I’ve done a ton of these. I call them “Wroppelgangers” on my own page/site. Carson Kharkla (SP?) of Ohio State = Biff from Back To The Future. Tom/Terry= the T-1000 Terminator from Terminator 2! Austin Desanto of Iowa= Christopher Moltisanti from The Sopranos! Austin Moltisanto! Hayden Hidlay of NC State= Billy Idol Cael Sanderson = Sling Blade Aaron Brooks of PSU= Skee-Lo Brennan Swafford of Iowa = white Mike Tyson Dalton Doud of Ottumwa HS = Nick Suriano of many places. Cobe Siebrecht of Iowa = Jim Morrison of The Doors Danny Stephani (2X Sup HWT State Champ out of Iowa in the ‘80s) = Jack Black Nelson Brands of Iowa = 2023 NBA Slam Dunk Champ, Mac McClung of the 76ers! Kaleb Young of Iowa = The bad guy from the movie “The Mask.”

A chance? I figured it was a certainty, but this is going by my own mindset with ice cream when at wrestling events, in which my train of thinking generally prioritizes the wrestling a distant 2nd in comparison to trying to beat the world record of most Dip N’ Dots ever consumed by a human at nearly every event I’m at! And as an Iowan, I can vouch that yes, a shortage of ice cream of any kind would instill anger into the veins of any Iowa wrestler in attendance and I would put my money on them with these circumstances as well!

I mean, yeah if you are stupid about it and spend it all via making it rain every night and purchasing a bunch of gold chains and what not…. Kueter doesn’t really strike me as the type…I can see him dropping a few mil on a grill, but not chains. On a serious note, man that gives me a sick feeling when a dude is in a potentially lucrative financial situation like that and they end up on a 30 for 30 “Broke” documentary anyways.

Dunno why my last reply formatted like that… lol looks like I was trying to yell to get that point across when in reality, I have no idea if I’m even right about that one or not.

I’d say he has more than a smidgen of a chance to be drafted in the NFL someday… I mean, he was named the USA Today Athlete Of The Year and from my observations, they don’t seem to make a habit of handing that award to people with only crazy-impressive wrestling accolades to their name. The average height and weight for a linebacker entering the NFL is 6’2 and 240 lbs… With Ben Kueter being 6’3 and around that weight, it’s not like there are a whole lot of, if any missing pieces for him in terms of becoming a legit NFL prospect someday… I mean, it’s not like he lacks the athleticism… no reason why he can’t be drafted someday, but that may be just my delusional opinion…

Ok then, Sorry about that! So… that Ben Kueter sure is a tough wrestler! I wonder how much ass he would kick at a PSU hate fest?! That better?

Wouldn’t be such a bad situation there being taken under then wing of Sam Laporta! Guy legit looks to be the real deal at the NFL level! On a serious note, considering you are referring to the Nittany Lions, I wonder how a match between Greg Kerkvliet and Kueter would end up going…. A couple of athletic specimens there!

20 minute “grinder” matches.

Kelly and Mark continue to win me over more and more with each wrestling shout-out/connection. If this were Regis and Kathy Lee, Parris would have likely been an afterthought to have as a guest in comparison to the John Cena’s, CM Punks, Randy Orton’s, etc. of the world. Pretty sure at least Regis was a huge WWE guy.

A couple of my roommates/best friends from college were wrestlers out of Florida. They all taught me about some of what they got going in their wrestling scene and I’ve always thought that if wrestling took off in terms of popularity in that state, then holy cow they could be crazy good. They seem to have a certain flare with their styles that make them unique as well…. It isn’t that difficult to point out/identify a Florida wrestler after you’ve become familiar with them…. Not sure why, but they just have this somewhat acrobatic yet, simultaneously smooth and calculated way about them that it just… Florida. I haven’t lost faith in them… I still think it’s a matter of time before they have a nice run…. Question is, will that run occur in a matter of years or decades? I helped coach one of my daughters’ AAU National Dual teams a few years ago and just couldn’t get over how great the Texas Girls wrestling teams competed there. I don’t know much about what they have for men’s, but I know their girls wrestling seems to be getting some things right.

God I hated Koll with every fiber of my soul for about 10 minutes or so at one time…. His guy, Max Dean wrestled UNI’s Drew Foster in the NCAA finals. Drew grew up down the road a few miles from us and was on the same rural bus route and not only that, but he began wrestling for my dad’s club as a Kindergartner and was coached by my dad all the way through HS. Standup guy and Our community loves him from his heroics in wrestling AND football (crazy football story about him). Not to mention, he was always just a great kid to have as a leader in the community… all about helping everyone else. Anyways, Koll was interviewed right before the Foster-Dean finals match and was disrespectful as hell in the way he talked about Drew. Mentioned that he was only athletic for a minute and a half or so before getting tired…. In which as a guy who watched Drew wrestle probably 500 times since he was little, I can state with certainty that Koll had Drew pegged wrong there and I don’t care how their earlier matches went. I saw Drew grind out several late match wins with his gas tank at the youth, HS and college level. My goodness, at my town’s watch party we were foaming at the mouth, we were so irate with Koll after that interview and we all let go of this grudge a few minutes later when Drew won the match…. HA! Other than that one interview, I’ve liked Koll and think he is pretty interesting… love it when a spade calls a spade a spade even if that spade is actually a club at times.

As a guy who scored prolly 80% of his points in HS and college (D3) via Nearfall….. I actually love the idea of this. A damn 5 point nearfall would have made up for a handful of close losses I had in my day…

No… it’s not. I am a wrestling media guy (a silly little page called The Pin Doctors) and am probably the least social “wrestling media guy” out of any of them and am becoming more that way as time goes by. I don’t ever know the “gossip” stuff from any room, let alone that one… I don’t discuss any other wrestler with my brother other than just him. I don’t even bother to ask him when I discuss wrestling with him because 1.) It puts him in a terrible position (something I learned the hard way during a 2022 situation that’s been beaten to death already) and 2.) I genuinely don’t care. To anyone who has ever followed my page or my stuff dating back to The Predicament, I doubt you’d find many who would say my “M-O” is the wrestling news/gossip stuff. I’m just not into it and it never even occurs to me to ever ask my brother what “so and so” is weighing, who won in Madden between “so and so” and “so and so,” etc. I just really don’t care. I can go to a meet expecting to see world-beaters and would still able to enjoy my time if a bunch of 4th stringers competed. And I’m not stupid. I get it. I understand why people would think it’s me and I can probably list 3-4 reasons as to what would make ppl think that, starting with which groups I share my own Facebook PinDox posts in sometimes…not to mention my big, stupid mouth in a strenuous situation of the 2021-22 season. It looks bad…. I get that. I wasn’t THAT social with other wrestling media to begin with and have taken yet another few steps back from all that since this past fall when I noticed some people assuming certain info was leaked by me. It’s not… and it certainly won’t ever be in the future because now not only do I genuinely not care about the gossip, but I go out of my way to not ever know any of it so it’s damn clear to my own family that it’s not me… which is really the only people I care about in terms of what their opinions are on me and my wrestling mouth. Funny thing is, 75% of the gossip “leaks” that I’ve read ppl blaming me for is stuff that I STILL don’t know to this day because I care THAT little about wrestling gossip stuff to where I don’t even have the motivation to look up what supposedly came from me. People pm me asking me to break news about multiple programs on a daily basis and I rarely even respond to these messages. Because that’s not my bag because I don’t care about it at all. Things are just gonna unwind as they do and I’m fine with that. Sidenote: After some of the mentioned drama from 2021-22, I quit drinking to ensure I never publicly got pissed and went off the handle running my mouth again like I did after the Iowa-Minnesota meet last year. I was hammered that night. And was mortified afterwards. I’ve only been hammered one time since that I can recall and I can’t even frigging believe that, for I used to binge-drink most weekends and every day in my 20’s. Never thought I’d see the day where I didn’t have to worry about the rambunctiousness of “Drunk Swaff.” That was a terrible situation for us, but at least THAT came from it… I needed to stop all that as it was.