National Title picture: 125: Spencer Lee. No one comes close to beating him. 133: With it looking unlikely that Suriano and Fix are wrestling this season, the door is wide open for Stevan Micic to win his national championship. RBY and DeSanto are next up if Micic decides to take an ORS. 141: Sebastian Rivera, Jaydin Eierman, and Nick Lee are the title contenders here. 149: With Cornell not wrestling, this becomes one of the most competitive weights this season. AOC, Sasso, Mauller, Lewallen are the early favorites. 157: Deakin, Hidlay, and Carr will battle it out again this season. Deakin beat both at Cliff Keen last year, but then Hidlay beat Carr and Carr beat Deakin in FS a couple months back, so who the fuck knows. 165: Mekhi, Marinelli, and Shane Griffith are the main contenders, but Travis Wittlake, Keegan O'Toole, and Carson Kharchla are worth keeping an eye on. Kharchla beat 2019 champ Mekhi in FS this offseason. Don't believe Evan Wick is wrestling or he'd be in the title contender group. 174: I strongly believe this will be a Massa-Kemerer battle, but Starocci and Labriola could work themselves into that conversation. 185: Another really open weight class. Myles Amine is the favorite, but Hunter Bolen, Trent Hidlay, and Aaron Brooks will push him. I think it comes down to Amine and Brooks. 197: This is once again a very weak weight class. Noah Adams is the best of the bunch but how good is he? There's like 7-8 guys that can compete for a title here. HWT: Gable and Mason. And I guess I'll throw in Daniel Greg because we haven't seen much of him in a long time. No one else has a shot, sorry Cassioppi. But realistically it's going to be Gable or Mason. Team championship: Iowa will win it. Iowa could have 10 all americans and 6 guys in the top 3. Michigan could have 4 champs and is their closest competition. But Iowa.
Cody Chittum. Goodness. Also really impressed by Sage Mortimer, but Audrey Jiminez, she seems like a stud in the making. Don't know much about her but a little badass. Seems like a future UFC 115er.
McKenna taking Seth Gross in under 90 seconds is impressive. McKenna is going to be a factor at 65kg I think.
that was not a good match, flo seems to strongly disagree but 5 pushouts, 1 shot clock, and a weird takedown
Magicman beats Burroughs 4-4 on criteria. Burroughs gave up a takedown after it looked like he pulled his groin mid-match, that was the only takedown and put him down 4-0. From there Taylor spent a LOT of time running, Burroughs got 4 stepouts and forced 2 cautions.
I don't know, it seemed pretty good to me. I didn't think JB was going to take down DT, that was about as much as I could have hoped for.
Taylor has best shot at gold I’m pretty sure about Cox was just the terminator at his non-Olympic weight but it’s Olympic year Dake-Burroughs trials will be crazy Cox has Snyder than Sadulaev or vice versa No idea as Burroughs has fought monsters while Dake/Cox/Taylor haven’t faced anywhere close to that I’d go with Cox as best US wrestler the last few years
No, but it's Taylor, Cox, JB, and Dake. Cox or Taylor you can make an argument for #2 P4P in the world behind Sadulaev, JB and Dake you cannot. Based on that alone I'd say it has to be Cox or Taylor. Cox is who I think most would probably put at the top spot but Taylor has two wins against HYC and one against JB. For me that's enough to give him the nod. I don't value Cox's wins against Karimi nearly as high as Taylor's over HYC. But Cox is the one who can most easily ascend to #1 on the list, and Taylor has the most difficult path. A lot of this will be sorted out in April and then this summer. Cox has to beat Snyder (who is not currently considered after losing to Alborov, Magomedov, Sadulaev, Sharipov, and Mohammadian recently) in April then Sadulaev in July. Taylor has to beat HYC/Kurugliev in July. JB/Dake have to beat each other then Chamizo and Sidakov or Zhamalov. If Cox beats Snyder and Sadulaev, he is the #1 P4P in the world, case closed. If JB/Dake beat each other and then win gold in Tokyo they are #2 P4P in the world behind Sadulaev If Taylor beats HYC again he is #3 P4P behind Sadulaev, and the 74 winner. Kyle Snyder obviously vaults up the list as well if he beats Cox and Sadulaev, but not enough to vault 74# gold medalist. TLDR; Basically right now it doesn't matter because it's going to change in April and then again in July. It's probably Taylor atm but Cox or JB/Dake "control their destiny" and Taylor does not; if they win their matches they are #1.
Thanks for the breakdown, between condensing in weight classes and the disjointed nature of competitions and who’s involved I am still learning with who the best guys are at certain weights and just overall.
I mean, as much as anything, it's hard to stay on top when you are not a Sadulaev level destroyer of worlds. His style/techniques, even when he was winning titles everywhere, was always pretty predictable. Top level guys are going to figure that out over time, 97 was also a weight in transition(end of the Gatsalov/Gayzumov/Yazdani era, even if Gatslaov is giving it another go) that now has the best in the world in addition to some more balance in the younger generation. He hasn't been able to just physically impose his will the last couple years and hasn't quite adapted to that reality IMO
It's been tried a few times, I think. I thought they were trying to start one up the year nationals was in Pittsburgh. There were some people involved with it wearing shirts.
Mizzou Iowa St Northern Iowa Arizona St All together in Ames this weekend. Looks like ISU/Mizzou and ASU/ISU matches will be on ESPN+ Sunday afternoon
I would think all those match ups would be streamed. VT had a quad at WVU worth Ohio and Kent State and they had all matches on + for both mats and all extra matches.
Kevin Jackson did it like 15 years ago and it was pretty cool but it obviously didn't work out. There's one in India now, some of the big Euros do it, and Helen Maroulis did it.
I think it's a lot different when you're a no-namer as opposed to the returning 3x world champion, undisputed #1 P4P wrestler in the world with the target on your back. Every 97 in the world was watching tape on him strategizing with their coaches how to beat him. You think Snyder was watching tape on Mohammadian? He just wasn't evolving as much as he needed to. He's still one of the best in the world. Question is if he's better than Cox. That's going to be a battle, and i'd be surprised if it didn't go three matches.
USA women looking really good in France. I caught a couple Jacarra matches and gonna try to catch the finals as well. Sofia Mattsson is a really good opponent and one to watch in particular.
Wyoming vs Fresno St postponed tonight. Is Northern Illinois any good? They're facing Central Michigan this Sunday
Brackets posted for men. at 57 kg Gilman gets Edisheravishili in the opening round. They wrestled a couple years ago in Iowa City at the world cup and Gilman nearly came back from a big deficit but lost. Edisherashvili has won Euros 3x now and at a time was considered one of the best 57s in the world, but was never able to put it together when it really mattered (not that euros don't matter, but world championships...) and has since fallen off. He's also been around for a long time and is not exactly young. Winner of that match gets Vito Arujao who gets a bye to the 2nd round. Those are going to be two exciting matches either way, and whoever makes it out should win in the semis. On the bottom half of the 57kg bracket, Nick Suriano has a bye to the 2nd round, where he will very likely face Mahir Amiraslanov of AZE, Stevan Micic's archnemesis and probably the best guy in the bracket. Winner of that match probably makes it to the finals against Gilman/Arujao/Edish. Amiraslanov has gotten the best of Edish the last few years in Azerbaijan and has been the rep. At 65kg Yianni will get a rematch against Khinchegishvili in the semifinals assuming they both win out (they will) On the other side of the bracket James Green will face Youth Olympic, Cadet, Junior, and U23 World champion Turan Bayramov of Azerbaijan. Those are going to be 3 awesome matches. At 74kg, Dake has Spain in rd 1. That's a quick tech. In RD 2 he gets Gadzhimurad Omarov of Azerbaijan which is another win. In the semis he'll get Khadzhimurad Gadzhiyev of AZE, who lost to David Carr in Junior World semis last year, and then made a crazy run at Senior Worlds, beating Sushil Kumar, Soner Demirtas, and Bekzod Abdurakhmanov--three really tough dudes and former world medalists--before running into Burroughs in the quarters. Dake should win as well. That should be his toughest (if you want to call it that) match of the day, and he should beat David Tlashadze or Joshgun Azimov in the finals. At 86kg Zahid gets the worst possible draw, Magomed Ramazanov--Russian Nationals Bronze--in the first round. That should be a really intriguing match, our #2 at 86kg vs Russia's #3 or #4. Winner gets AZE which should be okay but not a gimmie. Semis would be Dato Marsagishvili of Georgia. Finals wouldn't be a very tough match. at 97kg there are only 7 registrants, so I'm not sure what they're doing, maybe two pools of round robin? The guys registered are Kyle Snyder, Erik Thiele, Radu Lefter, Rasoslaw Baran, Givi Matcharashvili, Sharif Sharifov, and Michael Manaea. The toughest matches for Snyder are Sharipov, who just beat Snyder at World's (and owns a couple wins over J'den), and Givi Matcharishvili, cadet, junior, and U23 champ. Snyder-Sharipov is the big one here. at 125kg Gwiz gets Jere Heino from Campbell in the opening round, then Robert Baran in the semis. Then he gets the privilege of getting smashed once again by Geno Petriashvili.
I love watching Spencer Lee wrestle. He just made the #16 kid from Nebraska look like a rag doll. Fall in the first period.
Gilman comes back from down 2-0 to beat Arujao 6-2. Very impressive. Also beat Edisherashvili 4-0. Looking very good.
Suriano beats Mahir Amiraslanov 7-0. Whoa. Didn't see that coming, but I think it was more a product of Amiraslanov looking nothing like himself than it was Suriano looking amazing. But Suriano did look really good, nothing he can do about it. He did what he had to do. Then he taunts him afterwards by putting his hand out of a handshake and then declining it when Mahir tried to shake it. More par for the course there.
Kyle Dake just hit the rock bottom in the middle of a match Then James Green beat Bayramov 2-0 to make the finals. Then Yianni TECHED khinche 13-2--there was one move that decided the match and ended up being a 10 point swing. Yianni got a 4, then a step out, then won the challenge.
HUMILIATING loss for Gilman. He was up 6-4 with 3 seconds left and his opponent backing up, he goes for a push out for no reason, and gives up a takedown (?? it was ruled one on challenge, somehow??) to lose 6-6. We get robbed of Gilman-Suriano.
Granted this is just KB telling Big Cat what to tweet word for word, but still pretty cool that he tweeted it out to 1.1 Million followers.
Gable is a beast. But what I noticed more is first time I’ve seen a college wrestler not wear a singlet. Are there any other schools doing that?
I like it. Shorts and a tight fitting t-shirt should be the standard. What's weird is grown men wearing singlets.
Yeah I actually think I brought this up last year after thinking about it some more. Scrolled through MDs Twitter and that uniform looks good, not very far off from what everyone is used to with the singlets. Is there any real push within the spelt to move to this look?
Yeah, there is. There's been studies about singlets and participation at the youth level and what not. Flo switched to shorts and t-shirt a couple years ago for their FS events and it has been well received. Just make the change.
This is fairly big news if true. Tsabolov is a former world champ and just beat two more former world champs at Russian Nationals in Sidakov and Kurbanaliev. Completely changes the landscape at 74kg by adding another contender to the big 3 of RUS, USA, and Italy.
I see both sides of the argument, on a personal level I was always a big kid, but wrestling gave me a lot of self confidence in my body image in formative years, but as a middle school coach I definitely struggled to get some of my football kids to try wrestling cause of singlets.
Michigan thumping IU so far, 14-0 after 3 matches. Now 20-3 after five as Mason Parris gets his second straight fall for UM in the heavyweight match
OSU looking very meh so far against Illinois. Ethan Smith blows a lead, Rocky Jordan gets rode out the entire 3rd period for a loss. Kaleb Romero looked good.