Mark Schultz vs Ed Banach NCAA Wrestling Finals - YouTube
watch this - and notice that several times the ref starts a stall count ..... you must be kidding me if this was today .... this match was exciting and both guys were aggressive. but - if folkstyle is to survive ... the sport must go back to 1977.
I love it!! I hate that Banach lost that one, but I love the way he lost/Schultz won. To BP's point, early in the match, Schultz in on top and puts a leg in after Banach does a stand up, and almost immediately the ref started counting. He did it very loudly so everyone knew it, and eventually Schultz conceded the escape. How long does it take for that to happen now, to even start counting? For a lot of our younger fans on this board, back in this era it was very common for officials to just stop wrestling (it almost appeared that it was when they were bored with the match
) and call double stalling. Wrestlers actually were stalled out of matches back then. I dont know know if the officiating drove the wrestling or if the style of wrestling was there on its own, but it was more fun, no doubt about it. The key is that if one wrestler wanted to slow down the match for any tactical reason, he would be penalized for it. Conditioning was more of an issue as there werent the 20-30 seconds of what I call "twister" wrestling where both wreslters have the other's ankles and hang on for dear life. Stalemates happened alot less cause of the active style of wreslting, but when they did occur, it was very quickly. I hate to say it, but as happy as I was that Evans won the other night, he was on Storley's ankle a lot, way more than he would have been allowed in this era.
This is a perfect example of what I consider to be a systemic issue with the sport we all love. Now, I dont want wrestling to become a sport where the officials are as relevant as the competitors, but if they need to be heard from to keep wreslting a more active sport, than so be it. As I said in a previous post, passive wrestlers arent rewarded for active wreslting all of the time and passive wreslters arent penalized. Now am I asking all matches to be wrestled like this, with cross body locks and throws? Not realistic, but we all want more activity. Keep in mind, wrestling is one of the few sports were you can win without scoring any offensive points(1-0 with an escape, or god forbid 1-0 with a penalty point).I do realize that you can in football, but it essentially never happens..
International wrestling is doings its damndest to make the sport more exciting and they may very well be successful at it, but will it make a difference at the lower levels like peewee and high school wrestling? I hope so, but I think not. Kids learn from their respective coaches and model themselves after the best in their sports. In football, baseball and basketball, kids can model their styles as those sports are on tv non stop(IE: when did kids start getting into the batters box and holding their back hands up to the umps asking for "time" until they get set in the box? when they saw it on tv, as they probably werent coached that way) How much international wrestling is on tv? Essentially none. You can watch more basketball in a weekend than you can see freestyle wrestling in a year(hell in four years). So if it isnt coming from the top down like it does in PRO sports, than it needs to come from college or more likely, from the college wrestlers that become coaches.
Sparky you were right, good/great college wrestlers dont always make good college coaches. The fact is that most good college wrestlers dont coach at the collegiate level, due to either the lack of open positions or the fact that they dont pay very much. But if you go to the state tournament and look in the back of the programs to see who is heading up the states programs? Former college wrestlers is who(if you teach and coach at an Iowa high school, you probably make more than you do as college assistant at most programs)... And if those college wrestlers came from todays era, where you are rewarded for passivity or at best defensive wreslting what do you think they are going to coach like? Passive and defensive? Not always of course, but you can see the cycle and the systemic issue.
Crap, that is a lot of words again.
Go Hawks!
