Any (Olympic Freestyle) Wrestling Fans?

[CM]

Tamyra Mensah-Stock is my new favorite wrestler. Hard not to love her after watching this interview:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=9hIIUYVc3rE

[Craigslist]

Next WCI con, lets do freestyle wrestling comp.

[Tim]

Tamyra Mensah-Stock is my new favorite wrestler. Hard not to love her after watching this interview:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=9hIIUYVc3rE

Amazing natural talent. Twin sister wrestled freshman year, she did not. First year wrestling 2nd state followed by 2 state championships. Almost quit when father had a fatal car accident coming back from a meet.
5’5” at 152lbs very fortunate where she went to HS. Katy ISD has beautiful sports facilities (including power lifting teams).
https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tamyra_Mensah-Stock

Her interview was real. Her journey was faster than I would think possible. Natural talent and hard work win. I have no doubt anyone would out work her. A truly unique individual.

Sponsors should come calling. I doubt it. I wish they would.

[PhysicianOnFIRE]

I had Steveson's matches on my calendar and was glued to the screen for his gold medal match. I've been to the NCAA Championships (as a spectator) in Iown City and Minneapolis and still keep track of the University of Minnesota team. We've had some great heavyweights over the years (Brock Lesnar, Tony Nelson, Cole Konrad, Vern Gagne) but Gable Steveson is next level. Borrowed from my recent Sunday Best:

"There was one Gold Medal that had me jumping and hollering, not believing what I had just witnessed. I honestly haven’t been this excited over the outcome of a sporting event since Stefon Diggs’ Minnesota Miracle.

This was the Miracle on the Mat, with Minnesota’s own Gable Steveson scoring not one, but two takedowns on the three-time world champion heavyweight wrestler from Georgia in the final 10 seconds. The statistical odds of victory when down 8-5 as time is expiring have to be infinitesimally small, but our guy defied the odds.

The final 23 seconds:

https://twitter.com/BleacherReport/s...43069866459139


Keep grinding, keep hustling, never say never, and watch what happens."

I agree that the US focus on folkstyle wrestling probably hinders our ability to dominate internationally. The Russians, Eastern block, Iranians, etc... probably focus exclusively on freestyle or Greco Roman.

[CM]

I had Steveson's matches on my calendar and was glued to the screen for his gold medal match. I've been to the NCAA Championships (as a spectator) in Iown City and Minneapolis and still keep track of the University of Minnesota team. We've had some great heavyweights over the years (Brock Lesnar, Tony Nelson, Cole Konrad, Vern Gagne) but Gable Steveson is next level. Borrowed from my recent Sunday Best:

"There was one Gold Medal that had me jumping and hollering, not believing what I had just witnessed. I honestly haven’t been this excited over the outcome of a sporting event since Stefon Diggs’ Minnesota Miracle.

This was the Miracle on the Mat, with Minnesota’s own Gable Steveson scoring not one, but two takedowns on the three-time world champion heavyweight wrestler from Georgia in the final 10 seconds. The statistical odds of victory when down 8-5 as time is expiring have to be infinitesimally small, but our guy defied the odds.

The final 23 seconds:

https://twitter.com/BleacherReport/s...43069866459139


Keep grinding, keep hustling, never say never, and watch what happens."

I agree that the US focus on folkstyle wrestling probably hinders our ability to dominate internationally. The Russians, Eastern block, Iranians, etc... probably focus exclusively on freestyle or Greco Roman.

That was amazing. I didn't see any of the matches. Hoping to catch them on YouTube at some point.

[Tim]

That was amazing. I didn't see any of the matches. Hoping to catch them on YouTube at some point.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=WViXOwQU6pA

There you go.

[afan]

What did you think of John Smith as an announcer? I loved his enthusiasm. I was disappointed that someone who knows everything about freestyle wrestling had so little to say about what was happening technically. I could see that opportunities open and are closed too quickly to discuss them real time. But I thought he could have done much better on replay explaining for non-wrestlers what the athletes were trying to do and how they either succeeded or were blocked.

It was also clear that he did not know much about the current Greco Roman rules or the strategic choices the wrestlers made based on the rules. It would have been nice to have someone who knew Greco do those matches.

Not his fault since I assume they did not hire him to do a lot of preparation, but it would have been better had he scouted those in the competition so he knew more about how they wrestled. It seemed just about everything he knew, for the ones who were not already former world medal winners, and even for them for Greco, was what he saw at the tournament.

I don't know how much time it would have taken away from his day job or whether NBC would have paid for it, but some scouting from him or others would have been great.

I loved that he was having a ball watching both the women's and the men's matches. I always worry how men, particularly older men, are going to react to the women's side. He just treated them as athletes.

[BladeRunner]

I loved Smith's commentary at the end of the Steveson match... "Fake snap, fake snap, Go get it, Go get it!

I have watched that match over 7 times!

Sidakov was the most impressive wrestler in Tokyo, in my opinion. He is the real deal. He had beaten Burroughs the last 2 times that they met, and handily beat the Belarussian that completely manhandled Dake 11 - 0. I had picked Dake for the Gold. DPS Breakdown did an excellent analysis on how Dake was beaten, for those interested.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=hHdi4Lid_8s

I completely underestimated Gable.

Loved to see Taylor and Yazdanicharati wrestle again as well. Taylor winning the Gold after coming back from an ACL tear.

Fantastic Olympics for USA wrestling!