Are any of you folks following this? The semi's will be televised tonight on ESPN U (university) at 7 and the finals will be on espn2 (or espn u, not sure which one) tomorrow night at 7 30. Might have some future mma fighters wrestling in the semi's and finals. bubba jenkins from arizona st. is in the semi's tonight and he's said in interviews that he plans on doing mma after graduating this year.
I have been watching Bubba Jenkins. He's legit. I've heard he works out at Jackson's camp from time to time.
great event thus far. i'm heading to philly tomorrow for finals. i like jenkins and hopes he wins, but that undefeated freshman he's fighting is a machine. also, the one-legged kid from arizona st is also in the finals.
REED Doesn't Watch Much Collegiate Wrestling, but it's Cool that these Guys NOW have MMA to Pursue as a Professional Career...REED's High School (R.L. Turner High School) had a Pretty Good Wrestling Team Back in the Mid to Late 80's & a Couple of Badass Texas State Champions Named Tommy Goodman & Bo Underwood... Unfortunately, Back Then, there was No MMA & Most Collegiate Wrestlers Became "Regular" Guys, 1nce their Eligibility was Up... REED:hammert:
Its a great point REED. Back then there were only a few avenues to go torwards. The Olympics, which is obviously less than 1% percent. Pro Wrestling which most real collegiate wrestlers would never do, or go into coaching at a high school or collegiate level. It is really cool that guys like Askren, Jones, Bader, etc have a route to use their craft and talents.:hammert:
reed, correct me if i'm wrong, but is judo a big sport in texas? i've noticed that texas tech and texas a&m both have judo in college and they also participate in collegiate nationals along w/ military academies.
Wow, this kid won in the finals to finish his Senior season 36-0 and capture the Div 1 125lbs title. Amazing.
yea i just got back from philly last night. it was a great event. robles received a lot of media coverage throughout and highlights of his winning efforts were shown on sportcenter and other sports news programs. bubba jenkins, who won the title at 157 announced at the press conference that he wants to hurry up and start his mma career.
well, the lead up was great because jenkins abruptly left psu last year (and transferred to arizona st.) when he didnt get along w/ cael sanderson and the freshman kid was his training partner at the time. a lot of folks thought taylor was gonna win the whole thing (he was unbeaten heading into the final) and jenkins shocked the crowd w/ a sweet cradle lock pin, which he said he used to do it on taylor often when they were in the same team.
Having one leg is supposed to be a disadvantage, and this might sound stupid, but in wrestling it seems like an advantage of sorts. He gets to wrestle in a much lower weight class then what he'd normally be in and he's much more slippery given that he only has one leg to grab on to. Was watching him and it seemed like the guys he was wrestling were much smaller and just unable to grab onto him.
you're kinda right and many wrestling experts agree with you. he has an upperbody frame that of a 160 pounder or so and his opponents HAVE to lean down just to grapple w/ him. once he's on top, he's a tilting machine and due to his superior strength, it's nearly impossible to escape from bottom. the kid he beat in the finals won it all last year and was the favorite to win this year as well. unfortunately for him, he never wrestled vs. robles and was pretty much clueless when he got taken down and forced on his back.
btw, i know i'm partial to wrestling since that was my active sport growing up, but i had much more fun at this event than i did last month in jersey for that strikeforce event (fedor vs. silva). the only shitty thing was that since it was a college event, no beers were sold in the arena. doesn't matter though, i barhopped around the city until 4 in the morning and had a cheese steak the day after.
i watch them every year, i wrestled in highschool this is the first year i dont know anyone wrestling from some period when i was active
it's a great sport. i also like the fact that unlike football or basketball, there's little to zero corruptions in their recruiting process and many of the students actually have good grades before and during their college years. for instance, cornell, an ivy league school is one of the top programs in the country and two years in a row, they managed to place in the top 2. i guess it's also a sport where you don't have much of a career post-college (unless you're going to coach or pursue olympics or mma)
