Do any of you follow? I wrestled all throughout high school (didn't wrestle in college though) and I still find this sport fascinating to watch all all levels (from high school to college and freestyle/greco olympics). we have a lot of guys becoming MMA fighters after their college career, but the sport itself doesn't seem like it sparks enough interest for anyone who didnt wrestle in high school or at grade school. i thought this year's NCAA championships was great, but i dont think anyone on here even noticed that it took place.
I wrestled for 16 years and coached for 4 years (I wrestled and coached at the same yime in open freestyle) And I love watchin college wrestling, I follow it pretty well. Metcalf(sp?) is the guy I follow quite a bit.
cool. metcalf has had a great careeer. it was good to see him avenge his loss vs. palmer from the big 10 finals.
I wrestled as a kid from the 5th grade all through High School. Took 2nd my senior year in state. I love watching collegiate wrestling. I have a kid on my son's football team which I coach, he is a badass wrestler. Look for this name, Clai Quintanilla. He is a two time national champion in Freestyle and he is only 11 years old!!!! Last year he took up Greco Roman for the first time and took 3 rd in nationals in that. This kid is awesome, and a badass little football player.:kidcool:
So what happens after your amateur wrestling career? Where do you go from there? Very few go into MMA since MMA takes a lot more of a varied skillset than just wrestling which again would take years to master like JJ, boxing, etc. What's the next career choice outside of MMA for a college wrestler?
Pretty f*cking boring I must say! :laughing: F*ck college wrestling! Might as well just take up a real sport. Heck didn't GSP basically learn wrestling on the job and wipe his ass with guys like Koscheck and Matt Hughes?
Yep, Rulon Gardner is a teacher too now. He had 1 pro MMA fight and that was that. Back to seclusion. Not sure I'd ever push a kid into college wrestling. Might as well take up boxing, football, tennis, heck even golf.
unlike most basketball or football athletes who get drafted before their senior year, most college wrestlers, especially those that are really good, actually care about their education and go on to have successful career as a non-athlete. statistically, majority of the kids in the ncaa finals have higher than 3.0 gpa. look at who placed 2nd in the ncaa championships this year. cornell univ, an ivy league school. you think these kids dream of becoming olympians or pro athletes upon finishing their college wrestling careers? it's certainly not a mainstream sport, but nevertheless, it's an extremely hard competitive sport that requires a lot of effort and discipline, which often times overwhelm natural talent. i've seen plenty of naturally gifted state champs from high school that couldnt even place in conference tourneys in college. btw, gsp is a takedown machine and he does train w/ the national freestyle team in canada, but that doesn't say much about his chances at competing in freestyle wrestling. even he said so himself, that he's not ready for it at the moment. plus, how many gsps in the UFC are there? cain velasquez, chael sonnen, josh koschek, mo lawal, shane carwin, matt hughes, randy couture, dan henderson, and dan severn were all elite college wrestlers prior to their success in mma. even tito ortiz and chuck lidell were division-1 wrestlers but weren't as good as the aforementioned.
:mj: Great post, Joony. Collegiate wrestlers are a different breed. The time and energy that they put into training is rediculous, especially when you think that most never even get more than a right up in the local paper. Its a very small community, most do it for the personaly satisfaction rather than anything else. By far some of them most conditioned athletes on the planet.
I think they're great athletes too. But I personally would rather be a top golfer like Tiger Woods than a great amateur wrestler like Rulon Gardner to be honest with you. I'd go where the potential for big money is.
Amateur wrestling is quickly becoming one of the major breeding ground for MMA stars. That's a good thing because it gives amateur wrestlers an option to pursue once their NCAA career is over. TFK
I follow it some. I liked last year's finals much more than this year's. J Jaeggers, Metcalf getting tossed around like a scrub, and Nickerson winning were better than this year, imo. And you had the guy with one leg last year. Did he not qualify for Nationals this year? Fact is, the sport isn't televised too much...you might get 10 shows all winter of college wrestling.
You need much more than amateur wrestling in today's evolved sport of MMA. The days of Matt Hughes and Mark Coleman dominating with their wrestling alone are over. If kids have dreams of being MMA stars, they'd be better off going to MMA schools as opposed to spending much of their youth learning a 1 dimensional style like amateur wrestling. College wrestling is a waste of time and should be terminated completely and replaced with MMA in schools where they teach you Boxing, Ju Jitsu, Karate, Kickboxing, Wrestling, Judo, etc.
consolations weren't televised. nickerson placed 3rd or 4th. i was wondering what happened to caldwell (the guy who beat metcalf last year), but he got injured apparently. neverthelss, metcalf had a pretty awesome season and it was good to see him avenge his loss to palmer from the big 10 finals. the finals were televised on espn2 i believe. i was able to catch it on espn360 live.
