Bedlam Wrestling II

[MiccoMacey]

Much better results in front of the biggest crowd I've seen in GIA in quite some time. Still not overly competitive with OSU as a team, but most of our guys improved a ton. And we added in a fresh face from last year who I am guessing has been injured all this year (any one know about Shayne Tucker?). It was 20-11, with two matches to go, one of which we were favored to win. Ended up 26-11. Still, much better than last Bedlam, that's for sure.

125 - Ryan Milhoff beat the #5 ranked Eddie Klimara on one of the slickest duck unders you'll ever see. First time to ever beat Eddie, and really helped set the stage for the rest of the night.
133 - #4 ranked and returning National Champion Cody Brewer with a tech fall over Gary Wayne Harding. Little bit of a surprise considering how easy it was for Cody.
141 - #1 ranked Dean Heil with a tech fall over a RF who we just inserted into the lineup. Don't know a ton about him, other than he's a 3x state champ from Missouri. Looked decent until near the end of the second period.
149 - Davion Jefferies looked like a true freshman most the match, but turned it on at the end. Still lost to Anthony Collica, but I think he has some promise later on in his career. 2x state champion, 3x finalist from Broken Arrow at 138 pounds, he looks too small for 149. When he grows into his weight, he should be much better.
157 - #5 ranked Joe Smith of OSU beat Shayne Tucker, but it was a lot tougher than I thought it would be going in. Not sure why Shayne's been out all year but it's good to see him back in the lineup. Returning Big Twelve champion, this gives us a little bit more competitive edge with him in their.
165 - OSU's 2x returning National Champion and #1 ranked Alex Dieringer crushed Clark Glass. Like he does everybody else.
174 - OU's Matt Reec upset #5 ranked Kyle Crutchmer, 3-2. Strange ending, but suffice it to say Matt looked much better than last time, obviously.
184 - OU just can't find a competitive wrestler at this weight. Andrew Dixon crushed by Nolan Boyd by a major decision.
197 - Brad Johnson loses a close one die to riding time to Weigel of OSU. Not much of an upset....Brad was probably favored on paper, but they're both going to just qualify for the NCAAs.
HWT - Another match that just came down to riding time. But at least Ross Larsden lost to a ranked kid in OSU's HWT Austin Marsden.

All in all, much more competitive. Still a loooooong way to go, and we're not going to be good enough to beat an OSU-level team this year. Just not enough hosses. But we looked much better than we did in December, and that's a good step.

 

[Plainosooner]

I really appreciate your summary.

But if we're finding positives in a 26-11 loss, that doesn't sound so good. Comparing to last time, is a little like comparing the loss in this year's RRR to the one in the Horn's NC year. They were both really bad losses. One was just a decimation while the other was an embarrassment.

 

[CTOkie]

Plaino, when I attended OU in the late '60's, around the same time you were there, wrestling was pretty popular at OU.
Is it still as popular ?
I do not follow it anymore, but I do have great memories of the Bedlam matches and watching Dan Gable when Iowa State came to town.
When I lived in New Jersey back in the 60's, I went to an OU-Rutgers match at Rutgers where my brother attended college. I rooted for OU and was lucky to walk out of the RU field house alive. I remember OU had a heavy weight wrestler named Luke Sharp and he manhandled his opponent. OU won the match decisively.

 

[MiccoMacey]

I really appreciate your summary.

But if we're finding positives in a 26-11 loss, that doesn't sound so good. Comparing to last time, is a little like comparing the loss in this year's RRR to the one in the Horn's NC year. They were both really bad losses. One was just a decimation while the other was an embarrassment.

No doubt. We're not where we need to be, or should be.

But when you're not there, acknowledging when the program takes a few steps to get there seems appropriate. If we stay here, it's all for naught. Like you, I'm hoping we continue to move forward.

 

[Plainosooner]

Plaino, when I attended OU in the late '60's, around the same time you were there, wrestling was pretty popular at OU.
Is it still as popular ?
I do not follow it anymore, but I do have great memories of the Bedlam matches and watching Dan Gable when Iowa State came to town.
When I lived in New Jersey back in the 60's, I went to an OU-Rutgers match at Rutgers where my brother attended college. I rooted for OU and was lucky to walk out of the RU field house alive. I remember OU had a heavy weight wrestler named Luke Sharp and he manhandled his opponent. OU won the match decisively.

Pretty sure Bill Struve was the heavyweight most of my time. My first wrestling match to watch my freshman year was 1970. And there was ice on the ground. I couldn't tell you who the opponent was. But later that year, Gable came to Norman his senior year a 142 pound three year defending undefeated national champ. He wrestled up to face Mike Grant, OU's defending national champ at 150 . I think Gable won something like 7-2. I think Grant got two escapes.

Gable was the most important person in wrestling ever, IMO. When the US sucked internationally, he took over the US team in the Olympics and just prior and I think we won five gold medals. And his time at Iowa transformed them into the dominant program in the country. He was just special. But his final match that year, 1970, Larry Owings upset him on national tv. It was the most remarkable match I've ever seen. At the end, Owings got a takedown and near fall in essentially the same moment and Gable couldn't believe he was behind with like eight seconds left. We were watching it in the equipment room on WWoS. Not sure if that match is on YouTube, but if it is, it's worth watching.

So even though Gable dominated Mike at OU, Mike went on and won his second national title at 150, and Gable finished second at 142.

After Gable left, ISU had this huge guy, over 400 pounds, Chris Taylor who nobody in college could deal with. Struve (pronounced STREW vee) was the one national wrestler that did a good job against Taylor. He never beat him. But he stayed in every match when they faced each other.

When Taylor wrestled internationally, he was pretty good. But there was this Russian guy who was likely 6-5 and up a little under 300 without an ounce of fat on him and he tossed Taylor around with unbelievable skill and strength. Taylor was half fat, a lot of it rolling. He dominated heavyweight on the college level, but the Russian dominated him worse.

My Soph year, OU lost a long long streak of at least one national champ, 17 straight years 1954 to 1970. Tommy Evans was the coach, and had two titles in the streak. Danny Hodge had three. And I suspect Port was in the wrestling room a good bit. I know one thing. The wrestlers were the hardest working athletes on campus, and it wasn't close.

Evans was coach through the time I graduated, then Stan Abel took over.

==============

Post edit: Evan won two titles, but the first one wasn't in the streak. He won in '52 and '54. We had not individual champ in 1953.

 

[K2C Sooner]

How many Big 12 teams field a wrestling team? Iowa State, OSU and OU. Anyone else?

 

[MiccoMacey]

West Virginia. Former OU Asst coach Sammie Henson is the head coach.

But we've partnered with about 8 other teams for conference tournament purposes only. Not real big names, but it does give us a little more credibility.

 

[MdSooner#1]

How many Big 12 teams field a wrestling team? Iowa State, OSU and OU. Anyone else?

Here is a list of the actual Big 12 teams in wrestling:



Team W L PCT W L PCT


Oklahoma State 6 0 1.000 10 2 0.833


South Dakota State
5 1 0.833 12 5 0.706


Oklahoma 4 2 0.667 9 4 0.692


North Dakota State
2 2 0.500 3 5 0.375


Wyoming 3 4 0.429 5 6 0.455


Iowa State 1 2 0.333 9 5 0.643


Utah Valley 0 1 0.000 3 7 0.300


West Virginia 0 2 0.000 6 8 0.429


Air Force 0 3 0.000 5 5 0.500


Northern Colorado
0 4 0.000 3 6 0.333

 

[K2C Sooner]

I maybe wrong here, but I think the decline of wrestling popularity, both high school and college can be traced back to the decline of the newspaper empire. I can remember a time when it was heavily covered by both the Tulsa World and Tulsa Tribune in my area. Before I canceled my subscription to the World I had noticed a big drop in coverage.

There was a time you could read about all the stars. Teams like Perry, Ada, Midwest City, Booker T Washington and even my home town Catoosa received tons of pub. OU and OSU the same.

Today, not so much, didn't they discontinue wrestling at the Olympics?

 

[Soonersincefitty]

I maybe wrong here, but I think the decline of wrestling popularity, both high school and college can be traced back to the decline of the newspaper empire. I can remember a time when it was heavily covered by both the Tulsa World and Tulsa Tribune in my area. Before I canceled my subscription to the World I had noticed a big drop in coverage.

There was a time you could read about all the stars. Teams like Perry, Ada, Midwest City, Booker T Washington and even my home town Catoosa received tons of pub. OU and OSU the same.

Today, not so much, didn't they discontinue wrestling at the Olympics?

No, they still have it in the olympics. I got to believe it might be an easy ticket to get.

 

[bcsoonerfan]

I maybe wrong here, but I think the decline of wrestling popularity, both high school and college can be traced back to the decline of the newspaper empire. I can remember a time when it was heavily covered by both the Tulsa World and Tulsa Tribune in my area. Before I canceled my subscription to the World I had noticed a big drop in coverage.

There was a time you could read about all the stars. Teams like Perry, Ada, Midwest City, Booker T Washington and even my home town Catoosa received tons of pub. OU and OSU the same.

Today, not so much, didn't they discontinue wrestling at the Olympics?

I blame the MMA craze. It's more marketable to your average tool bag that wants to think he's a badass.

 

[MdSooner#1]

Wrestling - as competed in high schools and colleges - does not exist in the Olympics.

The Olympics have always had a Greco - Roman Style wrestling. The IOC did vote to eliminate the sport beginning in 2020. But has since rescinded that decision.



Wrestling had been contested at the Summer Olympic Games since the sport was introduced in the ancient Olympic Games in 708 BC.[1] When the modern Olympic Games resumed in Athens in 1896, wrestling (in the form of Greco-Roman wrestling) became a focus of the Games, with the exception of the 1900 Summer Olympics when wrestling did not appear on the program. Freestyle wrestling and weight classes both made their first appearance in 1904. The women's competition was introduced in 2004. In February 2013, the IOC voted to remove the sport from the 2020 Summer Olympics onwards.[2] On 8 September 2013, the IOC announced that wrestling would return to the Summer Olympics in 2020.[3][4] Along with boxing, it is one of only two sports that still require participants to have amateur status to participate in the Olympics.[citation needed]