2016 Freestyle World Cup

[RadioBison]

Both our Gold medalists, Maroulis and Snyder, are from Maryland. Crab cakes might actually be good for wrestling.

It was a big day from Snyder, but I think the Mongolian coaches stole the show.

[Christopher Moen]

The officials didn't have much of a choice as the Mongolian was running away for about ten seconds and then started celebrating with five seconds left as if he was victorious.

Mo Lawal got the same call against him about ten years ago, and he wasn't nearly as bad as fleeing the hold.

After having three officials get suspended earlier in the day in the day because of their suspicious calls in Franlin Gomez's lost, the sport didn't need another black eye like this.

[Big Bird]

How about UWW essentially admitting that that Franklin got screwed out of a shot at a medal by some shady and ridiculous judges? I love wrestling of all kinds but I hated this tournament for so many reasons.

Get rid of the dual bronzes. If you do that, you can add two more weights to each style and still give away the same number of medals. The repechage format helps eliminate bad beats, but it is a clumsy attempt at it. If you don't want to add more weights, use cross bracketing with repechage guys and semi final losers and come to a single bronze medalist.

The subjectivity of putting wrestlers on the clock is a joke and was the biggest downfall of the week.

I also HATE that a caution point is worth MORE on criteria than a pushout. A pushout is the result of good positioning and generally offensive moves, while half the time the caution is given for no particular reason. I wanted to puke when Adeline Gray pulled a brilliant, but just awful move by stepping out intentionally to avoid giving out the caution. She was up 1-0 and had done NOTHING all match when she got put on the clock in the 2nd. She intentionally went out of bounds so she wouldn't give up the caution point, and she still held criteria. Fortunately, she gave up last second points and the better wrestler for all 6 minutes won that one. Love Adeline, but I was rooting very hard for her to lose after that.

I'm fine with the larger point move/last score determining the winner, but it is very hard for casual fans to follow and pick up on. Just go to overtime if both combatants score the same amount of points. It simplifies it for casual fans and helps ensure wrestlers know they don't have to score again when the match is tied (J'Den).

The eastern european/FSU block of referees/judges absolutely can't be trusted. Thankfully there are suspensions from the Gomez fiasco, but there were at least half a dozen matches I saw where the refs decided the winner and the FSU/russian guys ALWAYS benefited.

Speaking of the Mongolians, I would've been upset too. That had been happening all week and they wait until a medal match to award that point??? And look at who the call benefitted...a former soviet union country...weird...

Greco was just downright awful. Granted I focused on the USA, who were embarrassingly non-competitive, but the entire greco tournament was boring and featured so precious little offense.

Speaking of USA Greco...wow, what an awful performance. Jesse Thielke was the bright spot of the team and he went 1-1 and got blown out in his loss. Bisek was content to try to win 1-1 and did nothing, which was so very disappointing. Figure out how to get this program going, because this was ugly. Have to keep the great young greco guys engaged (McKee, Lamont, Thielke, Zillmer, Ness, etc) and get some talented FS guys who can't crack the lineup (Dake, IMar, Tony Nelson, etc) to try to make the switch.

On the positive side, Snyder, Maroulis, and J'Den were all spectacular! Pirozkhova and Molinaro were both very good as well. Molinaro surpassed my wildest expectations by a mile and was SOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOO close to pulling off the bronze. I think USA Freestyle will take a huge leap forward in the next 4 years. So much young talent, led by J'Den (a marketing dream) and Kyle Snyder. The women's program is solid too and I expect them to be among the elites.

Christopher, you're around the circuit way more than me. Am I way off on this? For the most part, I just couldn't enjoy this week of wrestling

[RadioBison]

The officials didn't have much of a choice as the Mongolian was running away for about ten seconds and then started celebrating with five seconds left as if he was victorious.

Mo Lawal got the same call against him about ten years ago, and he wasn't nearly as bad as fleeing the hold.

After having three officials get suspended earlier in the day in the day because of their suspicious calls in Franlin Gomez's lost, the sport didn't need another black eye like this.

I didn't feel too bad for the Mongolian wrestler on that call.

I didn't see the Gomez match live, but I went back and watched after I learned about the suspension. I don't understand everything there is know about freestyle rules, but the points seemed to make sense right up until the end. Even on that last flurry I could have seen it go either way. What was the biggest problem with what the officials did? I think I get it, but I want to hear what you guys have to say.

This tournament would have been hard to follow without the USA Wrestling Twitter feed. It's sad how many times the comments were something like, "the refs gave so and so a point for some unknown reason".

[RadioBison]

The subjectivity of putting wrestlers on the clock is a joke and was the biggest downfall of the week.

The passivity calls were very hard for me to follow. They should have something like three judges watching for it, and only call it when they are blindly unanimous on the decision. I'm trying to remember if I saw anyone score after they were put on the clock. It just seems like an invitation for the other guy to stall for 30 seconds.

[Big Bird]

I didn't feel too bad for the Mongolian wrestler on that call.

I didn't see the Gomez match live, but I went back and watched after I learned about the suspension. I don't understand everything there is know about freestyle rules, but the points seemed to make sense right up until the end. Even on that last flurry I could have seen it go either way. What was the biggest problem with what the officials did? I think I get it, but I want to hear what you guys have to say.

This tournament would have been hard to follow without the USA Wrestling Twitter feed. It's sad how many times the comments were something like, "the refs gave so and so a point for some unknown reason".

I would've gone 4-0 since I don't think Gomez was exposed and I saw it as him taking his opponent to his back, but I can see 2-0 for Gomez too. I've watched it several times and the video doesn't give you the best angle but I don't think Gomez was ever exposed.. The Korean ref initially gives 2 to Gomez, then after not seeing a replay, he changes his mind to 2 red just because the old guy said so...and then the male replay official doesn't do his job correctly and brings in everyone to override the female replay official, who adamantly wanted it to be 2 Gomez and 0 for the Uzbek. One of the judges clearly states to the male replay official "you cannot bring him over' in reference to the other judge, yet he does it anyway

As for the Mongol, he was definitely fleeing, but that had gone on all week and they hadn't called it once. Christopher said that it happened to King MO back in the day, but I didn't see it called once this week outside of this, yet that kind of evasion happened in many matches. The Mongol legitimately won the match by scoring more points, but since there is no OT, the judges gave the fleeing point and thus the match.

[RadioBison]

I would've gone 4-0 since I don't think Gomez was exposed and I saw it as him taking his opponent to his back, but I can see 2-0 for Gomez too. I've watched it several times and the video doesn't give you the best angle but I don't think Gomez was ever exposed.. The Korean ref initially gives 2 to Gomez, then after not seeing a replay, he changes his mind to 2 red just because the old guy said so...and then the male replay official doesn't do his job correctly and brings in everyone to override the female replay official, who adamantly wanted it to be 2 Gomez and 0 for the Uzbek. One of the judges clearly states to the male replay official "you cannot bring him over' in reference to the other judge, yet he does it anyway.

So the ref was the Korean, the old guy was the Georgian, and I assume the male video judge was the Russian, right? There was at least one more male judge and then a female judge as well. Who was supposed to make the call on the replay?

[Christopher Moen]

The passivity calls were very hard for me to follow. They should have something like three judges watching for it, and only call it when they are blindly unanimous on the decision. I'm trying to remember if I saw anyone score after they were put on the clock. It just seems like an invitation for the other guy to stall for 30 seconds.

The passivity calls screwed two aggressive wrestlers out of Gold this week. In the GR 66 KG, Migran Arutyunyan of Armenia was by far the more aggressive wrestler in the match against Serbia's Davor Stefanek. Stefanek spent the whole match wrestling like a statue while Arutyunyan was on constant attack, which resulted in him getting one point after a two-on-one arm-throw attempt to a push-out. Stefanek, despite showing no offense, never got called for passivity while Arutyunyan got called for it three times, the last coming with about a minute left and giving Stefanek an automatic point.

The second time passivity calls affected a Gold medal was at FS 57 KG. The Japanese wrestler (Higuchi) outshot/throw-attempted Georgia's Khinchegashvili 10-1. However, despite being the aggressor, Higuchi was hit late for passivity at 4:25 in the match and hit again 20 seconds later for the shot clock, despite Khinchegashvili not having any real offense (he scored two off a chest-lock counter-attack). This forced Higuchi to have to attack relentlessly for the next 1:15 while Khinchegashvili got to play defense and stall with a two-on-one arm lock.

I have no dog in either of these matches, but the Gold Medalist got awarded for doing nothing. That's a shame.

[Christopher Moen]

I would've gone 4-0 since I don't think Gomez was exposed and I saw it as him taking his opponent to his back, but I can see 2-0 for Gomez too. I've watched it several times and the video doesn't give you the best angle but I don't think Gomez was ever exposed.. The Korean ref initially gives 2 to Gomez, then after not seeing a replay, he changes his mind to 2 red just because the old guy said so...and then the male replay official doesn't do his job correctly and brings in everyone to override the female replay official, who adamantly wanted it to be 2 Gomez and 0 for the Uzbek. One of the judges clearly states to the male replay official "you cannot bring him over' in reference to the other judge, yet he does it anyway

As for the Mongol, he was definitely fleeing, but that had gone on all week and they hadn't called it once. Christopher said that it happened to King MO back in the day, but I didn't see it called once this week outside of this, yet that kind of evasion happened in many matches. The Mongol legitimately won the match by scoring more points, but since there is no OT, the judges gave the fleeing point and thus the match.

In my opinion, the Jury should have been suspended. Gomez was originally given two points to none for the Uzbek. I think it should have be four points for Gomez, with maybe two for the Uzbek. At worse, it should have be two points to each with Gomez getting the last two and having the advantage. How the Jury decided that Gomez got zero is beyond me. If you take an opponent from his feet to his back, that is always four. The only question was if the Uzbek hitting his butt first stopped the continuation before being put in danger for two instead of four.

[Christopher Moen]

How about UWW essentially admitting that that Franklin got screwed out of a shot at a medal by some shady and ridiculous judges? I love wrestling of all kinds but I hated this tournament for so many reasons.

Get rid of the dual bronzes. If you do that, you can add two more weights to each style and still give away the same number of medals. The repechage format helps eliminate bad beats, but it is a clumsy attempt at it. If you don't want to add more weights, use cross bracketing with repechage guys and semi final losers and come to a single bronze medalist.

The subjectivity of putting wrestlers on the clock is a joke and was the biggest downfall of the week.

I also HATE that a caution point is worth MORE on criteria than a pushout. A pushout is the result of good positioning and generally offensive moves, while half the time the caution is given for no particular reason. I wanted to puke when Adeline Gray pulled a brilliant, but just awful move by stepping out intentionally to avoid giving out the caution. She was up 1-0 and had done NOTHING all match when she got put on the clock in the 2nd. She intentionally went out of bounds so she wouldn't give up the caution point, and she still held criteria. Fortunately, she gave up last second points and the better wrestler for all 6 minutes won that one. Love Adeline, but I was rooting very hard for her to lose after that.

I'm fine with the larger point move/last score determining the winner, but it is very hard for casual fans to follow and pick up on. Just go to overtime if both combatants score the same amount of points. It simplifies it for casual fans and helps ensure wrestlers know they don't have to score again when the match is tied (J'Den).

The eastern european/FSU block of referees/judges absolutely can't be trusted. Thankfully there are suspensions from the Gomez fiasco, but there were at least half a dozen matches I saw where the refs decided the winner and the FSU/russian guys ALWAYS benefited.

Speaking of the Mongolians, I would've been upset too. That had been happening all week and they wait until a medal match to award that point??? And look at who the call benefitted...a former soviet union country...weird...

Greco was just downright awful. Granted I focused on the USA, who were embarrassingly non-competitive, but the entire greco tournament was boring and featured so precious little offense.

Speaking of USA Greco...wow, what an awful performance. Jesse Thielke was the bright spot of the team and he went 1-1 and got blown out in his loss. Bisek was content to try to win 1-1 and did nothing, which was so very disappointing. Figure out how to get this program going, because this was ugly. Have to keep the great young greco guys engaged (McKee, Lamont, Thielke, Zillmer, Ness, etc) and get some talented FS guys who can't crack the lineup (Dake, IMar, Tony Nelson, etc) to try to make the switch.

On the positive side, Snyder, Maroulis, and J'Den were all spectacular! Pirozkhova and Molinaro were both very good as well. Molinaro surpassed my wildest expectations by a mile and was SOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOO close to pulling off the bronze. I think USA Freestyle will take a huge leap forward in the next 4 years. So much young talent, led by J'Den (a marketing dream) and Kyle Snyder. The women's program is solid too and I expect them to be among the elites.

Christopher, you're around the circuit way more than me. Am I way off on this? For the most part, I just couldn't enjoy this week of wrestling

In regards to Greco-Roman in the United States, we deserve what we are getting. Image how successful a NFL franchise would be if their team was comprised of mainly DIII athletes with maybe a few DII athletes. During our most successful years of 1996-2007, we were a top-three team nearly every year, but back then we were comprised of many DI All-American wrestlers. I know Thielke is a former DI athlete, but he wasn't an All-American. Just look how tough it is for great DI athletes (i.e. Burroughs, Snyder, Cox) to win in freestyle.

We need to go back to what worked and stop investing in programs like Northern Michigan. When that program was started, the thought was that we could recruit top-notch kids and develop them into World/Olympic medalist quicker. However, top-notch kids are still, and always will, go to top-notch wrestling college programs first. Right now, especially with Ivan Ivanov not being a part of the NMU program, we are taking kids that "might" make DIII schools and developing them to their full potential, a World/Olympic Team Member. For the most part, those kids are not medalist potential. This causes a problem with getting DI college athletes to take GR seriously. Those guys are not going to train for an Olympic Quad after they get beat initially by NMU kids. It's a waste of their time, and that leaves GR with low-caliber athletes.