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Wrestling, Sport for Our Times
WSJ ^ | 3/30/11 | JAMES FREEMAN

Posted on 03/30/2011 6:14:51 AM PDT by rhema

The official sport of the "new normal" recently held its annual championships in Philadelphia. Think of college wrestling as the athletic version of an austerity program. Wearing almost nothing, coached by men who make next to nothing, and with no hope of professional careers because they don't exist, 34 competitors in each weight class arrived on the mats of the NCAA tournament.

Of course, all but one in each of the 10 weight classes left disappointed. As consolation prizes, many received significant facial bruising and at least one, defending champion Darrion Caldwell of North Carolina State, a dislocated shoulder.

Was anyone helped by quantitative easing? Not really. Some easing occurred when Arizona State's Bubba Jenkins released his cradle and stopped forcing his opponent to touch his knee to his head. But that was because the referee had signalled a pin to end the match, so Mr. Jenkins could afford to be accommodative.

Since the financial crisis, many Americans have talked about a return to traditional values like thrift, prudence and hard work. You can't get more traditional than wrestling. Even before Odysseus and Ajax grappled to a draw in Homer's Iliad, even before wrestling was a fan favorite at the ancient Olympics, cavemen scrawled images of prehistoric bouts.

Prudence? Experience in this sport teaches that one small mistake can result in a wrestler being thrown to his back. As for thrift, many competitors and coaches weren't even spending money on shampoo, their shaved heads gleaming under the lights of the Wells Fargo Center. Hard work? These guys have to train for "man's oldest form of recreational combat" on a diet.

Sports fans still struggling with unemployment close to 9% may find that wrestling has a new appeal in this environment. NFL players and owners still haven't agreed on how to

(Excerpt) Read more at online.wsj.com ...


TOPICS: Culture/Society; Editorial
KEYWORDS: college; ncaa; sports; wrestling

1 posted on 03/30/2011 6:14:59 AM PDT by rhema
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To: rhema

Hoo-ah!


2 posted on 03/30/2011 6:35:55 AM PDT by Lysandru ((Former Wrestler))
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To: rhema

We're headed there..............

3 posted on 03/30/2011 6:47:24 AM PDT by Red Badger (I've posted a total of 1,698 threads and 63,835 replies, as of 03-29-2011......)
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To: rhema

If you’re a fan of individual sports, wrestling is one of the finest. I worked the collegiate matches at Iowa State for a number of years and the athleticism of these guys is way beyond anything I saw in any other sport with the possible exception of gymnastics.


4 posted on 03/30/2011 6:49:46 AM PDT by IronJack (=)
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To: Red Badger

and at a much faster rate than the movie predicted.


5 posted on 03/30/2011 6:52:56 AM PDT by Sioux-san
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To: Red Badger
Not if we keep turning out young men like Arizona State's NCAA champion Anthony Robles, and Quentin Wright, Penn State's first individual NCAA champion and the lowest seed (9th) ever to win a championship.
6 posted on 03/30/2011 7:28:55 AM PDT by rhema ("Break the conventions; keep the commandments." -- G. K. Chesterton)
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To: rhema
I basically did jacksh*t in my young life, but one of the things I did get involved in was freestyle wrestling, in high school. That was an eye opening experience. Probably some of the best overall athletes you would ever meet. Football players would wrestle in the off season to stay in shape, and ALL of them dreaded wrestling practice. Said wrestling was much harder than football.

That is also where I learned that "flashy Martial Arts" are a joke, in terms of fighting. Once MMA started, I knew it would take off, that it was the real deal.

It is a great sport, and even though my young kids are enrolled in traditional MA, when they get old enough, I'll see if I can get them into freestyle wrassling, "America's Martial Art".

7 posted on 03/30/2011 9:02:28 AM PDT by Paradox (Where is Obama?)
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