One Necessary Change for UWW

My question I may pose for my dear friend, Jason Bryant, is what do you consider the current era of wrestling and when did that start? The internet, streaming, social media, RTC’s and Jordan Burroughs seems to have started an era however you want to label it. There have been many changes and most have them have been for the better. Give UWW credit, the product is a lot better than the ball draw era.

There are many things that linger that can be evaluated and improved. Criteria, scheduling, bringing back the World Cup (yes, I seem to work that into everything I write), Olympic weight classes, singlet colors, officials selections, and more are topics that should be on the table and from my understanding constantly are for which I give UWW credit.

One thing that needs to change is brackets out ahead of time. Currently, wrestlers weigh-in the night before they wrestle and hit a button to draw a number. That number places them in the bracket. UWW currently seeds eight per weight class.

The D1 NCAA Wrestling Championships is the best operated Wrestling tournament in the world. It’s almost impossible to imagine brackets waiting till the night before the first matches. It’s practically a holiday for College Wrestling fans when the brackets are released. We can’t wait to see what seeds make sense, what don’t, and where wrestlers landed in the bracket that had rough seasons with injuries and losses. Most importantly, it gives media and fans a week to discuss and preview the tournament. It’s a crucial part of the process.

UWW likely pushes back due to international registrations, travel and possible accusations of rigging draws before everyone is in town to do it. However, it’s not impossible to rig any system really (see 2019 Kazakhstan). I say do it live. None of the drawbacks outweigh the positives. If someone scratches they just become a bye. It’s simple and too important to build interest in the biggest tournament of the year.