Catching Up

I’ve been thinking about several different article ideas, but all of them seem to be one paragraph so this is a “thoughts” piece. It’s like a mail bag with my own thoughts. Sometimes you have to be your own best friend, right?

I spent my weekend at Cedar Point in Sandusky, Ohio for the Grappler Fall Classic and not riding roller coasters. The tournament is likely the #2 most difficult fall pre-season tournament out there. There were 29 mats and a ton of matches with wrestlers from 43 states. The #22 ranked kid in the country was the 9 seed at 132 lbs. The event is pretty crazy.

RAF (Real American Freestyle) has announced some matches for RAF 02 on October 25th at Penn State. Helen Maroulis has signed and will take on Canadian Samantha Stewart. It’s listed as Flyweight 120 lbs which is less than Maroulis competes at currently. Sarah Hildebrandt holds that belt which adds to my confusion. Maybe it’s just a typo. Their wikipedia lists Middleweight 150 lbs as vacant. Perhaps there is another weight that they will give Helen a belt for after the match (no offense to the Canadians). Either way, Helen is a star and impossible to imagine not including her in this promotion.

Other RAF matches have a very international flair. Mason Parris will face Romanov (Moldova) now that Snyder is not competing, Dake is facing Makoev (a Russian wrestles for Slovakia), and David Carr will face Reda (Egypt). This also perplexes me a bit. I suppose without teams like casual fans can just show up to State College and easily be invested in Penn State vs whomever in a Big Ten dual, having Americans (especially Nittany Lion WC) wrestle foreigners may boost the energy of the crowd giving a clear which person you are rooting for. However, is there an appetite to subscribe to Fox Nation to watch these matches for more than a few wrestling nerds? Also, what if they lose? If Parris loses, doesn’t that take the steam out of setting up him vs Wyatt Hendrickson?

I really love the belts and this seems to waste time and resources. Having some clear #1 contender matches or even mini-brackets like pro wrestling and UFC could really get this train rolling, but that’s just one fella’s opinion.

Old man Tommy hates seeing Pat Downey on any card. Every time I think our sport is done with him he somehow reappears. Will he show up? Will he be able to wrestle for more than 45 seconds? Oh well. I understand you are trying to get eye balls on your event and this stuff will happen. Cayden Henschel and Keelon Jimison will wrestle a match with their instagram followers, and I get it. It’s the year of our Lord Gable 2025 where a lot of movies have cameos from Youtube stars to get their followers to watch it. It’s a business and it’s really easy to have some moral high ground when it’s not your money invested into a product.

I wrote about Cuba’s lack of competitors at the World Championships particularly in men’s freestyle. It’s unfortunate since if fully funded they are likely a top ten program. As NCAA Rankings form shape now that we are getting a good idea about weight classes, it made me think about Yonger Bastida and how Cuba didn’t have a representative at heavyweight. Bastida has medals at U20 and U23 so it would have been nice to see him at the world championships. Even if Cuba didn’t have the money, I imagine Cyclone or someone would have pitched in to get him the opportunity leading up to 2028 Olympics.

As always, feel free to leave a comment below or you can email me koatig@yahoo.com and I’ll gladly answer.