Shape of Wrestling

[Bucktail]

Years ago 98-05, I was a sports writer in Pa and wrestling was my beat. At the state tournament, there was a fairly lively discussion about how PA was resistant to the idea of moving to a host of dual tournaments and wanted to preserve the home gym dual feel. Some of the issues discussed were the number of matches wrestlers have at these tournaments, and then for the year, but another was the wear and tear on the referees. The Consensus was it was better to keep the local rivalries in the individual home and home dual schedule for conference titles as well as to give all the wrestlers their due for the local papers and community camaraderie. The teams would still attend a couple of tournaments every year, but the focus was on the home dual meet season.

Pa teams would go to less tournaments because many of their weigh-ins would be used for their individual conference dual schedules. They weren't getting 200 opportunities to wrestle in high school and the officials weren't getting thrust into all day Saturday tournaments, every Saturday. This brought out richer traditions, like at my alma-mater, where being a wrestler meant entering the gym to warm-up to Tarzan's call and then "Welcome to The Jungle" with all the lights out, accept the mat light. A whole team procedure about how to come out to table for your match and the intrigue of the coaches lineup shuffling chess match. Heck, we even had cheerleaders sitting matside with funky little wrestling cheers. I write this partly because I have read about the lack of officials, but also because I got to write stories about unheralded kids who fought off their back and preserved team points to help their squad get a win. Those small feats seem fairly insignificant now. I had one teammate who was branded the "unpinnable machine" because he would fight and fight to not get pinned & rarely won a match (Good man though, now a Lt. Col. in the US Army). There was community intrigue involved, people loved to come to their local high school for these duals. One thing is certain, I never traveled more than 45-60 minutes for a dual of this nature, so clearly that is more difficult to do in WV.

Just looking to for a couple of opinions, purportedly from folks willing to ponder and dictate a well-thought response. I don't have many answers, just an opinion and a whole lot of questions. One of those opinions is that "iron sharpens iron, just as one man sharpens another" (Biblical too) & so my inquiries of this nature are meant to hopefully sharpen all of us and make us a bit more educated.
With the onset of the multiple team dual tournaments is the sport healthier, less healthy, or the same?

[pkbwrestling]

For the common fan, it’s probably unhealthier. For the diehards and wrestlers, it’s probably healthier. There is a lot more wrestling happening. I talked to a buddy last night and he said he had 30 matches his senior year (20 years ago and that was making the finals at Ironman and Reno) and a lot of kids are getting 50 or more high school matches because of these tournaments. IMO nothing trumps mat time.

This has been discussed here and removing or lessening the weigh in penalties for a good ol’ home dual. I can’t attend a lot of all day tournaments because of work and life, but I’ll always attend a local dual or even tri or quad anytime I can.

[TheBoxer]

I agree... nothing trumps mat time. Personally, I would hate if they tried to lessen the amount of these bigger dual tournaments. But i do like the idea of increasing the benefits of dual meets and tri meets. I LOVED IndyHart's comment last year on making them 1/2 weigh ins.

I think this could give us the best of both worlds.