who tf made these brackets? If a world medalist at a non-olympic weight is drawn into the semis of your bracket, and you are on the opposite side of the bracket, you should not get a bye when there are people on the world-medalist side who do not. To get to the finals, Andrew Alirez has to beat: Beau Bartlett and Nick Lee. To get to the same final, Jesse Mendez has to beat: Joey McKenna, James Green, Yianni Diakomihalis, and Zain Retherford.
3rd is on the national team ladder and I imagine there are some training stipends and other benefits, but no real shot at being the representative or anything
Lee Fix Lee Yianni Zain over Yianni Burroughs Nolf Brooks Hidlay Zahid over Hidlay Cox Trumble Zillmer DGK Very close to pulling the trigger on an Alirez over Nick Lee upset but haven't seen him wrestle in a year.
If your predictions come true then one (native) Nebraskan would be in the finals and it's not the one most would think. Neat!
Should just give the world medalist the champ of the tournament then give them the weights world medalist.
It is, and it's a shame, because he was the most likable i've ever seen him in his interview with Pyles yesterday. With that being said....he kinda isn't wrong when he said he's better than Starocci when actually training. He was straight up beating him until he gassed 2 minutes into the match.
Mendez almost teched Yianni. Unreal that we could see a situation where he has to beat McKenna, Green, Yianni, Retherford, and Nick Lee/Alirez to make the team, while Alirez only has to beat Bartlett, Nick Lee, and Mendez. Unbelievable and bad for our team's olympic hopes.
Think the push was a bit over the top but could also see him embracing being the heel to mess with Dake and get extra motivation
What a career from J'den Cox. One of the great American wrestlers of all time overshadowed by some other all time greats that just so happened to wrestle concurrently with him.
The team of towel boys wiping down the mat at the break and after the cox match is like nothing I've seen. 5 guys with towels.
Need a mop for him. Still remember when he wrestled Taylor and it was like he had cooking oil on him.
I've been saying Spencer is an uncrowned world champ for years now. If Spencer can't get past Gilman, or India and Iran without real medal threats, we don't deserve to wrestle in Paris.
It's crazy how good Aaron Brooks is. I almost wish he could have wrestled Starocci so we could have seen that there are levels to this.