Week-End Salvo

Talk about the champions, or the Top 25 nationally-ranked team!
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Oracle
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Week-End Salvo

Post by Oracle » Fri Apr 24, 2020 10:02 am

The time-tested theory of comparing today's wrestling greats with those of say, 50-60 years ago and concluding they are vastly superior may not be altogether true. While it is accurate to say today's athletes, in all sports, train differently, eat differently and specialize more, and that is indisputable, it doesn't necessarily mean they are superior.

Athletes like Wilt Chamberlain would dominate today as they did back then -- physical skills aside -- because they had the right mental approach. Same with wrestlers.

There is one factor that today's wrestlers don't have to deal with: there were over 250 D1 programs; today less than 80. A quick perusal of Boomer's wrestlingstats.com NCAA brackets shows just how many schools had a guy here and a guy there from small schools (including MIT) that placed. All that extra competition plus the lack of large in-season tournaments made it impossible to scout teams on the west coast if you were an eastern team. The west coast and far west had tremendous wrestling back then. By the mid-60s, NCAA brackets started to fill-out and seeding was wild. Returning champ almost automatically was given top seed. Wrestlers from D2, NAIA and D# who were undefeated were seeded; sometimes very high. The bracket itself rarely followed what we today consider tradition seeding. That is, 1 vs 8, 2 vs 7, 3 vs 6, 4 vs 5 in the quarters. It was all over the place. Really interesting to follow the brackets and see how some guys were screwed and some guys gifted advancement.

Another huge factor is today's NCAAs are double elimination. Used to be you had to lose to a finalist to wrestle-back. Then they changed that to a semi-finalist around the early to mid-70s. That helped many modern wrestlers place more often they the would have under the old rules. Funny, the Olympics still follows those rules, by and large.

So when someone starts making these "all-time" lists and they are populated mainly with wrestlers from the current era, it's kind of misleading. IMO.

Have a great week end everyone!


mookie
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Re: Week-End Salvo

Post by mookie » Fri Apr 24, 2020 11:44 am

Just watch film of the old timers. If you still think they're as good as today's stars then we don't have much to talk about. Red Grange wouldn't start for Moravian.
Oracle
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Re: Week-End Salvo

Post by Oracle » Fri Apr 24, 2020 1:08 pm

mookie wrote: Fri Apr 24, 2020 11:44 am Just watch film of the old timers. If you still think they're as good as today's stars then we don't have much to talk about. Red Grange wouldn't start for Moravian.


>>>>> you read what you want to read,,,,,no problem.

Would Thad Turner start for us at 165? Yes, absolutely and twice on Sunday. Would Billy Stuart start at 133 or 141? Would Caruso start at 125? It's not about if today's athletes are better. They are in all sports -- in general -- due to factors already mentioned. BTW, the few I mentioned would definitely start in 2020.
jdalu75
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Re: Week-End Salvo

Post by jdalu75 » Fri Apr 24, 2020 2:42 pm

I've said it before and I'll probably say it again -- how about doing it the other way? How would stars of today fare back in the good ol' days? How would the guys with brutal knee injuries, fractured necks, or separated shoulders come back without modern (or any) surgical techniques? Or in the antiquated wrestling and weight rooms of the day? With one coach and maybe a p/t assistant? When much of the team showed up for practice after the football season ended and before track and field began? No nutritional supplements, no energy drinks, just water, Wheaties and mashed potatoes (Al Oerter's food of choice for bulking up). No private coaches, no redshirting, no tutors, and when you turned 22 you were expected to quit playing games and get on with the rest of your life (after fulfilling your service commitment to your country, of course).

How many modern guys make it under those conditions? Like John says, the best ones.
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Richb-3
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Re: Week-End Salvo

Post by Richb-3 » Fri Apr 24, 2020 7:07 pm

Could Kyle Snyder, Or Adam Coon, or Zach Rey or Stephen neal go back in time and beat Chris Taylor? (I think most of them could beat Jimmy Jackson.
gimpeltf
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Re: Week-End Salvo

Post by gimpeltf » Fri Apr 24, 2020 7:46 pm

Richb-3 wrote: Fri Apr 24, 2020 7:07 pm Could Kyle Snyder, Or Adam Coon, or Zach Rey or Stephen neal go back in time and beat Chris Taylor? (I think most of them could beat Jimmy Jackson.
Maybe Kyle, Snyder, Adam Coon, Zach Rey AND Stephen Neal!
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Re: Week-End Salvo

Post by jdalu75 » Fri Apr 24, 2020 8:19 pm

I did see Lock Haven's Rick Petersen (by himself) beat Tab Thacker. Tab wasn't as good as Taylor but was probably a little bigger.
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Richb-3
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Re: Week-End Salvo

Post by Richb-3 » Sat Apr 25, 2020 10:28 am

Tab was never aggressive in college, Thing is though, Everyone who saw him vs Soviet at PSU was shocked at how quick he was. There PSU fans were surprising themselves by rooting for Darryl Burley. I would take Darryl Bigfoot over either Taylor or Thacker
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