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FINAL X MEN’S FREESTYLE PREVIEW: OLYMPIC CHAMPIONS BURROUGHS, TAYLOR, SNYDER, STEVESON HIGHLIGHT INCREDIBLY DEEP FIELD SET FOR NEWARK

By Richard Immel, USA Wrestling

The men’s freestyle pairings at Final X feature some serious star power, perhaps more than we’ve ever seen at this stage of the U.S. World Team qualification process.

Eight competitors earned a medal at the 2022 World Championships in Belgrade, Serbia. Seven Olympic medalists, including four Olympic champions, will grace the Final X mats at Prudential Center. 16-of-20 competitors are past NCAA champions, six of whom were awarded the Dan Hodge Trophy as the nation’s top college wrestler.

The June 10 lineup has the potential to be one of the greatest set of matches in a single night in U.S. wrestling history.

We will summarize each pairing in weight order, which is how the matches will be conducted at Final X.

57 kg – Thomas Gilman (State College, Pa./Nittany Lion WC/Titan Mercury WC) vs. Zane Richards (Champaign, Ill./Illinois RTC/Titan Mercury WC)

The 57 kg men’s freestyle weight class has been owned by Thomas Gilman in recent years. Gilman has represented the U.S. in five of the previous six World Championships or Olympic Games, earning four total medals during that stretch. Most notably, he was a World champion in 2021 and an Olympic bronze medalist in 2020.

Last year, Gilman came up one win short of his second-straight World title, falling to Albania’s Zelimkhan Abakarov, a Russian transplant, in the World finals. The silver medal performance earned Gilman an automatic berth to this year’s Final X. He bounced back with a dominant gold medal outing at the Pan-American Championships held in Buenos Aires, Argentina, earlier this month, and is primed to make another run at the 57 kg U.S. World Team spot.

Standing in Gilman’s way at Final X is U.S. Open champion Zane Richards, who has been in the upper echelon at 57 kg for the U.S. this quad. He was most impressive in Las Vegas, particularly in the finals against two-time NCAA champion Nick Suriano, where he scored the winning takedown at the buzzer. Richards is currently No. 3 on U.S. National Team ladder and does boast some valuable Final X experience having wrestled and won a true third match in Stillwater, Okla., last year.

Gilman and Richards have wrestled two matches against each other on the Senior level dating back to 2019, Gilman winning both convincingly.

Most recent match – 2020 U.S. Olympic Team Trials – Gilman tech. fall Richards, 11-0

61 kg – Vitali Arujau (Ithaca, N.Y./Spartan Combat RTC/Titan Mercury WC) vs. Nahshon Garrett (Bethlehem, Pa./Titan Mercury WC/Lehigh Valley WC)

With no returning World medalist, the 61 kg weight class was wide open as far as who would qualify for Final X. … rest of story at Teamusa.org/USA-Wrestling/Features/2023/May/29/Final-X-mens-freestyle-preview

June 9, 2023 Posted by | Uncategorized | Leave a comment

Cuba’s wrestling legend Mijaín López aims to break Olympic record at Paris 2024

Four-time Olympic champion Mijaín López has returned to training with the national team, and he is targeting a fifth Olympic gold in Paris next year.
Cuba’s wrestling legend Mijaín López is poised to make even more history in his sport.

The 40-year-old is already part of an exclusive club that includes only Americans Michael Phelps (swimming), Carl Lewis (long jump), Alfred Oerter (discus throw), and Denmark’s Paul Elvstrøm (sailing). They are the only male athletes to have won individual gold medals in the same individual event at four consecutive Olympic Games.

López is now set to make his international return to competitions, two years after securing the title in the men’s 130 kg (286-pound) Greco-Roman category at Tokyo 2020.

“I am coming back to wrestle at the Paris Olympic Games. I want to become the first wrestler to win five Olympic gold medals,” López announced as reported by United World Wrestling.

Dubbed ‘El Terrible’, the four-time Olympic champion is currently in Croatia with the Cuban national wrestling team, where he will start his preparation for Paris 2024. … rest of story and pictures at Olympics.com/en/news/mijain-lopez-cuba-wrestling-break-record-paris-2024

and

Cuban wrestler Mijain Lopez returns to break Olympic record he shares with Michael Phelps

Cuban Mijaín López plans to return to competitive wrestling in a bid to become the first person to win the same individual Olympic event five times.

At the Tokyo Games, López became the fifth person to win the same individual Olympic event four times after Michael Phelps, Carl Lewis, Al Oerter and Danish sailor Paul Elvstrøm. Japanese wrestler Kaori Icho also won four individual Olympic titles, but over two different weight classes.

If he makes it to Paris, López would also bid to tie the record of winning an individual gold medal at five Olympics, set by Dutch speed skater Ireen Wüst last year. Wüst‘s golds alternated between the 1500m and 3000m.

López last competed internationally at the Tokyo Games, which was expected to be his farewell. But López did not leave his shoes on the mat (the symbolic act of retirement in wrestling) after winning the Greco-Roman super heavyweight (286-pound) title and said later that year that he had not yet decided whether to make a Paris 2024 bid.

Cuban media recently reported that López was back in training, including with the national team in Croatia this week. United World Wrestling then reported Monday that López said he is making another Olympic bid.

López shares the record of five Olympic wrestling appearances and in Paris can become the oldest person to win an Olympic wrestling medal of any color, according to Olympedia.org.

The 6-foot-5 López, whose nicknames include El Terrible, may face a challenge just to make the Cuban Olympic team. Countryman Óscar Pino, 29, won super heavyweight silver or bronze at the world championships in 2017, 2018 and 2019, when Lopez did not compete in any world championships in that Olympic cycle and competed sparingly overall. … rest of story at Olympics.nbcsports.com/2023/05/23/mijain-lopez-olympics-wrestling-cuba-gold-medals

June 9, 2023 Posted by | Uncategorized | Leave a comment

Wrestling helps Football players

Tre Tucker wrestling experience helped put him on Raiders radar

After three fairly sensible picks, the Raiders threw a bit of a curve ball when they selected Cincinnati wide receiver Tre Tucker at 100 overall.

The pick was a head scratcher for several reasons. First and foremost because every draft projection had Tucker closer to the 200s than the top 100. But also because Tucker is exclusively a slot receiver and the Raider already have two good ones in Hunter Renfrow and Jacobi Meyers.

We had questions.

In speaking with Tre Tucker, he mentioned among other things that he was a wrestler in school. A lot of football players talk about having wrestling experience in their background, but usually they’re linemen or maybe linebackers. But a wide receiver?

Tre told the story as to how he used to get in fights with his cousins and they would always win.

“They would slam me all over the place,” Tucker said of his cousins, noting they were state champion wrestlers. “So, I was like, you know what, I think I need to join wrestling. So, I joined it, I fell in love with it all through grade school. I wasn’t nothing but 100 pounds. My freshman year of high school I was wrestling 106. To me it’s just a want-to. I think the sport requires a lot of mental aspects and I think it translates to football. Football is physical, but the mental part is very huge and wrestling kind of boosted that for me.”

Full disclosure, I was a wrestler all through school myself, I naturally respect any football player a bit more with wrestling in their background. It isn’t just a bias thing, it’s knowing the kind of physical skills it instilled in me that benefit me in just about anything else I do.

Raiders GM Dave Ziegler was equally impressed. And it’s those wrestling skills that show up in Tucker’s game that were a big reason he took him well above where most draft projections had him.

“There’s a level of toughness that you have to have to be a wrestler,” Ziegler said. “(Tre Tucker is) a small guy but he plays bigger and he plays with an edge and I think a lot of that toughness comes from wrestling. He also has very good balance and agility when you watch him and if you watch any good wrestlers, that’s one thing that they are able to do is play with leverage, have agility, have balance. … rest of story at Raiderswire.usatoday.com/tre-tucker-wrestling-experience-las-vegas-raiders-radar-nfl-draft-pick

2023 NFL Draft Prospects with Wrestling Backgrounds

by Earl Smith; Photo courtesy of David Stluka

We all love wrestling. That’s what brought us together at InterMat. At the same time, it’s okay to have interests outside of wrestling. For a lot of fans, that interest might be football. And if you like football, it’s hard to beat the NFL draft. There have been mock drafts for months and months (years perhaps), all in preparation for today. Everybody pretends to be an expert and an insider as to how their favorite team will draft.

Bringing it back to wrestling, my thought was, “How many NFL draftees have a wrestling background.” Which led me to looking up the high school credentials over the top-300 draft prospects from a list provided by The Athletic.

We may not hear any of these names on Thursday night, but as the draft progresses, remember these names as they are elite football players that have some sort of wrestling background.

Below are the 11 wrestlers who could get selected in the 2023 NFL draft that have a wrestling background. There’s the possibility that more do; however, we’re just going off of what was listed in their collegiate roster bio.

The number by each prospect is their draft ranking and if accessible, their top wrestling credentials have been listed.

#56 Keeanu Benton (Wisconsin) Defensive Line

High School: Craig, Wisconsin; 2018 Wisconsin DI State Runner-Up.

#59 John Michael Schmitz (Minnesota) Center

High School: Flossmoor, Illinois

#133 Luke Wypler (Ohio State) Center

High School: St. Joseph’s, New Jersey

#182 Anfernee Orjj (Vanderbilt) Linebacker

High School: Rockwall, Texas

#194 Gervarrius Owens (Houston) Safety

High School: Southmoore, Oklahoma

#219 Evan Hull (Northwestern) Running Back

High School: Maple Grove, Minnesota; 2019 Minnesota AAA State Qualifier

#231 John Ojukwu (Boise State) Offensive Tackle

High School: Boise, Idaho

#237 Hunter Luepke (North Dakota State) Fullback

High School: Spencer, Wisconsin; 2x Wisconsin D2 State Champion … rest of story at Rokfin.com/article/13314/2023-NFL-Draft-Prospects-with-Wrestling-Backgrounds

June 9, 2023 Posted by | Uncategorized | Leave a comment