Paging Foley
- Thread starter El-Jefe
- Start date
It would be awesome to see a dual that lasts 25 minutes because 7 bouts end with 10 seconds of leg laces.
NOT
The irony is that Foley glories in folk culture wrestling styles of all other countries - except ours!
NOT
The irony is that Foley glories in folk culture wrestling styles of all other countries - except ours!
Last edited:
Steen hit the nail on the head. Too many hardcore's get caught up with thinking about what they want for the sport over what the casual fan wants.
Great piece. Also, why should we sell out folkstyle for the purpose of becoming more competitive internationally when our success there is limited by a factor we can't control, namely corruption. Corruption isn't intrinsic to freestyle, per se, but our switching over to freestyle wouldn't suddenly stop every int'l freestyle event from becoming an embarrassing s***show; which would turn off casual fans, and you'd already lose a lot of casual fans switching from folk to free.
The ref-slapping Russian official has yet to be disciplined, while the entire Mongoliian team is still banned.
We've seen some crazy stuff in folk -- but still nothing that compares to an official waving a gun on the mat. Or to police raiding a youth team's hotel rooms and finding suitcases full of doping equipment and medical waste containers.
Or, to focus on international sports in general: having one country doping up its entire Paralympic roster.
Foley would love US folk -- if only we rolled out a mat inside a yurt.
And slathered the athletes in honey or yak grease
Or had a shaman bless the mat before battle
You are being too tough on Foley. He doesn't want us to discard folk for freestyle.
Foley in his own special genius does desire the discontinuation of folk, but the replaced style would be the Foley greco/freestyle combo style. Whatever the hell that is.
Foley in his own special genius does desire the discontinuation of folk, but the replaced style would be the Foley greco/freestyle combo style. Whatever the hell that is.
Love this piece! I had a blast watching Freestyle this Summer. Had a Latin prof tell me once, while walking across the Tiber, 'you want to know the difference between the Greeks & the Romans?' [me: ...'uhh, sure!'] He: 'the Greeks were Either/Or and the Romans were Both/And. This is why you're a Roman, Jeffrey.' That guy was awesome. So, soo old and so awesome. Convinced me to become a Latin major, because why not? Anyway, apologies to those who've heard that story before, but it's pertinent to why I agree with Sir Spladle here--in both directions. No reason to also hate on Freestyle...but here are two thoughts I had about my love of Folkstyle:
1. I'm still in love with the idea of the Student Athlete. I really, really dig that all my favorite studs are killing it in the classroom too. Kyle Snyder sure seems like a nice young man and even an honor roll part-time student (who might even be a true scholar, if that were important to him as more than an ancillary requirement of his wrestling for a team--maybe it will be when his wrestle career is over, although it sounds like he's interested in face punching next), but I'll take my honor students at PSU Wrestling thank you very much.
2. International Wrestling only has 8 and sometimes 6 weight classes! This suques! Look at what's happened to the 174 pound class in Folkstyle. Because of it's tweener status in Int'l, dudes look at like a no man's land in Folk. I love the 174 pound class. And Penn State student athletes have absolutely mauled it the past 6 years, finishing no worse than 5th, making the Finals 4 times and earning 2 Championships. Love me some Bo Nicks, but count me in the camp that hopes he'll rep this beautiful weight one more year, and bring home another title before handing it off to Wreck Hall for a fresh run starting in 2018.
Yeah, I was psyched for all the Summer Freestyle enthusiasm, and appreciated the passion of advocates like @JaroslavWrestle, but I'm quite happy to be heading in to the familiar, comfy and totally thrilling confines of student athletes competing in College Wrestling.
1. I'm still in love with the idea of the Student Athlete. I really, really dig that all my favorite studs are killing it in the classroom too. Kyle Snyder sure seems like a nice young man and even an honor roll part-time student (who might even be a true scholar, if that were important to him as more than an ancillary requirement of his wrestling for a team--maybe it will be when his wrestle career is over, although it sounds like he's interested in face punching next), but I'll take my honor students at PSU Wrestling thank you very much.
2. International Wrestling only has 8 and sometimes 6 weight classes! This suques! Look at what's happened to the 174 pound class in Folkstyle. Because of it's tweener status in Int'l, dudes look at like a no man's land in Folk. I love the 174 pound class. And Penn State student athletes have absolutely mauled it the past 6 years, finishing no worse than 5th, making the Finals 4 times and earning 2 Championships. Love me some Bo Nicks, but count me in the camp that hopes he'll rep this beautiful weight one more year, and bring home another title before handing it off to Wreck Hall for a fresh run starting in 2018.
Yeah, I was psyched for all the Summer Freestyle enthusiasm, and appreciated the passion of advocates like @JaroslavWrestle, but I'm quite happy to be heading in to the familiar, comfy and totally thrilling confines of student athletes competing in College Wrestling.
True Renaissance Man takery! Historical analogies, references to the Eternal City, and tying it all back to the issue at hand. I, for one, appreciated the rhetorical detour as it were.
my bottom line is... I like folkstyle better and really don't care what the rest of world is doing...sort of like American football. I do like freestyle but only because I like wrestling. Might be different if the corruption wasn't so rampant on the international scene. Scholastic wrestling is simply better than the 'professional' style.
I can see how both styles have particular advantages over the other, but I think my preference for folk boils down to scoring; how in folk the there seems to be a stronger connection between the effort and the points awarded for that effort. The points awarded in freestyle have a looser connection to the effort because sometimes you can simply get caught in a lace and the match is over without any sense that anyone even wrestled. In freestyle back exposure points can happen practically by accident, and once achieved there's no incentive to work toward a pin (consequently pins are much rarer) because your goal is merely the next set of exposure points. Whereas in folk you have to bust your ass for back points. No point in folk feels unearned.
Recall the anti-climatic Ruth Taylor freestyle match from last year I think. DT won, scoring two points on what should've been four for Ed, and ended on a really iffy call on a scramble out of bounds. Too often in freestyle you see refs at the table trying to figure out which of the two guys is going to get the four points that just happened in an otherwise equal scramble. Regardless of who won or lost, the Ruth Taylor match did nothing to settle the question of who between the two was the better wrestler. And that's often the feeling you get when you watch freestyle; that a series of odd things happened resulting in points I can't quite explain leading to one guy's hand getting raised.
Recall the anti-climatic Ruth Taylor freestyle match from last year I think. DT won, scoring two points on what should've been four for Ed, and ended on a really iffy call on a scramble out of bounds. Too often in freestyle you see refs at the table trying to figure out which of the two guys is going to get the four points that just happened in an otherwise equal scramble. Regardless of who won or lost, the Ruth Taylor match did nothing to settle the question of who between the two was the better wrestler. And that's often the feeling you get when you watch freestyle; that a series of odd things happened resulting in points I can't quite explain leading to one guy's hand getting raised.
as I mentioned long ago... I like the idea of not only taking your opponent down but working for a fall and controlling (riding) them. Being able to 'not be ridden' is part of the sport.
I enjoy freestyle because it's more wrestling to watch in the off season, but all of those points you just made, plus the addition of the massive amounts of corruption at the international level are why I prefer watching folkstyle. I think you summarized perfectly how I feel about freestyle scoring.
He wants to go barefoot, its more... Feng Shui.
