Wrestling Blogs - Martin Floreani

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to follow that post, wrestling being boring is hardly an excuse, and is a total cop-out. Soccer is boring as hell, but has giant support by people who think its the biggest thrill ride on the planet. But they understand the game and the stories in it, so can appreciate it. I dont understand nor care about it all, so I think its like watching paint dry on grass that is growing.

Amen, Flo. What would you think about an effort to emphasize to coaches that besides teaching the tribal knowledge passed down in our sport through the techincal and toughness training, that coaches are also responsible for Educating Our Own Wrestlers on the History (past and present) of the sport and the leaders of it.
If coaches become better at teaching kids WHO the NCAA champs are, why their huge win against so-and-so was so meaningful, or HOW it was so impressive that they came back to put together a remarkable season or post season tournament because they overcame Factors X,Y,and Z, then those kids not only get more educated, but they also learn and appreciate it more, value it more, and that underscores their continued INTEREST in OUR OWN SPORT and HISTORY, while emphasizing the importance of it. This can then rub off on others as they can explain and transmit that interest to other non-wrestlers and fans in their community.

If you took your neighbor to a Iowa-Oklahoma St. match, or had them watch Rulon Gardner' win over Karelin, or watch Monday's win for the Olympic Gold, they might be bored by simply watching it as an uninformed spectator watching a lot of feet shuffling and circling.
HOWEVER, if you walk them through it, and explain to them WHY Iowa-Oklahoma St. is such a huge match, why it is so exciting, what it means, and how the guys are actually battling for position advantages that can or break them (and how this subtle difference reflects such an ELITE level worthy or respect and admiration of a fan); If you can explain to them WHY a 1 point match can be so exciting, WHY Gardner's match was so Exciting, then you share that enthusiasm and knowledge with them that creates the understanding in them that supports their continued interest in it.

I lived with football players last year, and they would skip past ESPN2 NCAA matches as boring. Once I stopped and explained what was going on, and why it was exciting, they understood and appreciated it with interest.

As a culture,, we are great at teaching moves, skills, and lessons to our own. But we bristle with a bit of arrogance and a chip on our shoulders when people dont understand us and our sport because we never really take the time to teach them. Really, we never take the time to Teach our own to take a further interest. Coaches should take a more active role in teaching their athletes who Dave Shultz is, who our national team members are, and why the hell it was so fricking amazing that the United States won the Greco World Championships this year.

You hit it, Flo: our own dont even know. Start small. Start on the inside, and work out. Teach our kids the storylines, people, and leaders of our field. Id almost want to see a mandatory subscriptio to USA Wrestling magazine, or a quiz before each weigh ins. If they dont know where the sport has been, they will never know, nor understand, where it is going.

Kids like watching McGwire and Bonds and Sosa hitting home runs a lot more once they understood that they werent just hitting home runs, but were actually chasing a record of history, and the storyline and history behind it all, and they learned that from ESPN and news storys, as well as mom and dad.

By "Die hard fans" if you mean high school wrestlers then wrestling doesnt even have their attention. We need to first start to grow the community we have internally. For example, i bet if you go to a summer camp and ask the campers who won the NCAA title the year before most high school kids would not know....So even the demographic most likely to be a fan doesnt know anything about our sport, than why should we attempt to get others to be excited about our sport. Lets first energize our base support rather than putting the cart before the horse and try and get the average joe and jane to be a fan.

True... like the article says, wrestling needs to find a way to get more public exposure, but unless that happens all we r gonna have are the national finals on espn 2 and of course websites like flowrestling that only die hard fans are going to visit.

I really believe wrestling is the most exciting sport in the world. Juan, can you tell me honestly that cars going in 500 circles for 4 hours is somehow more exciting than wrestling? Nascar is ridiculously popular, and not because god gave it a "fan blessing" but because the way it was marketed. I agree a lot with Joe, we have to have the sport out there....and Harrison dont you think football is a fricken tough sport that takes a ton of dedication and hard work...I dont think Americans are lazy, I think they want to work harder than most any other countries.

and i was referring to the casual spectator who know very little about the sport

in order to make wrestling more exciting you would need to penalize a wrestler for wrestling defensively in order to make it more exciting, however this is very unfair to those who wrestle like that. The only times i have heard a spectator refer to a dual meet as being exciting is when it is coming down to the wire and teams are exchanging pins back and forth, unfortunately we all know that most of the time that isnt the case, especially in college.

in my opinion we need to LET wrestling be wanted. because of USA wrestling all we have that is accessible to us is high school/college wrestling. I know much more about who's the #1 kid in the country at each collegiate weight class than do i know who's the #1 guy in greco or freestyle. And this is because the sport most available to me is college wrestling. USA wrestling has that exclusive contract with that LSV site. once i saw i had to pay 20-40$ a month for a membership, i said forget that. but with sites like flowrestling and the other little coverage that college gets i have a more familiar experience with it. And High school wrestling is another example, i know the best high school teams in the country/state in greater depth than greco/freestyle teams such as Sunkist kids, and thats the only one i can name. So what im saying is we need to make wrestling more available to the public. We cant just keep it within our circles of family and friends and fellow wrestlers. Sports like football and basketball is almost always free to watch. And when you see sports such as UFC, they rocket launched because of their constant FREE videos of fights on Spike TV. So to make wrestling a want for our country, we need to make it so available that people will cross paths with it more than just once every couple months, but so out there that everyone can be enthusiastic about it, not just wrestlers past and present. And flowrestling is one great example of free exposure to wrestling, thanks flo

...wat are we gonna do? not everyone wrestles like tony jameson. so wrestling isn't that exciting as a lay person. And more importantly you can't make america want wrestling because americans are lazy pleasure seekers most of them want a kinetic pleasure that will keep them happy. I dunno what is harder changing wrestling (which we dont want to do) or changing our culture (which is clearly harder). The best we can do is try to make wrestling appeal to the people it can appeal to. so get your little cousins and neigbhors wrestling its all we can do.

Wrestling has been around forever and still many have a dim view of two guys grappling with each other. They are unable to see the true sport of trying to beat your opponent down without fists flying.