Wrestling Blogs - Martin Floreani

In St. Louis when I was covering the NCAAs I received an email that I found interesting to me. It was from the NWMA (National Wrestling Media Association). It was a press release on giving the media awards for 2007-8 year. I opened it eagerly knowing that it was going to be pretty tough to snub flowrestling again this year on every single award including web site of the year. But sure enough the powers at be found a way.

This act is significant because it shows how the powers at be are trying to "rig the vote" in an effort to change perception hoping that this will change reality because they see flowrestling as a threat. It reminds me of an election in the USSR or China where the government speaks through their state run tv station and newspaper making an official statement of the official outcome of the rigged vote. Im not belittling the winner, Mike Bare from Illinoismatmen.com (winner of the national website of the year). I respect what he does and I believe he does more with his forum site than many others. But really to ignore what flowrestling.org has accomplished is symbolic of the decision making ability and the overall mindset of the "leaders" of this sport.

To list just a few things that Flowrestling has accomplished and committed to this year:

• We covered, with extensive video, 43 of the largest and best events in the nation on all levels.

• Traveled to 21 different states to cover wrestling....California, Nevada, Texas, Oklahoma, Missouri, Nebraska, Iowa, Minnesota, Illinois, Wisconsin, Indiana, Michigan, Pennsylvania, New York, New Jersey, Ohio, Tennessee, Virginia, North Dakota, and Florida.

• Did video Features at 25 Collegiate Division 1 wrestling programs

• Did Features videos with High schools like Blair, St PAris Graham, Sandburg, Los Gatos, David Brealy and clubs like Team Overtime, Edge, Premeir, and Team Central

• Introduced a new video storage system FREE to every high school and college and wrestler.

• Signed up over 15,000 to join Flowrestlr

• Traveled with the World Team to Azerbaijan and did video coverage of their behind the scenes experiences.

• Did behind the scenes training videos and team talks of the team prior to the World Championships

• Became the largest wrestling website in the world in terms of the amount of visitors coming and content available.

• Have thousands of interviews up of hundreds of the best wrestlers coaches and promoters of wrestling in the nation and world available for FREE for anybody to learn about wrestling when ever they choose.

• Have the largest library of videos available online to the wrestling community all of which are free and most of which are open to anybody.

I went up to Jay Hammond, a guy who does great things with stats and wrestling history but is a major part of NWMA, and asked him what was up with the decision. He told me that when he mentioned flowrestling as a definite possibility for the award but that Jason Bryant an employee of NWCA (National Wrestling Coaches Association) and Vice President of the NWMA who also runs intermatwrestle.com said we shouldn't be considered so we weren't. He stated, according to Jay Hammond, that we have copyrighted material on our site and thus we shouldn't be considered.

Its ironic that an employee of the NWCA brings up concerns about ethics when the NWCAs relationship with intermatwrestle.com is totally unethical. Wrestling's best interest is a healthy and hearty competition of media sites covering wrestling. The NWCA exists to help wrestling. However the NWCAs financial interest is only for their media companies success which means beating out other media companies.

This would be kinda like if the government owned a newspaper and made rules and gave only certain access to this newspaper. Sounds a lot like communist country.

Is it a coincidence that intermatwrestle.com has the only compilation of results of NCAA wrestling on the internet? Is it a coincidence that before they had an arrangement with the NCAA that all college programs had to enter them on the NWCA online that their results were inaccurate and inconsistent? Thats rhetorical.

I also found it interesting how someone at the NWCA has so much influence over the NWMA.

This snub is a small example of a bigger mindset that the NWMA and employees of the NWCA hold. Reminds me of a communist decision making, totally inept. Once again these organizations have shown their ability not to be visionaries but to be followers. They react instead of see opportunity and embrace it.

The NWCA is fat with infrastructure that ends up taxing the sport in the name of helping wrestling. Media outlets across the nation grumble at such an inappropriate relationship. This relationship is unethical. The NWCA is suppose to run a company and look out for the best interest of wrestling? Mike Moyer, the leader of the NCWA, has set up a communistic sport. And just like communism was defeated by capitalism, wrestling is being defeated by other sports that maintain a healthy capitalistic environment. Point and Case the dropping of the University of Oregon program for baseball. NOTE: Anyone can download a list of results and detailed stats free for all NCAA baseball.

Wrestling needs a visionary to see how the landscape is going and embrace things like flowrestling.

When I read the email of the media awards at St. Louis I laughed and then got motivated, not to win any award but because the communistic and unethical mindset needs to be completely removed from our leadership in one way or another. One step with one fan at a time.