Wrestling Blogs - Martin Floreani

With the upcoming election politics is around us to the point where it is insane. Just like everybody else Im pretty sick of it. I was sitting with Mark Disalvo from Central Michigan and watching the third and final debate and I marvel at how the media makes two dudes talking over dry complex issues a Superbowl event. In the post-game analysis they had like 10 analysts lined up giving their perspective. The media is pretty darn good at making whatever they want into an event and then making it exciting.

The thing I like about wrestling and sports in general as opposed to politics is that you cant really take results out of context and turn them around and manipulate a situation. In sports someone wins and someone loses and the clarity of it is obvious. The impact is real and final, you don't need to take a poll to see how things played out or wait 10 years. I also like this aspect about business. In most cases if you put out a product and make sure you take care of all the necessary details to get that product to market, the results are pretty telling. If people like the product you tend to do good, and if people don't, well you go back to the drawing board and tweak some part of the process. It is amazing, however, how politics tries to seep into everything from sport to business.

Most of you know that my brother helps run a site called Flotrack. It is based off the same concept as Flowrestling. Well I have learned a little bit about Track and Field since we started this business together. In Track and Field there was one coach who dominated the NCAA Track and Field world like no other...his name was John McDonnell. An Irish immigrant, he came over to the USA and got into coaching. To make a long story short he went on to win 42 NCAA titles in XC, Indoor, and Outdoor Track and Field during his coaching years at the university of Arkansas. Coaches tried to stop him anyway possible by accusing him of cheating and inciting investigations that always left him clear. It didn't really effect his results as he always produced the top caliber teams. He won championships which made others mad. They didn't like him for one reason or another, maybe because they didn't like the way he ate or talked to them or the way he dressed....who knows. You can bet if he didn't win 42 NCAA titles he wouldn't have gotten the same criticism.

For people that don't want to look at the results because they are too painfully obvious we get all kinds of distractions and drama that they incite. They point to arbitrary rules that are open to interpretation, they bring their ego or other peoples ego into the equation (often out of context). These people will rely on everything but results. They will say things like "John McDonnell puts out a great team but has to learn to follow the rules more." These same people out of spite may vote against John McDonnell for coach of the year or decade (as if he cares) even when it was painfully obvious that no one matched his performance.

The fact is that John McDonnell wasn't cheating or going against the principles that the NCAA holds for its student Athletes. That is probably why after his retirement last year they made an award for him. When you met him you might have liked him or disliked him but you have to judge him as a coach by the results and athletes he produced. He did great things for his teams. I hope one day we at Flowrestling can be the performer that John McDonnell was at the University of Arkansas. But unlike John McDonnell I don't want to do it for a team I want to help do it for the sport of wrestling.

And unlike John McDonnell Im not running a business against other wrestling businesses, like he was competing against other schools. Wrestling is too fragile a state to be fighting over a shrinking pie. The focus is on growing the pie. Some people may want to bring drama to the table because of their damaged egos by the fact of how adamant we are at forwarding wrestling in spite of their personal interests. Id rather focus on bringing results and repeated success with growing the wrestling pie.

We started this company as a different kind of company. We had the belief that as a basis we would do what was right for the wrestling community first and foremost. This is our founding principle and will never go against it. This goes even before making money, which for some is the sole purpose of a business. Why do we do that? We do this because we full heartedly believe that in the long run wrestling's interest and Flowrestling's interests are completely aligned. If wrestling benefits in the long run, then Flowrestling will benefit in the long run. "In the long run" is a key point because a lot of decisions we have made are not popular in the short run. However we believe these decisions are necessary for the long term success of the sport and will continue to make decisions that may hurt us in the short run to benefit wrestling in the long run.

It is a lot easier making tough decisions when you observe the Brands brothers day after day holding to what they know is true no matter how fierce the critics, or watching the calculated intensity of John Smith in a practice, or seeing the way Coach Tom Borrelli can see the bigger picture and weave through bureaucracy. I see guys like Jon Stutzman finding a way to make it work from the ground up and get pumped UP. Im observing the process first hand and learning everyday. These guys keep me in check in my own head because there is no way in the world I would do something for my own gain at the expense of wrestling which would in the end hurt them. So the next time you hear someone calling foul on Flowrestling or myself, look at the results of all our actions and ask yourself "Is anything inherently wrong with the product or the way the product was produced?", If your common sense says "no" than you should probably take their words with caution, it may be fear, their damaged ego, an inability to face the truth or a combination of all three talking. In the mean time we will be working night and day for wrestling, THE greatest sport in the world.

On another note Gear Up because this year is going to be an awesome YEAR! We will be at Super 32 on Saturday for our first big event of the wrestling season.