Five Takeaways From Beat The Streets

Five Takeaways From Beat The Streets

Five takeaways from the 2017 Beat the Streets event in Times Square

May 18, 2017 by Wrestling Nomad
null
One of the world's most famous venues provided  a great backdrop for a tremendous night of wrestling. The 2017 version of Beat the Streets was a great exhibition for wrestling and an even better opportunity to raise money for the program giving young men and women an opportunity to do the sport we love.

Though these were just "friendly" matches, to borrow a term from soccer, there are certainly some things you could take away. Here were some that stuck out out to us, and if you'd like full results and archived matches, they can be found here.

JB continues to evolve

A former world champ once said, "anyone can win one title, you must be special to win more than two." Good thing Jordan Burroughs isn't just anyone. When the rules switched from period scoring to cumulative scoring, he began incorporating a leglace. As he has gotten older, we're now seeing more single legs, underhooks, and yesterday even a trap arm gut. Being able to work for a trap arm in the early rounds of the U.S. Open is one thing, doing it against a world silver medalist on a raised stage in Times Square is something else entirely. WATCH MATCH HERE

Chamizo and Oliver Can Raise Their Game

Going in, the Jordan Oliver vs Frank Chamizo match was one of the most highly anticpated of the night, and it did not disappoint. It was clear early on that they were in "exhibition mode," and then JO got a takedown. Chamizo shot and scored just a few second later.

In the second, Chamizo got two smooth takedowns to take a 6-2 lead, but then Oliver finished a scramble into a lace to tie it up. A reversal by Chamizo then proved to be the winning margin, but this match provided some fireworks of what could be even better this coming August in Paris at the world championships.



Women Beat Japan

Any time you can take two out of three against the most dominant wrestling nation in the world, that's a good thing. Olympic gold medalist Helen Maroulis outlasted a junior world champ and Tamyra Mensah proved that the Japanese single leg can in fact be stopped. Even in a loss, Victoria Anthony still hit two inside trips and competed until the very end. Women's team head coach Terry Steiner has to be feeling good about the position his ladies are in as they look forward these next few months.

null

Zain Can Break People In Freestyle, Too

This is somewhat expected in folkstyle, but Zain Retherford showed he can do it on the senior level, too. The two-time NCAA champ weathered the storm on multiple leg attacks from Daichi Takatani, a junior world medalist. Time after time, Retherford looked just inches away from giving up a takedown or exposure, only to fight through for a stalemate. After that, Zain blew the match open with three takedowns in the final 1:20 to win his first BTS match. WATCH MATCH HERE

null

Who will USA Wrestle next year?

The United States dominated yesterday, partly because the BTS organizers put together a very strong team, but also partly because Japan does not have the depth of some other countries, particularly at the upper weights. We've now seen Cuba, Iran, Russia, Japan and a handful of stars from other countries. With the addition of the NYC RTC and the amount of foreign athletes coming to train there, we may just see another lineup of international all stars for next year's event.



Get all of the hype!

Sign up for the FloWrestling newsletter for instant access to: breaking news, live events, results, rankings, archived matches and more!