SocraTease

Spencer as Icarus. Brands made him fly too close to the sun . . . and not close enough to the fun

Yes, with two big tears in his eyes: one for each ACL. Or one for the loss at PA state finals and one for the loss at NCAAs his final year.

Taylor has wrestled and beaten Torreblanc 4 times. The first two were close. The second two were both 8-0.

Zain looks solid. Throws a leg in after a takedown in each match and hips and rips them over for exposure or the pin.

Hall just isn't big enough for 86KG. He seems completely like a 79KG. But he is training at Penn where Borroughs has that spot. Or maybe Hall just likes to eat. Torreblanca just threw him by or down about 5 times.

Right. In an era of short attention spans and a lack of knowledge about or appreciation of history, it's important to remind some people that wrestling did not commence in 2010 or even 2000. To cite one example, that other Gable (Dan), for whom Gable Steveson was named, earned an Olympic gold medal by winning 6 matches without giving up a single point (3 pins and 3 shutouts). But, I guess, since it is not on Twitter or Tik Tok, it doesn't count. Or John Smith: his career included four World gold medals, and two Olympic gold medals. At the Senior level, his international freestyle wrestling record was 100-5. He is the only American wrestler to ever win six consecutive World or Olympic championships as a competitor.

You've goat to be kidding me! Christian Pyles (on FLO) just argued that Gable Steveson might be (is) the GOAT. Here's the video if you can access it: https://www.flowrestling.org/events/10749208-2023-final-x-newark/videos?playing=10940686&limit=60 But the claim is dead wrong. And the elevation of Steveson to the pantheon of the greatest American wrestlers is premature at best. And, more likely, just irresponsible. However dominant he presently is in the US at 125K (or 285 pounds), he has just two NCAA titles (compare that with others) and two losses to Anthony Cassar. He wrestled less than 70 matches in his NCAA career. And while great on his feet, he is average (at best) in the top position. He's not a pinner. He has only wrestled 40-some matches in senior level freestyle and has lost 6 of them, including defeats to Gwiz (twice), Coon, Bradley, and Nelson. While he is an Olympic champion (and did that in dramatic style), he has no other Senior level world championships and not even much of an international career. Roughly 3/4's of his senior level matches have been in the US. He hasn't wrestled guys like Zare (Iran), Petriashvilli, or Akgul (Turkey) on a regular basis and beaten them more than once. (He hasn't wrestled Zare at all.) Further, his Olympic win was literally a last second victory that might never have happened if the referee wouldn't have put both wrestlers quickly back on their feet. In other words, this conversation would not be happening if it weren't for a relative contingency. Don't get me wrong: I'm not disparaging G.S. He is a great, talented and athletic wrestler who is dominant at his weight in the US and one of the top guys in the world. But Pyles should not be forcing comparison to him with John Smith, Borroughs, Dake, Taylor, and so many others who have shown an ability to stay at the top for a very, very long time and win both National and (many!) International championships. I submit Pyles is not just trying to be provocative (though he is) but that he is guilty of recency bias and dead wrong as well. As Aristotle pointed out wisely (and roughly 2500 years ago), "One swallow [bird] does not a summer make" ... nor, we can add, does one Olympic title a GOAT make. If Steveson stays on the mat another 5 years or so, we can revisit this claim. Pyles needs someone from UWW or even WWE (Gable himself?) to throw him down on the mat (against the ropes) and shake some sense into him. .

Valencia can wrestle for Mexico but not this year. There is a window and waiting time for transferring to another country. Seems there is a de facto "transfer portal" now for freestyle (international) not just folk (domestic). In the future, guys might be able to wrestle for Mars or Venus or Jupiter.

Two Cows Explain Economics Better Than Any Class: https://www.boredpanda.com/corporation-economies-explained-cows-ecownomics/?utm_source=google&utm_medium=organic&utm_campaign=organic

For some reason, this conversation and the banter about political theory makes me imagine we are living in a repressive Eastern European country, where one can't talk about ideas and issues directly for fear of being arrested, Kafka-esque style ... and so jokes become a way of communicating in the workplace and elsewhere. See, for example, a novel by Milan Kundera called "The Joke". Aside: Marx (who is still immensely relevant in my view) once reputedly said in frustration to his nephew, "I am not a Marxist". Construe that as you will. The other thing it reminds me of is cows: WORLD IDEOLOGIES EXPLAINED BY REFERENCE TO COWS FEUDALISM You have two cows. Your lord takes some of the milk. SOCIALISM You have two cows. The government takes them and puts them in a barn with everyone else's cows. You have to take care of all the cows. The government gives you a glass of milk. FASCISM You have two cows. The government takes both, hires you to take care of them, and sells you the milk. PURE COMMUNISM You share two cows with your neighbors. You and your neighbors bicker about who has the most "ability" and who has the most "need". Meanwhile, no one works, no one gets any milk, and the cows drop dead of starvation. RUSSIAN COMMUNISM You have two cows. You have to take care of them, but the government takes all the milk. You steal back as much milk as you can and sell it on the black market. PERESTROIKA You have two cows. You have to take care of them, but the Mafia takes all the milk. You steal back as much milk as you can and sell it on the "free" market. CAMBODIAN COMMUNISM You have two cows. The government takes both and shoots you. DICTATORSHIP You have two cows. The government takes both and drafts you. PURE DEMOCRACY You have two cows. Your neighbors decide who gets the milk. REPRESENTATIVE DEMOCRACY You have two cows. Your neighbors pick someone to tell you who gets the milk. BUREAUCRACY You have two cows. At first the government regulates what you can feed them and when you can milk them. Then it pays you not to milk them. Then it takes both, shoots one, milks the other and pours the milk down the drain. Then it requires you to fill out forms accounting for the missing cows. CAPITALISM You don't have any cows. The bank will not lend you money to buy cows, because you don't have any cows to put up as collateral. PURE ANARCHY You have two cows. Either you sell the milk at a fair price or your neighbors try to take the cows and kill you. ANARCHO-CAPITALISM You have two cows. You sell one and buy a bull. SURREALISM You have two giraffes. The government requires you to take harmonica lessons. OLYMPICS-ISM You have two cows, one American, one Chinese. With the help of trilling violins and state of the art montage photography, John Tesh narrates the moving tale of how the American cow overcame the agony of growing up in a suburb with (gasp) divorced parents, then mentions in passing that the Chinese cow was beaten every day by a tyrannical farmer and watched its parents butchered before its eyes. The American cow wins the competition, severely spraining an udder in a gritty performance, and gets a multi-million dollar contract to endorse Wheaties. The Chinese cow is led out of the arena and shot by Chinese government officials, though no one ever hears about it. McDonald's buys the meat and serves it hot and fast at its Beijing restaurant. AMERICAN CORPORATE CAPITALISM Both cows are bloated with toxic steroids. They are set out to graze on privatized public parks, release massive amounts of flatulence that destroys the ozone layer, die from excess ultraviolet light, and are processed into meat-like products that look great as a result of clever and unprincipled marketing strategies. When you mortgage your artificially devalued farm at high interest rates in order to buy meat, you consume the poisoned material and develop terminal illnesses because there is no health care plan to treat you. The corporate management uses your purchase price to acquire THEIR meat from cows raised "naturally" on tree-free rain forest land outside of the country where labor and resources are cheap. BRITISH REPRESENTATIVE DEMOCRACY Both cows are mad

There have been some good interviews with wrestlers when they are not coming directly off the mat—e.g., Bader's show, Bauschmania, and other podcasts. Vincenzo Joseph is fun, for example. Quentin Wright was good on Bader's show. Wade Schalles is a smart guy with lots of interesting and provocative ideas (obviously from another era). When they do sit downs with Borroughs or DT, it can be entertaining and informative. I've always enjoyed listening to Jason Welch when they speak him. Smart, literate guy. Zen surfer dude. I think he is a head coach now at San Francisco State maybe.

Is there any wrestler who gives worse interviews after a match than Aaron Brooks? https://www.flowrestling.org/events/10272040-2023-us-open-wrestling-championships/videos?playing=10925482&limit=60 Every answer is a three letter word beginning with a G and ending with a D. Actually, sometimes it's a four letter answer: begins with L and ends with a D. (This is an easy Wordle game for the day) If Brooks arguably gives the worst interview after a match, who gives the best? Most insightful? Or humorous? Or provocative? Or candid? Hmm. Maybe there are worse interviewees (who are the candidates?); it's just that Brooks' remarks are boring and predictable ... except perhaps when he decides to engage in dogmatic theology about other religions. (I sometimes wish a wrestler would come off the mat and say something like "I don't thank God for this victory. I thank my parent's genes" Or maybe even the referee if they got bailed out ... or something of the sort. (Brooks is a great wrestler and I enjoy watching him. And his is probably a very good person off the mat. I just find his interview responses to be vapid. I wish he would speak more about wrestling itself.)

NO! NOT ANOTHER SPENCER LEE THREAD. The guy has not done anything on the senior level. He did not win his 4th State title. He did not win his 4th NCAA title. He did not qualify for this year's World Championships. He did not even make the finals of US Open. He is likely not going to do anything of significance in 2023. He's plagued by injuries. Why this obsession with him? It would be more interesting to speak about Zane Richards or Kennedy Blades or the high schooler who just won the US Open at 50 KG ... or even whether a civil war will break out in the US ... between PA and Iowa of course ... with Spencer (General) Lee leading Iowa naturally How about a thread called "Spencer Lee's new career on "Dancing with the Stars"? Or a reality based Spencer Lee cooking show?

These cautions + 1 are becoming super subjective and gratuitous. They affect the course of the match in bad ways. The refs are throwing them out right and left in very questionable situations when the offensive wrestler drives the other guy out. Hmm. I wonder if there will be an attempt to use AI to judge matches in the future.

My personal view: cap the scoring at 4 points (2 turns) and put them back on their feet. Let's see more wrestling, not kids rolling around.