The consolations takes to long, however I think they should do pool systems like in Beach wrestling and dual tournaments. How you do in the pool is where you're put into the bracket.
@@viperboyjam1971 Olympics were 16 men brackets I believe. Maybe less so the back side would go quick. And if they don’t want that then have the two 3rd placers wrestle for 3rd and 4th
Beach wrestling does a World Series. They still put emphasis on the finale tournament but the points they rack up in the initial tournaments are included in their finale placing for an overall finish. It definitely encourages attending tournaments and gives great matchups all season.
Would love to hear about what the current structure and activity level is in different countries in europe and asia. We have clubs and school, then highschool, then college, then rtc. How much competition is happening elsewhere? How much variance between europe, iran, china, japan? How does it compare to Judo? I agree with all your points, but you'll still be unsatisfied until you make wrestling appeal to spectators. Rules shouldn't win matches. Like watching a fight, you should just know who won even if you are 8 years old and have a good attention span. Stalling on bottom in freestyle and getting free stand ups... pushout points dominating the scoreboard... I can live with. But near pins mattering less than leg laces... Refs pausing the action to call inaction. Doesn't make sense to anyone. Thanks for the frequent content, Ben.
Move to team duals, have 6-8 duals a year probably grouped into 3 or 4 events, and then a dual championship. After the dual championship have your individual championship. Have 1-2 individual tournaments during the season that would get guys into the individual tournament that are not on a good team. The focus has to be the team if you want to have a robust sport. Same formula for college wrestling. Individual tournaments are too long and will never capture the casual fan. An hour-long dual is a good timeframe and everybody on the team matters plus casual fans enjoy watching the great wrestlers dominate.
It doesn’t take a genius to know that not having a season is ridiculous. That being said the NCAA doesn’t do it perfect either with it being a 7 minute match for example super hard on the athlete long term and how many matches they have to wrestle a year is pretty crazy on their body with weigh ins. UWW needs to force guys to go to tournaments but it also is a worldwide sport vs a national sport so it’s harder because if you only do regional then a lot of the good guys don’t meet like any of our guys vs Russia or Japan
