"The Delgado Effect"

I've stated multiple times the basic fact that if Jesse Delgado wrestled for your team, you would have ******* loved him! He was a magician on the mat. What he was able to do against the very best of the best was simply stunning. You can see a small sample of this in the video entitled The World's Coolest NCAA Championship Wrestling Scramble:

He applied what I've called the "Delgado System" to such great effect that he could beat insanely talented wrestlers like Nashon Garrett every time they wrestled. That success caused fans of other teams to fear him. Then, to criticize him. They would say, "He's stalling!," or "He's wrestling on the edge of the mat!"

That's what I call "The Delgado Effect." 

You only ever criticize something or someone because you love it, hate it or fear it, and then only if it's important. Do you hear much criticism of Presbyterian College wrestling on the internet? Of course not. They are not feared or loved or hated, and unfortunately for that small liberal arts school in Clinton, South Carolina, they just aren't that important on the wrestling landscape. 

Jesse Delgado was important to a huge number of wrestling fans. They also feared him. Here's why: He won championships. But I think The Delgado Effect was imprinted on my mind for one major reason: His major rivals all came from the largest fanbases in wrestling. Think about guys like Matt McDonough (Iowa), Cory Clark (Iowa), Nashon Garrett (Cornell) and Nico Megaludis (Penn State). 

If you go to Cory Clark's biography page on the University of Iowa's official wrestling site, there is an achievement noted for Clark that lists a win over Jesse Delgado, giving the score and noting that it was at "the UNI Open Finals." 

That, my friends, is someone to respect; someone to fear. And if given any opportunity, someone to criticize. 

So, why am I bringing up The Delgado Effect now? Isn't it old news? Well, hold your horses, I'm getting to that. You see, I think that I've seen The Delgado Effect again, recently, just this past week. 

And it involved another ILLINI. 

Zane Richards demolished this year's World Championship Bronze Medalist during the very first match of the 2022 World Cup. What he did may have shocked a lot of wrestling fans, putting up a 10-0 tech fall on the Mongolian champion. 

All of a sudden, Zane became someone to keep an eye on. 

When he followed that up with a 6-2 win over the Iranian in the World Cup Finals, he became someone to fear, I believe. And in the cat fight that is 57kg in America, that again means some of the larger fanbases that support wrestlers like Thomas Gilman (Iowa, PSU, NLWC), Vito Arujau (Cornell), Spencer Lee (Iowa), Nick Suriano (Michigan, Jersey), and Nathan Tomasello (OSU). 

If Zane had slipped past the Mongolian Bronze Medalist by a point or two instead of teching him 10-0, then the fans who know that Thomas Gilman beat that same Mongolian by only four points in the 2022 World Championships might have nothing to fear. 

With success comes criticism by those who now fear you. 

That's why you had folks at Intermatforums.com complaining about the last few seconds of Zane's win over the Iranian. Yet, nary a peep about Kyle Snyder shoving the Iranian World Champion after their match. Why? Because Snyder doesn't have any real rivals in the United States. 

First they ignore you, then they notice you, then they fear you, and finally, they criticize you. You have, in effect, earned their respect.