THE ILLINI WRESTLING BLOG AND FORUM

  This is the time of the silly season when people start asking whether there is anything about wrestling that shouldn’t be changed. Should the NCAA adopt a push-out rule? Why are opponents always human? If eye pokes were good enough for the Three Stooges, why aren’t they good enough for Penn State?  And so on.  Singlets are always brought up. Why not two pieces? Why do we have to wear this, this thing when it looks so silly? What will my girlfriend think? Well, wrestling fans, it’s because you don’t know the strange and wonderful and patriotic history of the Singlet.    400 MILLION B.C. The first singlets were worn by bugs, beetle-like insects to be exact, and these beetles used their own feces to coat themselves. (See Fig. 1 below).  It was a genius albeit smelly way to protect themselves from attack. They didn’t cover up their naughty bits because of any puritan moral code; no, it was so other bugs wouldn’t eat their naughty bits (and the rest of them). Still other bugs,

ZANE RICHARDS CAMP! I just saw this on Twitter, and wanted to get the word out. Zane Richards will be in Lockport, ILLINOIS to instruct the young-uns. You'll need to get moving on this as the camp is scheduled for this Saturday. Check out all of the groovy details here: And to get you fired up, here's Zane Richards at the World Cup beating the World Bronze Medalist from Mongolia in a tech fall that includes a beautiful cradle: FRIENDS OF ILLINOIS WRESTLING/JOEL KARR What about the Friends of ILLINOIS Wrestling? They came through for me with a three-pack of incredible ILLINI Wrestling t-shirts. These are going to be perfect Summer wear here in Myrtle Beach.  These folks do an incredible job of supporting the ILLINI Wrestling team. The group is made up of Alumni, as well as the family and friends of the wrestlers. For recruits coming in, you can know that there is a network for your family to share with other wrestler families.  If you're a fan of ILLINI wrestling, be sure to

The March Basho has come to a close. I thought it would be uneventful and boring, and it was for the first ten days. There were no Yokozunas or Ozekis entered. Those are the two highest ranks in Sumo, and both of them were out with injuries. After ten days, the leader was the smallest wrestler in the upper division: Midorifuji. He was undefeated at 10-0 after winning his match each of the first ten days.  That's Midorifuji on the left winning the Technique Prize at an earlier basho. He is listed at 5-7, but that seems a myth. Daieisho, who we'll talk about later, is in the center. He won that basho. Terunofuji, the injured Yokozuna, is on the right. Midorifuji had beaten lower-ranked Sumo, and I expected him to lose against the upper division wrestlers. While many were looking for a Midorifuji yusho basho, this was my comment at the time of his tenth-straight win: "How does Midorifuji do against Wakamotoharu, Kotonowaka, Kiribayama, Hoshoryu and Wakatakakage? I think Daiei

Is wrestling season over? Trick question. The 2022-2023 wrestling season is over, but the 2023-2024 wrestling season has just begun. During the last two weeks, The ILLINI Wrestling Blog and Forum and Beyond has been watching all of the University of ILLINOIS wrestlers in their B1G and NCAA matches and documenting what happened and previewing what would happen next. That's kept us busy. And we missed a lot.  In this post, we play catch up with Orange and Blue recruits, ILLINI wrestling camps, and general University of ILLINOIS wrestling stuff. Our team at the IWB&F&B has scoured the internet looking for stories about ILLINI wrestling, and I'm sure that this post is incomplete.  And that pisses us off.  If you have a story about an ILLINI wrestler, coach, recruit, or a former ILLINI wrestler, please send us a message. You can DM on Twitter or Instagram or send an email to thetortmaster@yahoo.com. Let's start with ILLINI recruits in their state series.  BRANDON MORVARI

  This post will not be tweeted or put on Instagram. It's just a private/public place to express our feelings about the end of the ILLINI Wrestling season and the beginning of 2023-2024. A time to remember the great wins, the upsets, the losses and the fact that the MSU Open, the Tiger Style Invite and the Midlands were multi-day Mardi Gras and Carnival festivals for ILLINI fans.  The Orange and Blue had a great first day at the NCAA tournament, with four of the five wrestlers moving on, and two of them (Lucas Byrd and Zac Braunagel) still on the championship side of the bracket.  Except for a couple of Friday morning wins from Edmond Ruth in the wrestlebacks, though, yesterday sucked. The ILLINI ended up with three wrestlers in the Blood Round, and all three lost close matches.  It should also be noted that Lucas Byrd lost a disputed match with Daton Fix in the quarters, while Zac Braunagel was a three-inch placement of his hand to the left or to the right (depending upon your per

The ILLINI had a great day in Tulsa on Thursday. The men in Orange and Blue had three "upsets" at the NCAA wrestling tournament, although fans who've been following the ILLINI probably don't think of them as upsets. ILLINOIS was up to 6th place near the end of the first round and ended up in 7th at the end of that first session. Four of the five won their first matches, and four of the five remain in scoring roles.  Two on the front side and two on the backside.  On a day when the ILLINI basketball team couldn't make it to the Sweet 16--they didn't even make it to the Thuper 32--the wrestling team finished in 16th place after the second round.  There were a lot of "HELL YEAH!" moments when a wrestler got that crucial takedown or rideout. We'll start out by looking at the two ILLINI who remain on the front side of their brackets: Lucas Byrd and Zac Braunagel.  133.  LUCAS BYRD That is Lucas Byrd's immediate future. He will have an early match

  Welcome to Lucas Byrd Day at The ILLINI Wrestling Blog and Forum and Beyond, where Byrd is always the Wyrd! We have a three-part post today to celebrate Lucas Byrd’s bid to the 2023 NCAA Division One wrestling tournament.  The first part is not a replay of what we wrote in the original NCAA Preview thread about his first-round matchup. Forget that. On the contrary, a lot has changed.   Lucas now has a first-round match with Iowa's Brody Teske. So, you'll want to burn part one into your memory hole. Part two looks at what happens in Byrd’s second match and so on. Part three is where the party begins: Lucas Byrd’s new 2023 NCAA Hype Video.   Friends, let’s get started with Lucas’ new bracket:   LUCAS BYRD (AKA BYRD IS THE WYRD) PART ONE Lucas had been set to meet Flyboy Cody Phippen (19-6) of Air Force in the first round, but #11 seed Connor McGonagle of Lehigh (and before that, Hogwarts) had to drop out because of injury. That meant everybody with a #12 seed or highe

We are going to start with breakdowns of the Edmond Ruth and Dylan Connell brackets. There will be three parts. The first part will discuss each of their first-round matchups. This was covered in our initial NCAA preview writeup, so you can skip it or get a refresher.  The second part will go into a little more depth about what would happen after the first round given a win or a loss. Finally, the third part will include their new NCAA hype video in the cool Thug Life format. You might notice a cameo in one of the videos from King Jeremy Hunter.  So, let's start with Edmond Ruth's bracket: 174.  EDMOND RUTH PART ONE The first-round matchup for Ruthless is Phillip Conigliaro of Harvard. The Crimson wrestler is in his fourth season starting, and he made it to the Round of 12 last year at 165. He's had a little less success at 174. His 11-6 record this time around doesn't come close to his 22-6 and 31-7 seasons at the lower weight.  Wrestlestat.com is predicting a 6-5 win