Tony Madrigal and Zane Richards News!

TONY MADRIGAL

Please give an ILLINI welcome to Anthony "Tony" Madrigal! The OPRF product has transferred from an Oklahoma squad in turmoil to join the University of ILLINOIS Wrestling team. I'm sure most folks here are very aware of his high school pedigree that included two state finals, Fargo and Ironman awards. 

Did you also know he beat Real Woods twice in high school and wrestled Spencer Lee to a 5-0 loss at Ironman before Lee was injured? Here he is beating high school teammate JRent in a Fargo semifinal:

This looks to shore up the ILLINI lightweights even further. I said that last season the team had more depth than at any time since the Golden Age, and this year will be even better. 

And so, here's a Guardians of the Galaxy welcome to Tony:

ZANE RICHARDS

Over to themat.com, they have put up what they call a "preview" of the Richards-Gilman Final X match. There's not much detail, very little meat on that bone, but here it is:

"57 kg – Thomas Gilman (State College, Pa./Nittany Lion WC/Titan Mercury WC) vs. Zane Richards (Champaign, Ill./Illinois RTC/Titan Mercury WC)

 

The 57 kg men’s freestyle weight class has been owned by Thomas Gilman in recent years. Gilman has represented the U.S. in five of the previous six World Championships or Olympic Games, earning four total medals during that stretch. Most notably, he was a World champion in 2021 and an Olympic bronze medalist in 2020.

 

Last year, Gilman came up one win short of his second-straight World title, falling to Albania’s Zelimkhan Abakarov, a Russian transplant, in the World finals. The silver medal performance earned Gilman an automatic berth to this year’s Final X. He bounced back with a dominant gold medal outing at the Pan-American Championships held in Buenos Aires, Argentina, earlier this month, and is primed to make another run at the 57 kg U.S. World Team spot.

 

Standing in Gilman’s way at Final X is U.S. Open champion Zane Richards, who has been in the upper echelon at 57 kg for the U.S. this quad. He was most impressive in Las Vegas, particularly in the finals against two-time NCAA champion Nick Suriano, where he scored the winning takedown at the buzzer. Richards is currently No. 3 on U.S. National Team ladder and does boast some valuable Final X experience having wrestled and won a true third match in Stillwater, Okla., last year.

 

Gilman and Richards have wrestled two matches against each other on the Senior level dating back to 2019, Gilman winning both convincingly.

 

Most recent match – 2020 U.S. Olympic Team Trials – Gilman tech. fall Richards, 11-0"

A PREVIEW OF ZANE'S MATCH IS COMING

Although I haven't finished my Moneyball look at Gilman, I've already noticed a few things: 

The Albanian (transplanted Russian) Abakarov who beat Gilman handily in the 2022 World Championship finals is Zane Richard's brother from a Russian mother. The Russian has slightly thicker legs, but Zelimkhan could be Zane's uglier, older brother. 

It is not just a physical thing either, although the physical resemblance is there. 

The Albanian also moved side to side well against Gilman. He blunted the former Hawkeye's two main weapons: Pushouts from a collar tie, and sweep singles to his opponent's right leg. 

The ability to move side to side and change the momentum as Gilman pushes will be a key in the match. Abakarov started off his match with the most brilliant tactical and strategic move--an arm throw as Gilman was pushing in. The Albanian/Russian scored a takedown off of it, and it seemed to slow down the frenzy of pushout attempts. 

Like Zane, Zelimkhan uses a lot of angles on his leg attacks. This will be key as well. Zane also has good lateral movement and an excellent sweep single.

An interesting tidbit is that during the World Cup, the Albanian wrestled the same Iranian as Zane did. Abakarov won 12-2, while Zane won 6-2. The Albanian beat Thomas Gilman 7-2. Hmmm. I know transitive power, but still hmmm. 

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Photo credit for the image of Zane Richards wrestling the Iranian by Andy Hamilton. The photo of Zane beating the Michigan wrestler is from ILLINOIS Athletics. Guardians of the Galaxy is property of Marvel Studios/Disney Studios. Video of Jason Renteria versus Tony Madrigal via USA Wrestling.