A Moneyball Look at Zac Braunagel's Opponent at Final X

IMPORTANT CAVEAT:  We are ignorant about Greco. Zac Braunagel and Bryan Medlin know exponentially more about it, so with that in mind, let's take a Moneyball look at the Brawlnagel's Final X opponent, Alan Vera. Everybody in the listening audience knows that Vera is a transplanted Cuban. 

He lives in New Jersey, and at least last year, trained by himself with a practice dummy as a partner. Being so close to home, he will enjoy home bed advantage. 

PRIOR MEETING:  The two met in the semifinals of the US Open back in late April. The result was a 9-0 win for Vera. What transpired was a strong hand-fighting battle for about 90 seconds, then with no score on the board, the ref elected to put Zac down. Vera lifted and threw for four. He maintained the hold and threw again for five. 

LAST YEAR:  Alan Vera won 2-0 over Timothy Young of Army (WCAP) to wear the Final X crown. This is the same wrestler that Brawny beat 8-0 in the third-place match of this year's US Open. The video below shows Zac's big throw in the Finals of the World Team Trials: 

STRATEGY:  Domestic competition on bottom in par terre has only been able to stop Vera from scoring one time--and slightly slow him down another time--by crawling a leg into one of his legs. He scored the ten other times. 

Against Aliaksandr Kikiniou, the new American citizen who will be wrestling Kamal Bey at Final X, Vera had a win but it was a struggle. I've always heard that on bottom you want to crawl forward to rub your opponent's hands and arms painfully on the mat while at the same changing your center of gravity. Kikiniou did that but would suddenly get to his toes and leap almost a foot. 

Obviously, a key to the match will be to avoid par terre bottom at all costs. That could entail going for big throws in the opening minute, or being so active in neutral the refs have to call Vera for passivity (even though Greco refs seem to favor the favorite or higher-seed with these calls).

In our ignorant opinion, Zac needs to be a blur during the first minute and one-half of each match. Movement might confuse Vera, it could lead to Brawlnagel getting the first chance on top, or he could hit a throw from neutral, and, finally, really hard action might tire out his opponent in later matches. 

The longer the matches are, the more it can come down to a third-match slugfest. Vera has a reputation for making boneheaded mistakes on the international scene. Domestically, the competition hasn't challenged the gas tank of this fellow. 

THE DATA:  We looked at Vera's matches against Zac, John Stefanowicz, Timothy Young (x2), Ryan Epps (x2) and Joe Rau (from 2020). This is what we came up with in terms of ties/holds, attempted takedowns, successful takedowns, attempted turns and successful turns:

Nearly 70% of the time, Vera will be in an underhook. The rest of the time, he's hand-fighting so that he can get to the underhook. On a side note, he doesn't like two-on-ones at all, and he hates front headlocks (like everybody else in the world). 

The raw numbers for these are 3 pushouts and one each of the other takedowns/throws. So, not very much at all. He doesn't score often in neutral. Zac Braunagel might be able to take advantage of that. 

This is where Vera wins his matches. Turns and throws from par terre. This will become apparent in the next chart. 

A full 75% of his scoring comes from par terre, with the majority of that the high-point-value Gut Lift Throws. In the matches surveyed, Vera did not attempt a single reverse lift. He does three things very well: Maintain position while gaining an underhook, avoid throws by his opponent, and get to the top position in par terre and convert. 

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Moneyball is the property of Columbia Pictures. The graphic of Zac Braunagel and the IRTC logo comes from 5pointmove.com. Charts made with Canva. Credits for the video can be found on YouTube.