THE ILLINI WRESTLING BLOG AND FORUM

It was always a pleasure to watch this fellow wrestle in the Orange and Blue. One of my top three favorite ILLINI dual wins was Sophomore Mario Gonzalez bumping up to heavyweight to wrestle the Senior Cornell wrestler at National Duals. He won.  And he seemed to take that confidence with him a month later to the Big Ten Tournament where he crushed the field and won a conference championship at 197. Although injuries worked their evil magic on his body after that, Gonzalez was still able to do the impossible when called upon as evidenced in the video. With his own whizzer and an Iowa Hawkeye opponent in the seat belt position, he fought out of it in such a way it looks like the video is running backwards! That was impossible. Fast forward to the present: A couple days ago, eleven years removed from that dual-winning match at Cornell and his Big Ten Championship, Mario Gonzalez wrestled in Warsaw for another prize. To win the Grappling World Championship, Gonzalez had to beat the defendi

There are great wrestling tips on Twitter and Instagram. From technique to diet to workouts to mindset. Here's mine: At least once a week do something nonsensical — nothing illegal or immoral or dangerous — just something pathologically silly. I believe (but don't know) that you will live a longer and happier life. "Make a Little Byrdhouse in Your Soul" stars Lucas Byrd and a case of villains, accompanied by the incomparable They Might Be Giants. Full credits on YouTube.

As an unbiased journalist and a scientist —a Political Scientist no less —I can prove that ILLINOIS is, was, has been and will always be the greatest wrestling state in the union. You can take the other top five wrestling states combined, and they don't equal the Land of Lincoln. Word.  Let's start on July 21, 1951 when Robin Williams was born in Chicago, ILLINOIS. He would go on to wrestle in high school and without him, of course, there is no Mrs. Doubtfire , No "Goooood Morning, Vietnam!," no Dead Poets Society , Good Will Hunting , or Mork and Mindy . All of that and more brought to you by a wrestler born in ILLINOIS. Shazbot, Mother*******! If Robin Williams wasn't the funniest wrestler who ever lived, then that honor falls to Wheaton Central High School Wrestler John Belushi. Without this fellow, SNL is cancelled season one, you think Dan Akroyd could carry the show by himself? We get no Animal House . Or the freaking Blues Brothers.  On the other hand, thou

One of the greats, a true ILLINI Legend, is coming back to Champaign to become the Head Coach of the Relentless Training Center South. After winning two national championships and going undefeated in a one-fight MMA career , then teaching Brown University wrestlers as an Assistant Coach, he's back. Here are the social media announcements on Twitter and on Instagram .  Jesse Delgado.  Yes. That's right. The name Jesse Delgado gets its own paragraph.  The three-time All American and two-time NCAA Champion for the University of ILLINOIS deserves no less. Here it is again, but in bold print: Jesse Delgado . Relentless Training Center is in Johnsburg, but there is now a Relentless Training Center South in Champaign. Co-founders Jordan Blanton and Ryan Prater have turned it into a monster. 

It has been an amazing Summer for ILLINI and ILLINI RTC athletes. They have combined for well over 200 wins! To celebrate, we wanted to do a video that showed every time one of the wrestlers from Champaign had their hands raised.  It soon became apparent that we needed two videos to show them all.  There are over two hundred refs raising two hundred ILLINI hands in the following videos. To be sure, there were many more wins. There were at least twenty other wins that could not be memorialized because FloWrestling either did not create a video for it or let the video end before the wrestler's hand was raised.  Let's start with volume two: Below you have volume one which shows ILLINI wins at the various age-level US Opens, the World Team Trials, Kannon Webster's Pan Am championship and Final X: