Mario Gonzalez Is a World Champion!
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 defending champion and the BEAST from Poland you see in the video. Here's the UWW article. Congratulations, Champ!
Credits on the YouTube video.
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 defending champion and the BEAST from Poland you see in the video. Here's the UWW article. Congratulations, Champ!
Credits on the YouTube video.
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