OTT Results and U20s

 

THE COVERAGE

Before getting into individual results, a few words about the broadcast on Peacock, a little post mortem on the coverage. The short version is that the $5.99 plus tax was totally worth it, but I will not have a Peacock sub by next week. 

In my opinion, Peacock did an excellent job, much better than Flo. That's especially true regarding everything besides the finals. Those are usually less than impressive when viewed through a Flo lens. It was quick and easy to switch mats. The only glitches for me occurred after about :20 into a new match, the system reset.

I did have a couple of short outages on day one. 

The cameras were top notch, and they brought you right into the action. Cameras now have zoom lenses! There were also actual camera operators who turned the cameras to continuously face the action. I was not aware that that was possible. 

I will certainly cancel Peacock after about a week. It offers almost nothing besides a Real Housewives for every major metropolitan area in America (and Dubai). I want to see Oppenheimer still, though. 

I did watch Superbad and was disappointed. The movie is a 113-minute fart joke. If you had told me that Bill Hader could be unfunny, I might have punched you. Still, I give a weak recommendation just for the McLovin character. 

Dude was perfect. 

To their credit, Trackwrestling finally fixed the information at the end of matches to show the true winners instead of only doing it for the first few matches, so that for the rest of the tournament it would always read something like "Patrick McKee wins 7-3." 

Still, I don't get why you have to do an extra click to "View Final Result." Whether you click or don't click there's gonna be the same amount of lag time before the next match shows up, so why not just show the final result? 

Track also got all of the results right, at least from what I saw. That is not usually the case. On the other hand, Trackwrestling still has this bugaboo:

A SHORT VIDEO HIGHLIGHT

We had a great time watching the ILLINI and friends of the IRTC wrestle at the Olympic Team Trials. Zane Richards getting injured sucked bad, but he gave us some highlights, and so did Zac and Danny Braunagel. Some of them are in the short video below. Credit to Peacock Streaming for the video; USA Wrestling and the IRTC for the title image. 

ZANE RICHARDS

Our hero Zane Richards had a tough tournament, opening with a bye and then a win against Luke Lilledahl by the score of 5-3. In the semifinals, he faced Spencer Lee. 

That match started out really well for Zane, who shot an impossibly quick leg attack on Lee. The Hawkeye defended but it was whisper close. During the match, Richards was injured. You could see it with his inability to avoid the high crotch attack that he knew was coming. The usual Zane quickness was not there. 

He lost 6-13, which is very good for having an injury. Moreover, it was easily the best showing of anybody else in the Challenge Tournament. Gillman gave him a closer match in the best of three finals, but Gilman also got pinned by Spencer. 

After the match with Lee, Zane had to injury forfeit out of the tournament. Perhaps we see him wrestle for a 61 kg World Championship spot? I guess that will be determined based upon the extent of his injury and what his current gameplan entails. 

ZAC BRAUNAGEL

This was a really tough bracket. The good folks at 5-Point Move called it easily the toughest in the Greco tournament. That started early for Zac Braunagel, as he had to face a two-time Olympian, who I call "The Wall" in Ben Provisor. Last year, Provisor looked like a wall at 82 kg. This year, he looked like he weighed more than 87 kg--much more. Zac stuck to his gameplan and broke Provisor in the last minute, securing a takedown and the 3-2 win. 

In the semifinals, Zac lost to Payton Jacobson, who would go on to win the whole thing. 

In the consolation semifinals, the IRTC athlete faced Tim Young, a long time Greco veteran. Zac used his 2-on-1 to whup him 8-0. In the third-place match, the Brawlnagel faced Fritz Schierl, who is a wild creature from a previously unknown tribe. Brawny beat him 4-0. During this match, which the announcer absolutely loved, he said, "Braunagel is tough!" Stipulated. 

DANNY BRAUNAGEL

The Braunagel with the smaller head and slighter figure also made it to the third-place match of the Challenge tournament. To get there, Danny Braunagel got a couple of byes and beat a Final X Finalist in Justus Scott of Army WCAP. 

This was an 8-3 whupping that didn't sit well with the soldier. In fact, he spent quite a long time on the mat complaining, even though the decision was correct. In the third-place match, the Brawlnagel faced veteran Jesse Porter, who has been in the domestic finals of almost everything for the last five years. 

Danny lost and would have to settle for fourth, which was still a line above his #5 seed. 

THE YOUNG LIONS LOOK TO MAKE AN U20 NATIONAL TEAM

The following is from an email from the ILLINOIS RTC, letting us know that next up we can expect to see a star-studded squad of younglings from the ILLINI wrestling team out to win a spot on a national team in the U20 age group. This was the email:

Webster, Scoles, Moore, Baysingar, and Swaw look to to take the next step in U20s

The action does not stop this week as we have a crew of young lions headed to Las Vegas to try to take the first step in the U20 World Team Trials.  The action will be live on Flowrestling and the action will take place on Friday and Saturday*. *Next week on Friday, April 26 to Saturday, April 27. Here is a link for more details. FRIENDS OF THE IRTC There was even more good news at the OTT as various former IRTC members and friends of the training center showed up and kicked butt. As Coach Medlin noted in a social media post, it was redemption time for Joe Rau, who earned an Olympic bid by winning the Challenge Tournament, then going 2-1 versus Alan Vera in the Finals. As you might recall, Joe was screwed at the last OTT when the ref forgot that front headlocks and head pinches were Greco holds.  Additionally, Kamal Bey (WCAP) shot through the Challenge Tournament and then beat former Olympian Aliksandr Kikiniou in the finals 2-0. That was a very tough bracket, but Bey showed a remarkable level of consistency and excellence by beating his opponents by a combined score of 32-2. Wow! Everybody thought that Ellis Coleman (WCAP) had retired, but surprise! The Olympian came back and stormed through the bracket to face formidable foe Alejandro Sancho in the best 2-of-3 Finals. Coleman lost the first bout, then the wily veteran went on to win the crown by taking the next two matches.  Finally, friend of the IRTC Izzy Martinez had two wrestlers from ILLINOIS stomping through the Challenge Tournament. Kennedy Blades won by combined scores of 33-1 before facing one of the all-time greats in Adeline Grey in the Finals. Blades beat her 2-0 by scores of 11-6 and 8-3 signifying a changing of the guard.  Haley Augello gave up only two points in the Challenge Tournament. She eventually lost to Dom Parrish 2-0 in two close matches in their best of 3 Finals. That makes Haley an Olympic Alternate!