THE ILLINI WRESTLING BLOG AND FORUM

The ILLINI secured a verbal commitment from Hudson Goebel last year. The Findlay High School product had recently secured a finals appearance in the Ohio State championships as a sophomore--and not at 106 or 113.  He suffered an injury last year and missed much of the season but bounced back stronger and decided to star on the school's football team. He's the team leader in interceptions, and is looking to have a stellar return to the mat. The original video of the Ohio state wrestling semi-finals is credited to GOhioCasts. Credit to BCSN for the football highlight. Intro and outro music by Audio Beats. Photo credits in the intro sequence to FightingILLINI.com, NCAA.com, uiaa.org, wrestlingchangedmylife.com, ILLINOISMatmen.com, flowrestling.com, intermatwrestle.com. This video is not to be monetized. I am not affiliated with the University of ILLINOIS Athletic Department or the ILLINI Wrestling team.

I wanted to highlight Steve Marianetti's win over Lincoln McIlravy in the 1995 NCAA Finals. The question was: Which of his five takedowns to pick? Steve Marianetti had lost to Lincoln McIlravy in the Big Ten finals just before this NCAA finals match, and he lost to him in the semifinals of the NCAA wrestling tournament the year before. This time, though, he would get his revenge. McIlravy was on a 57-match winning streak. After the match, Dan Gable was quoted in the Los Angeles Times, "He [McIlravy] was on track to be the best of all times." Gable would go on to say, "I'm still in a state of shock." Steve Marianetti had 120 wins in an ILLINI singlet, including 44 wins in one season. He won the national championship in 1995, and he was an All American on two other occasions. He wrestled freestyle and represented the United States at the Pan-Am Championships, the Goodwill Games, the World Cup and the World Championships. In over two decades as the head ...

Here we have what will be the new intro in future videos put out by the ILLINI Wrestling Blog & Forum & Beyond. I normally wouldn't publish just the intro to a video, but this was done in the cool Marvel style, and it deserves a post of its own: The video is not to be monetized. There are a lot of ILLINI Wrestlers (and one Athletic Director) shown in the video. Just stop it at a random point and see who you can find. If you land on a Byrd, a Siebert or a Brawlnagel, that means you have to drink twice! This video can be copied and shared anywhere. Enjoy! Photo credits to FightingILLINI.com, NCAA.com, uiaa.org, wrestlingchangedmylife.com, ILLINOISMatmen.com, flowrestling.com, intermatwrestle.com. Music credit to Audio Beats.

This is now our third installment of Movies for Wrestlers. These are the movies that a coach needs to have on dvd for those long bus trips or for the hotel room during weekend tournaments. You can catch the first two sets of reviews here (House Picks: The Warriors and Vision Quest ) and here (Jordan Blanton Picks: Bloodsport and Rocky IV ).  Today, we are reviewing the Lucas Byrd picks. In his interview with the War Room, the ILLINI star said that his favorites are the Harry Potter movies.  Lucas Byrd begins discussing his favorite movies at about 2:17 of the video To say that the Harry Potter books and movies were a phenomenon is an undersell. The books sold over 500 million copies, and Americans bought 180 million of them. The eight movies combined to make just under eight billion dollars at the box office. That's about the value of the gross domestic product (GDP) of Tajikistan in 2021. Tajikistan is home to over 9.5 million people.  The largest brewery company in ...

  Above you have the nonconference duals and tournaments. Below is the full schedule, as I've added on the conference and NCAA tournaments to what you can find at FightingILLINI.com here . Of course, at the website, you can also click on a "History" link for each opponent, which will give you complete results over the last ten or so duals and an idea about how the rivalry is shaping up recently.   I've already done mini-previews of the nonconference matches here , here , here and here . I'm going to do a mini-preview of each Big Ten dual below and save the full length award-winning previews for match week.  Before that, though, we have to acknowledge the coaching staff for getting out lineups well before they are traditionally announced, and commend the coaches, the ILLINI athletic department and the B1G for getting out schedules so early. Great job!   IOWA Wow, is there anybody or anything you hate more than Iowa? I hate Iowa worse than just about everything e...

WRESTLERS REQUIRE A SPECIAL SKILL In wrestling and mixed martial arts an athlete must be aware of what his or her body is doing, from head to toe, and be aware of what his or her opponent's body is doing, from head to toe, as well as the position of the out-of-bounds line, frequently without being able to look at them.  In ball sports like tennis, soccer, football and basketball, you are watching your opponent and the ball. Your sense of sight gives you almost all of the information that you need to be successful. In those sports, you also have to know where the goal, net, and lines are located, but, again, sight is primarily the way to deal with those objects.  PROPRIOCEPTION Good ball sport players have a keen sense of proprioception, which is sometimes called the Sixth Sense. Proprioception is basically your conscious awareness of your own body and limbs in space, what they are doing and what they need to do next.  Serena Williams sees the ball come off her opponent's...

There are some assumptions contained herein, as there will be competitive wrestle-offs at 125, 149, 157 and 174 at least. If Maximo Renteria wins the spot at 125, he'll be another new face. The same goes to a lesser degree at 157 and 174, as Luke Odom and Trey Sizemore have been in the varsity lineup in the past. Caden Ernd would be a new face. I don't know who will prevail in these battles. So with that caveat in mind, here's a video welcoming some of the new faces: