Advancing the Sport of Wrestling

• Fishfinder

  Would the following changes benefit the sport of wrestling in the long run?
  
  Reduce the starting number of weight classes from 14 to 10
  
  Align these 10 weights to collegiate weight classes. Not the same classes but geared towards feeding into college.
  
  Benefits-
  
  More full teams- Self explanatory more teams would be able to fill a varsity squad
  
  More competitive wrestling- The elimination of 4 classes would increase competition within weight classes by numbers alone. Also reduces people moving away from more competitive weights. This would also make JV tournaments significantly stronger.
  
  Shorter Competitions-
  Dropping 4 classes would speed up all competitions by around 30% which makes them for fan friendly
  
  Increased depth-
  Wait what? Yeah that's right I think you get better depth from this. I believe this will create a more prevalent freshman level tournament base.
  Most large wrestling programs run two teams right now which looks like this
  
  Varsity- 14
  JV- 14
  = 28
  
  Change to 10 weights-
  Varsity- 10
  JV- 10
  Freshman- 10
  = 30
  
  Negatives-
  
  4 less varsity spots
  
  Harder for individuals to crack the lineup
  
  Reduction 4 year accomplishments (less 4x state champs)
  
  What do you think?
• Roadkill

  Good idea eliminate 106-126
• Mossberg_500

  I don't think you elongate 106-126 maybe one or two of those but not all four that's way to big of a gap. Also, college starts off at 125
• Con_Alma

  Eliminating individual opportunities doesn't benefit the sport. It's a difficult sport. The fringe kid or the kid who wrestles as a secondary sport isn't going to stick around for team depth if he's not well suited for a particular weight class.
  
  The lower you go in the sport age wise, the more weight classes there are for kids. High school wrestling shouldn't have the same number of weight classes as college.
• cruiser_96

  

  Cutting weight classes only works for this current population of student-athletes. Within four or five years, the current ratio will rear it's head and put us back to square one. IMO.
• Con_Alma

  cruiser_96;1578321 wrote:Cutting weight classes only works for this current population of student-athletes. Within four or five years, the current ratio will rear it's head and put us back to square one. IMO.

  Can you expand on that? I see the addition of an upper weight class and the elimination of a middle class as having weakened the competition with the big boys and squeezed the talent where most students fall weight wise.
  
  What do you mean by the current ratio will rear it's head??
• cruiser_96

  

  Currently we have 14 weight classes and (let's say) and average of 2 forfeits a team across the state. My guess is that if we cut the weight classes to ten, within five or seven years, we'll have 10 weight classes and an average of two forfeits per team across the state. Then the idea will be to cut the classes from ten to nine, and then, five to seven years later, we'll have 9 weight classes with 2 forfeits per team.
  
  I could be wrong though.
  
  I have stated that it doesn't make much sense to ask a school of 750 boys from grades 9-11 to field a team of 14 and then ask a school with 159 from grades 9-11 to do the same. Seems odd that we'd hold both groups - with such varying degrees of enrollment to the same standard. But I'm also the guy that would like to see an odd number of weight classes - more than likely 13 (but not opposed to 15 - with only two divisions in Ohio. (An odd number because no match would need more than one criteria.)
• Con_Alma

  cruiser_96;1578329 wrote:Currently we have 14 weight classes and (let's say) and average of 2 forfeits a team across the state. My guess is that if we cut the weight classes to ten, within five or seven years, we'll have 10 weight classes and an average of two forfeits per team across the state. Then the idea will be to cut the classes from ten to nine, and then, five to seven years later, we'll have 9 weight classes with 2 forfeits per team.
  
  I could be wrong though.
  
  I have stated that it doesn't make much sense to ask a school of 750 boys from grades 9-11 to field a team of 14 and then ask a school with 159 from grades 9-11 to do the same. Seems odd that we'd hold both groups - with such varying degrees of enrollment to the same standard. But I'm also the guy that would like to see an odd number of weight classes - more than likely 13 (but not opposed to 15 - with only two divisions in Ohio. (An odd number because no match would need more than one criteria.)

  
  Got it. Thanks for the clarification.
  
  I agree with the odd number of classes. I also agree with 2 divisions ...certainly for the individual State Tournament.
• rassler

  Roadkill;1578251 wrote:Good idea eliminate 106-126

  Dumbest post ever written.
• cruiser_96

  

  rassler;1578341 wrote:Dumbest post ever written.

  Huh!?!?!?!?! Have you NEVER read my idiocy!?!?!?!?!
• MPhillips

  The ol' 'addition by subtraction' trick. :huh:
• Roadkill

  rassler;1578341 wrote:Dumbest post ever written.

  
  Just eliminating some of the weight classes I normally sleep through