With Matt Hughes employing an amateur wrestling headlock to choke his way to victory over Ricardo Almeida at UFC 117, I figured the time was right to feature some more nasty amateur action – in this case, some slams. Now some of these moves aren’t strictly legal in the legal sense of the word, but they’re all incredibly painful to watch. Let’s get to the action.

Wrestling Slam

You have to blame the recipient for this one – instead of pivoting to go down on his back, he tried to fight it and ended up going on his tender little head. Apparently he got back up and continued the match, which just proves that teenagers are indestructable.

Cary Kolat Backflip

This is just freaking sick – when his opponent went for a single-leg takedown, Pennsylvania high school student and future Olympian Cary Kolat whipped out a full backflip to escape it. Bravo.

Best Example of an Illegal Slam Ever

This is obviously a completely illegal slam – in amateur wrestling, for a slam to be legal, the person delivering it has to touch a knee to the ground before any part of the recipient’s body hits, preventing high-impact injury. This was a high-impact injury, and the dude laying it down is psyched.  Read more... (469 words, estimated 1:53 mins reading time)

Winnipeg wrestler Caleb Rutner, a superstar-quality wrestler who beat all the Grade 12ers when he was in Grade 9 last year, has been fighting his heart out in high-level wrestling training camps in the United States this summer.

He’s looking to attract the eyes of scouts offering major prizes. Rutner’s goal is to get a wrestling scholarship to an Ivy League university, and that means BIG money. One guy on his team got a grant worth $350,000 for four years including room board, tuition, and books.

Rutner is going into Grade 10 at St. Paul’s High School this year with Mike Watson as his wrestling coach. This past year, Caleb fought in the biggest amateur wrestling tournament in the world as a member of Team North Dakota. “It’s a superb level of wrestling” says his dad, American-born psychologist Dr. Toby Rutner, who was a college wrestler himself until he got injured. Not that it was all sweat and hard work on the mats this summer for the kid. “You only have to be 14 to drive a car in North Dakota. When they weren’t wrestling, the guys were driving around and shooting off fireworks,” says his poppa, wryly.  Read more... (538 words, 1 image, estimated 2:09 mins reading time)

CINCINNATI — It would be great to have someone shovel your driveway for free.

On Thursday, a small group of teens who call themselves the “Winton Woods Weather Warriors” wrestled the elements to say thank you.

“This is just going to be a workout day,” said Winton Woods High School senior Pryde Geh. His classmate, Lonzi Murphy, agreed. “You gotta work hard if you want to get better.”

Both are members of the Winton Woods wrestling team. Their coach, Chris Willertz, said it’s about discipline and hard work. “They can burn some calories and make weight and do something for the community,” said Willertz.

Willertz explained the service project is directly about giving thanks. The Winton Woods City School District tried to pass a levy for years. Yet, election after election, they failed. This August, the district adopted a “pay to play” policy and the wrestling team had to fend for itself.

The team tried to earn money through a fundraiser by selling cookie dough. “We tried our best to sell the cookie dough, but we didn’t sell a lot,” explained Murphy. “We sold as much as we could.”  Read more... (381 words, estimated 1:31 mins reading time)

For most high school athletes, particularly those competing in fall sports, what looms ahead mostly is a diversion at this stage of the school year.

What Matt Lackey and Wes Hand are offering high school and upper-level middle-school wrestlers at Bettendorf’s wrestling room, however, is anything but a diversion.

With five all-American awards between them – Lackey a national champion from Moline and Illinois, and Hand at Iowa – the pair has so much wrestling street cred that they can command a great deal of attention.

And they are, every Sunday evening, at Bettendorf’s wrestling room from 5:30 to 7 p.m. offering clinics. There is no cost for the clinics, and the Q-C residents, Lackey and Hand, like it that way.

“As long as I have two cents to throw in and somebody to listen, I’ll do it,” said Lackey, who like Hand, doesn’t have future coaching aspirations. “I’m always going to be a part of wrestling. I’ll always be a coach. Obviously, Wes and I are not affiliated with anybody, so we’re able to teach and help kids out when coaching staffs can’t.”  Read more... (334 words, estimated 1:20 mins reading time)

The Manheim Central school board approved the hiring of former Penn State coach Troy Sunderland as its head wrestling coach during a school board meeting Tuesday night.

Sunderland, who resigned from Penn State on April 4, replaces Shane Mack, who had coached the Barons since 2005.

The coaching job will be Sunderland’s first at the high school level. Sunderland served as an assistant at Penn State and Navy before replacing John Fritz as the Nittany Lions’ head coach in 1999.

Sunderland, 38, led Penn State to an 8-12-2 record and 17th-place finish at the NCAA Championships during his final season at Penn State. Sunderland went 115-90-2 and coached 27 All-Americans in 11 years at Penn State.

Sunderland becomes the 15th head coach in Manheim Central history. The Barons, who compete in District 3, have recorded more than 700 dual meet wins since the school introduced the sport in 1926. The program has produced eight state champions and 13 PIAA runner-ups since 1943. The school also conducts one of the state’s top high school tournaments — the Manheim Holiday Tournament.

Sunderland’s wife, JoAnn, was hired as Manheim Central High School’s in-school suspension monitor, according to the Lancaster Intelligencer Journal/New Era.  Read more... (226 words, estimated 54 secs reading time)

By Tom Rinaldi
ESPN

“Leroy, touch your toes.”
Leroy reaches his arms out in front of him in mock effort, and says, “They’re at home.”
And then, the boys laugh.

He didn’t know they were gone.

Staring down at the sheets of his bed, the morphine starting to fade, Leroy Sutton was still numb, but he had a feeling something was wrong.

“It was when I tried to sit up,” Leroy said, remembering that day nearly eight years ago. “I pulled the covers up, and that’s when I figured everything out.”

It was Dec. 7, 2001, the day that shaped Leroy’s body, and his life.

He was 11 years old at the time, walking to school with his brother along the Wheeling and Lake Erie railroad tracks near his home in East Akron, Ohio. A freight train approached, and Leroy got too close. His backpack got caught on one of the passing cars, and he was pulled beneath the wheels.

“I didn’t even look down,” said Leroy, now 19, recalling the first moments afterward. “I was just staring at the sun the whole time. I wasn’t trying to look down because that’s when I would have panicked.”  Read more... (1619 words, estimated 6:29 mins reading time)

Rationale for wrestling weight class options from the NFHS Wrestling Rules Committee.

CURRENT:
-These current 14 weight classes have been in place since 1995.
-The 215-pound weight class was added in 2002.
-In 2006, the 275-pound weight class was increased to 285 pounds.
-These weight classes were developed from a survey that the NFHS Wrestling Rules Committee administered in 1994-95.

OPTION A:
-The weights were created from looking at the hydrated body weight at the time of assessment of 195,000 wrestlers from the NWCA Optimal performance calculator.
-Each weight class was created to have approximately 7.14% of the wrestlers.
-Equal distribution of wrestlers in each weight class.
-Eliminates one of the first three weight class. Combines 103, 112 and 119 into two weight classes.

OPTION B:
-The weights were created from looking at the minimum wrestling weight (7% weight) at the time of assessment of 195,000 wrestlers from the NWCA Optimal Performance Calculator.
-Each weight class was created to have approximately 7.14% of the wrestlers.
-Equal distribution of wrestlers in each weight class.
-Adds an ‘additional’ weight class at the top.
-Creates a weight class in the low 180-pound range.  Read more... (355 words, 1 image, estimated 1:25 mins reading time)

Penn State-bound twins cap junior careers with freestyle titles

by Guy Cipriano

Future Penn State wrestlers Andrew and Dylan Alton handled their last appearances in the Junior National Championships with the same demeanor they display everywhere else they compete.

They left the boasting to others. They didn’t drop any tears as they left the FargoDome for the final time as competitors.

“I’m sort of glad it’s the last time,” Dylan said Sunday afternoon. “I’m ready to move onto the next level.”

The Central Mountain duo will bring incredible resumes to Penn State in 2010.

Andrew and Dylan captured the 140 and 145 titles, respectively, during Saturday night’s freestyle finals in Fargo, N.D. The twins shared Outstanding Wrestler honors.

The Altons spent plenty of time atop the Fargo podium. They combined to win nine cadet and junior freestyle and Greco-Roman titles. The twins captured junior freestyle titles the past two years.

Most wrestling experts consider the tournament the nation’s premiere scholastic event. Dozens of college coaches, including Penn State’s Cael Sanderson, attended this year’s tournament, which started July 18.  Read more... (597 words, estimated 2:23 mins reading time)

Josh Lowe, InterMat High School Analyst

Heading into the 2009 Schoolboy Greco-Roman National Duals, one wondered whether it would again be a battle between Minnesota and Pennsylvania for the title. In each of the last two years, those squads met in the final. Minnesota won in 2008, while Pennsylvania prevailed in 2007 to win the back end of consecutive titles in this event.

However, New Jersey — not exactly a traditional Greco-Roman power — surprised the field with a 9-0 run through the championships. The Garden State squad was anchored by a pair of wrestlers that went 9-0 for the competition, Dylan Milonas (120) and Cory Damiana (190). Milnoas is raned 11th nationally in the recently released Junior High rankings by InterMat.

The run was not without challenges. In Pool A competition, defending champions Minnesota actually took 9 of the 17 matches from New Jersey. The difference in the 37-36 New Jersey victory was getting five victories by pin and technical fall, while Minnesota only mustered three. A pin by Damiana, technical fall by Jeffrey Miller (210), and pin by Gregory Webb (265) in the last three matches of that dual meet turned a 35-23 deficit into the one-point victory. Then, in the last match of championship pool competition, New Jersey needed a last match pin from Webb to knock off Wisconsin, 39-38.  Read more... (467 words, estimated 1:52 mins reading time)

Seven wrestlers from the Lexington Wrestling Club qualified for the National High School Coaches Association National Tournament with strong showings this weekend at a state qualifying tournament at Trinity High School.

Tyler Davis (103) and Keyonne Redfearn (heavyweight) won their weight classes in the high school division. Kabron Horton (171) placed second, and Ronal Canales (135) and Darel Martin Jr. (140) placed third in the high school division to qualify.

In the middle school division, Brandon Martin (112) was second, and Josh Rojas (145) finished third.

All of these wrestlers will compete in the national tournament in Salisbury, Md. from July 2-4.