By GREG OLIVER – Producer, SLAM! Wrestling

WATERLOO — It’s one thing to read about the flood damage to the Dan Gable International Wrestling Institute and Museum, but it’s another thing altogether to witness it — and to smell it.

With the museum’s 10th annual “Super Weekend” under way in Waterloo, Iowa, fans — and writers — were allowed to wander through what once was a terrific exhibition of wrestling through the centuries.

The mustiness and the wet is impossible to describe; it must be smelled. Despite a dozen fans going, the muggy air outside made its way in, mixing with the stale air inside, a sad tonic of mildew, mold and broken dreams.

According to museum staff, the cleanup cost — ripping out damaged walls, furniture, carpet, gift shop merchandise — rang in at $60,000. And the museum was hardly the only place to suffer in Iowa. Others lost their homes as the various rivers across the state overflowed following torrential rainfall a few weeks back.

Museum staff believe that storm sewer backup is more to blame for the flooding at their location than the nearby Cedar River; buildings a block away barely got water in their basement, and others were destroyed.