Introduction to Wrestling
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The following is an excerpt from Fight Site author Ed Gallo’s wrestling novel, “From Compton to Cleveland”, the story of four-time NCAA champion Joey Davis
“To me, wrestling is pure.
You don’t hear that word used to describe it very often. But there’s something base and primal about wrestling. With the exception of running, there aren’t many physical activities that you see occurring naturally at a young age. You see little kids grab a hold of each other and start wrestling, without any exposure to it previously. In nature, you see animals wrestle. It’s just something we were born to do, it’s hardwired into our DNA.
As a sport, wrestling is inherently appealing because it symbolizes the struggle of life.
You can experience intensely hard times, as well as glorious moments when you feel like you’re on top of the world. But just like in life, no matter if you’re low or high, the most important thing is that you get back to work the next day. You have to continuously improve, evolve your game. If you don’t, the sport will leave you behind. You’ll fade away, you won’t survive. You won’t be able to provide for yourself, for your family, or for your team.
Because wrestling is so ruthless, it’s easy to spot the metaphors. It teaches so many life lessons from such a young age. It prepares you for what’s ahead. You see so many successful people in the world who are wrestlers. It’s a beautiful, pure sport.”
That’s the voice of Jacob Kasper, a two-time All-American for Duke University at heavyweight. For an outsider, his fanaticism for the sport of wrestling may seem excessively romantic, it might appear he is attributing special qualities to his chosen pursuit. It’s possible that competitors at the highest level of countless sports could make similar claims about what their athletic career has done for them.
But anyone who has been around the grappling arts for any extended period of time will tell you that Jacob Kasper is but one voice in a vast chorus of wrestlers singing the same tune. The most basic reason wrestling is held in such a regard is because you compete as an individual, against an individual. Your victories, defeats, strengths and weaknesses, are yours alone. That experience of competition is an immediate confrontation with who you are in that moment, and how you will respond to both success and failure.
The struggle and triumph of one man over another in combat is not only seen as a display of superior physical prowess, but strength of will. It is a message as old as history itself. In the Mesopotamian Epic of Gilgamesh, the hero-king earns his authority to rule in a wrestling match with the wild man Enkidu. In the Old Testament, Jacob wrestles with an angel through daybreak, proving his enduring spirit, and enabling him to confront and overcome his deficits in character. The ancient Greeks incorporated wrestling into the Olympic games, it was the first contest of strength. Legend has it that Milo of Croton was a six-time Olympic champion and the most dominant athlete in all of Greece for well over two decades. So well-regarded was Milo that he was chosen to lead his city’s forces in battle, repelling the enemy while wearing his Olympic crowns.
You can find traditional styles of wrestling in any region on the planet. As the world became smaller, styles were blended and standardized. Today, the widely practiced approaches are Freestyle, Greco-Roman, and the intensely popular American Folkstyle.
Martial arts journalist T.P. Grant sheds light on the roots of the modern styles for Bloody Elbow:
“International freestyle was an attempt to create a very open competition forum for wrestling. It originated in Great Britain and the United States, made its Olympic debut in 1904, and its predominant style was heavily influenced by two forms of submission wrestling, English Catch-as-Catch-Can and Irish Collar-and-Elbow.
American Folk Style is a combination of Native American wrestling traditions with the imported English Catch-as-Catch-Can wrestling and Irish Collar-and-Elbow, both of which became very popular in the US. This style then combined with the emerging sport of Freestyle Wrestling after the Civil War. In 1903, the first intercollegiate match between squads from Yale and Columbia was held, and in 1927, the first NCAA Team Championship took place at Iowa State. The sport would grow from there to become widespread in both universities and high schools across the United States.”
Wrestling competition is largely defined by two combatants seeking to force the other off their feet, and onto the ground. This can be accomplished by attacking the legs, upper body, or a combination of the two. In modern freestyle, additional points are awarded for “exposure,” causing your opponent to show their back to the ground, regardless of time spent in each position.
This is where the United States sets itself apart. American folkstyle is characterized by control, points are only scored from a takedown when control is clearly established. This allows for extended scrambling, wrestlers are able to fight through positions and scrap for every inch. Once on the mat, there are no forced stand-ups after a short time, as there are in international competition. Both wrestlers are held to strict stalling penalties, the top wrestler must be actively working to apply a hold and force his opponent to their back, the aim being to pin both shoulder blades flat, finishing the match. The bottom wrestler cannot simply resist and survive, they are required to constantly fight back to their feet and separate, or attempt to reverse their opponent and gain top position.
Mat wrestling, as well as the work required to be rewarded for a successful takedown, makes folkstyle a relentless grind. Freestyle wrestlers can often conserve their strength and rely on finesse, timing opportunities to gain exposure points. A well-wrestled folkstyle match is intensely physically demanding, endurance and persistence are key. A clear victory demonstrates complete control and domination.
In freestyle, a technical fall can be achieved off of one move, a tight leg lace or gut wrench can be continuously rolled through for unlimited points. In the current folkstyle scoring, “near-fall” points are limited to four points per move, a wrestler must break their hold before attempting another turn. More often than not, the superior wrestler will opt to play catch and release with their opponent, netting only one point from each exchange. Defeat can be uniquely humiliating. To quote a coach of Joey Davis, “There’s nothing worse than getting whooped in front of a crowd of people.”
Decades of folkstyle tradition in the United States have created a distinctive culture, no more apparent than when American wrestlers travel for international freestyle competition. Often, technical sharpness has been traded in for brutality, foreign athletes play matador and counter some of the greatest folkstyle wrestlers of all time with ease. But every now and then, wrestlers fresh out of college overcome seasoned freestyle technicians with their pace and physicality. There is nothing more satisfying in the American wrestling culture than “breaking” your opponent, causing them to wilt under your unending assault. It sends a message - “I worked harder.”
Former Olympic team captain Daniel Cormier has helped to popularize the phrase “embrace the grind.” It is an undeniably masochistic ideology. The grind is work for the sake of work, suffering for the sake of suffering. Wrestlers love to push well past the point of exhaustion, searching for new and inventive ways to test the limits of their willpower. While technique and base conditioning are essential to compete in the sport, wrestlers boast “mental toughness” as the quality that sets them apart.
Mental toughness is what allows you to stay in your stance when your legs are wobbling and your lungs are burning. It’s what gives you the strength to power through the match-winning takedown when you felt you had nothing left. No wrestling coach worth their salt lets an athlete through their program without learning that the limits they perceive are an illusion, you can always do more. Wrestling is too physically demanding. In a six or seven-minute match, you will get tired. The defining skill of wrestling is to continue to fight after exhaustion has set in.