Rumble on the Rooftop Preview, Part 1
Photo by Dave Peterson/NCAA Photos via Getty Images
After the coronavirus pandemic forced the cancellation or postponement of every event since mid-March, wrestling fans will finally get a live event with this Sunday’s Rumble on the Rooftop, held on top of a parking garage in Chicago and airing on Fite TV. The card consists of eight freestyle matches and heavily features wrestlers from Illinois and Minnesota. There are no weight limits; instead, the event simply matches wrestlers reasonably close in size, allowing the athletes to focus on getting back into training without worrying about weight and giving the fans matchups we wouldn’t normally see.
Jordan Oliver vs. Jason Nolf
In the main event, 65 kg Olympic contender Jordan Oliver takes on 2019 Penn State graduate Jason Nolf. For years Oliver has been the dangerous guy waiting for his chance, clearly talented but never quite able to make a world team. Despite some clear stylistic limitations, he’s consistently made small improvements in the seven years and three training centers since his college career (when he was a two-time NCAA champ for Oklahoma State). He looked to be in the best form of his life in late 2019 and early 2020, and will look to pick up where he left off here.
After finishing off an all time great college career–three national titles and the Penn State career pins record–Jason Nolf finished 3rd on the US ladder last year at 74 kg. Nolf is an aggressive wrestler who combines heavy hands with low-ankle shots. He was a phenomenal mat wrestler, both from the top position and in scrambles, and borrowed techniques from BJJ like this to blow everyone’s minds.
While that’s somewhat negated in freestyle, his baseline defense, far-ankle scrambling, and attack rate make him tough to deal with.
Jordan Oliver loves to wrestle work from space, to the point that he’ll shove his opponents away to create separation.
He has fast and precise leg attacks, as well as slide-bys and shrugs when his opponents post to defend against shots. He keeps a very low stance, which both allows him to get under his opponents’ head and hands and limits their chances to attack his legs. He’s an excellent chain wrestler in the original sense of the term, having a full progression mapped out from one technique to another, and his blitzes can be nightmarish to defend against. On the flip side, he’s struggled with opponents who can safely close distance and force him to either engage from closer range or retreat toward the edge. Brent Metcalf widened the gap on Oliver over the course of their rivalry, and Zain Retherford and Bajrang Punia have mounted sizable comebacks against him.
However, he’s sharpened his game in recent years, and has gotten better at planting his feet a few steps short of the edge, leaving himself room to sprawl. From here, he can take advantage of opponents pressing too hard for pushouts, as he did against Retherford.
He’s also tightened up his defense, staying in good position even when he begins chaining attacks, and has good counter offense with go behinds and reattacks.
One of the most important aspects of this match will be whether Nolf gives Oliver time and space to work his game. While Nolf is very offensive, he’s not much for pressure; even against outside wrestlers like James Green and Ryan Deakin, Nolf hasn’t made much effort to close down the distance. Penn State teammate Retherford was very disciplined in approaching Oliver with his lead hand low to prevent quick shots, which suggests Nolf will be well-schooled for this as well. However, Nolf likes to snap his opponents down with his right hand, and probably won’t be as committed as Zain was to holding position. When it does come up, Oliver has a hair trigger.
The size disparity between the wrestlers is in theory a good 20 lbs, since Oliver plans to compete at 65 kg for Olympic Trials and Nolf will be at 74 kg. Realistically, though, Nolf is growing into his weight class, while Oliver has struggled with getting down to 65 in the past and is pretty large for the division. My best guess is that Nolf will be about 10 pounds heavier for the match, which is meaningful but not a huge deal. Oliver’s style seems well suited to taking on bigger opponents, since it’s built around speed and timing much more than physicality and control.
While the pandemic has disrupted training for athletes in every sport, my understanding is that both competitors have been in their practice rooms and should be completely ready for the event. The lack of weight cutting also helps make sure both wrestlers will be able to maintain a high pace. Another potential wrinkle is Nolf’s health, as he struggled with knee and ankle injuries in the past, but presumably he wouldn’t have taken an exhibition match on less than three weeks’ notice if health was a major concern.
This should be a very fun match, with both guys firing off shots from start to finish. Nolf’s scrambling and firepower will keep him in any match, and his length advantage could give Oliver trouble defensively. I think Oliver’s superiority in open space, combined with Nolf’s willingness to give him that space, will be telling. He’s thriving under Kenny Monday and the North Carolina RTC, and every part of his game is about as good as it’s ever been. Jordan Oliver by decision
Pat Lugo vs. Luke Pletcher
In the co-main we have two wrestlers having breakout seasons, earning the top seeds at 149 (Lugo) and 141 (Pletcher) before the NCAA tournament was cancelled. Both wrestlers are eager to move on from that disappointment and make an impact on the freestyle scene, and they both begin their senior-level careers on Sunday.
Pat Lugo developed from a good wrestler in his first three seasons in college to an elite one as a senior for the University of Iowa. After a 7th place finish in 2019, he captured the Big Ten championship and the top seed at the national tournament. He has a good high crotch and knee pull to his opponent’s right leg, and operates from collar ties and underhooks very well. In a preview for a match he wrestled at the beginning of the 2019-20 season, I wrote about his game here.
Since then, one of the biggest jumps he made was in his finishing ability, as he converted more of his shots into takedowns and cut down on the counters he surrendered. A big part of this was shooting more head-inside shots, either as traditional outside-step singles or as knee-pulls (a high crotch/single leg hybrid that where the attacker reaches with the inside hand, but then rotates and puts his head to the inside). This played especially well in a 149 lb weight class that was full of guys who counter head-outside shots well, including Sammy Sasso and Jarret Degen; it should also be useful in freestyle, where head outside shots often leave the attacker susceptible to chest wraps and crotch lifts. He also got more aggressive with his forward pressure, which could bode well for a match with pushout points. He also focused more on control ties, especially a left hand underhook and the front headlock, to set up his offense and limit his opponents’ options. He will be staying in Iowa City as a member of the Hawkeye Wrestling Club, and I suspect these trends in his wrestling will continue in his post-college career. Here he is claiming the consensus number one ranking by defeating North Carolina’s Austin O’Connor at the Midlands tournament:
Pletcher’s progression his senior season was even more pronounced. As a short and stocky 133, going up to take on taller wrestlers seemed a dubious proposition. Instead, he seemed to keep all the positives he had in the lower weight and add speed, explosiveness, and work rate to become a force and earn the number 1 seed for the national tournament. Despite his success wrestling for Ohio State, he announced after the season that he would be returning to his native Western Pennsylvania to join the Pittsburgh RTC, a growing program that includes 57/61 kg contender Nico Megaludis.
The hallmark of Pletcher’s game is staying in solid position. He likes to work from a right hand collar tie, and has a good slideby when opponents push into him. His main leg attacks are a right-handed high crotch and single leg, though he can shoot singles to both sides. He also has a double that he shot more frequently last year, especially from open space. He’s good at clearing his opponents’ ties, and capitalizes when they get out of position. One thing that made him such a scoring machine this past season was how relentless he was when his opponents shot and he got to a front headlock, where he would circle to a leg and drive into them hard. Pletcher also finishes his shots very well, both against static defenses like the shin whizzer and dynamic, scrambly ones like rolling and leg passing. From high crotch and double leg shots he often lifts his opponent into the air, which is very important in freestyle because it allows the possibility of a four-point move. To see how far he progressed, look at this dismantling of Nebraska’s Chad Red and realize that Pletcher had previously lost to Red twice.
Compared to the main event, this match could be more of a grind than a shootout, though both wrestlers keep a high pace and there should be a decent amount of scoring. Lugo’s physical, controlling game should play well against a smaller opponent, but Pletcher’s ability to clear ties could help counteract it. Lugo is aggressive yet patient, in the sense that he doesn’t usually commit to an attack that he hasn’t properly set up, which makes it hard for Pletcher to reattack him. Another factor is on the mat, where Lugo has a decent gut wrench and Pletcher has shown some vulnerability in his limited freestyle experience. I’ll pick Lugo by decision
Pat Downey vs. Joe Rau
In the co-main, 86 kg freestyle world teamer Downey takes on 87 kg Greco world teamer Rau. Downey is something of a character and has given himself a wide array of nicknames, including The Unattached Assassin (because a few years ago no teams wanted him and he had to enter tournaments unaffiliated with any club), The Lizard King (because Rock In Peace, Jim Morrison), and Funky Bunky (because who knows). Rau is an entertainer himself, a former NCAA Division III wrestler and aspiring standup comedian. Strangely enough, these two have wrestled twice previously, splitting matches in 2018.
For all his bravado, Downey has actually worked hard and made steady progress over the past few years, culminating in a 2019 US Open win. That turned into a world team spot when world champion David Taylor was unable to compete due to injury. Downey doesn’t have the dynamic offense and leg attacks most top American wrestlers do, but he’s a good handfighter and stays in good position. He is effective with underhooks and a front headlock, and has hit big throws against high level competition. He went a respectable 2-2 at the world championships, with a win over Poland’s Zbigniew “Big Bear” Baranowski.
Downey has competed in some gimmick matches, including a sumo match against Olympic bobsledder Nate Weber and a freestyle match against ADCC silver medalist Nick Rodriguez. Rau, though, as a multiple time world team member, is more of a legitimate test. Rau is also no stranger to freestyle, as he qualified for the freestyle world team trials in 2017 and 2018 (when he finished an impressive fourth). His game mostly consisted of hard handfighting, maintaining his stance, and trying to get to a control position such as underhooks or a front headlock. His opponents more or less refused to engage in upper body positions and tried to get to his legs, but he made some of them pay with his headpinch.
He’s deadly from the top position, as most freestylers just aren’t prepared to deal with his gut wrench.
The negative for Rau is that he often looked slow-footed and unable to keep up with his opponents’ changes in level and direction, a contrast from the more straight-ahead style that predominates in Greco-Roman. When his opponents do get to his legs, he often reacts poorly, and tends to get taken down straight to his back for 4 points, as seen in his demolition at the hands of David Taylor.
At first glance this should be a rout, since Rau basically competes in another sport. Digging deeper, it’s a bit more complicated. Downey’s strengths, namely handfighting and control positions, are Rau’s area of advantage as well. Both athletes are generally stronger defensively than offensively, and will probably struggle to come back from a deficit. In 2018, this was exactly what happened, as Downey seemed to run out of ideas after Rau shut down his underhooks and head snaps, and Rau won handily in the quarterfinals. In the third-place match, Rau was caught off guard with an early rush and gave up four when his counter attempt failed; from there, his limited offense let Downey cruise to the win.
Downey’s best bet is probably to fight against type and hit low-level shots, something he doesn’t do much. Downey will have a marked athletic advantage and is probably a better scrambler in a freestyle setting, but Rau’s par terre could give him six points all in one burst. This is actually a pretty interesting matchup, but as long as Downey shows up in shape and with a decent gameplan, he should have the edge. Pat Downey by decision