Does anybody honestly believe Zain could hang with Metcalf

[Rookburger 7]

Trying to think of the best wrestler Zain faced in college During his sophomore through senior seasons (championship seasons), Compared to who Brent wrestled. I’m thinking a number of those guys like bubba could have taken Zain down and put pressure in ol Zain. Brent would apply pressure the whole match and wear him down. 7-4. 

I think somebody should put together a 16 man bracket of the last 16 individual champions. Then we could each vote on who would win each match. Wouldn’t that be fun? Could seed based in number of national titles with winning percentage number 2 criteria. Maybe JB could put it together.

[Perry 1,429]

Yes, it would be a very close match. Probably a 50/50 where either guy could win it on a given day

[GockeS 548]

yes

[Tofurky 622]

Yes

[ionel 2,559]

Does Zain know the spladle ¯\_(ツ)_/¯

[TobusRex 2,108]

I think Zain would've absolutely wrecked Metcalf. Major, at least.

[TobusRex 2,108]

4 hours ago, Rookburger said:

Trying to think of the best wrestler Zain faced in college During his sophomore through senior seasons (championship seasons), Compared to who Brent wrestled. I’m thinking a number of those guys like bubba could have taken Zain down and put pressure in ol Zain. Brent would apply pressure the whole match and wear him down. 7-4. 

I think somebody should put together a 16 man bracket of the last 16 individual champions. Then we could each vote on who would win each match. Wouldn’t that be fun? Could seed based in number of national titles with winning percentage number 2 criteria. Maybe JB could put it together.

I think you are forgetting how dominant Zain was. Metcalf was never at the level that Zain reached by his Jr year.

[MSU158 2,012]

7 minutes ago, TobusRex said:

I think you are forgetting how dominant Zain was. Metcalf was never at the level that Zain reached by his Jr year.

There is a strong argument that the quality of competition for Retherford was considerably less. Remember, a 15 seeded Perry made the finals Retherfords last season. He wasn’t remotely a Jenkins, Caldwell or Palmer.  Neither was Mayes or Sorenson for that matter  

Retherford was awesome and I would have a hard time picking Metcalf, even though I am a huge fan. But, Metcalf was extremely dominant as well. 

[Rookburger 7]

2 hours ago, TobusRex said:

I think Zain would've absolutely wrecked Metcalf. Major, at least.

C’mon Tobus.How do you figure? He’s going to take him down and ride him? Doubtful. Def no back points. I’d give Zain a takedown. The most overrated three timer ever.

[Mphillips 1,738]

54 minutes ago, Rookburger said:

C’mon Tobus.How do you figure? He’s going to take him down and ride him? Doubtful. Def no back points. I’d give Zain a takedown. The most overrated three timer ever.

That Cat posted, The Spinners, 'Rubber Band Man.' He gets a lifetime pass from me...

@TobusRex

[JeanGuy 147]

I always feel like if a guy is truly dominant their competition is downgraded in some people's opinion. 

Can't really compare guys that come from very different eras. Just call them both great and be done with it. 

[Rookburger 7]

15 minutes ago, Mphillips said:

That Cat posted, The Spinners, 'Rubber Band Man.' He gets a lifetime pass from me...

@TobusRex

This is true. I wasn’t thinking.

[Plasmodium 2,262]

Not sure why the OP  chose Metcalf as a watermark when Caldwell was clearly better than him.  Perhaps he is the new incarnation of RS and he has to keep it Iowa. 

Metcalf had pace and a lot of it. That is why he dominated Bubba, for example. That would be a poor strategy with the Zain Train.  ZR 6-4 over Godcalf.  ZR 6-3 over Caldwell. 

[Cementmixer103 71]

3 hours ago, Rookburger said:

 The most overrated three timer ever.

I disagree with this take. The kid kept great positioning an was an absolute hammer on top. One of the best top position wrestlers ever, in my opinion.

39.47% of his wins were against All-American's. That's a pretty cool stat.

Two time hodge winner. Made a world team while still in college. He beat something like 26 different All-American's in his collegiate career (numerous times). Only had 4 career losses and beat Logan Stieber as a freshman and was a bonus point machine.

He lost to Stieber 3 times his freshman year and to Mitchell Port once. He also took losses to Pico in freestyle.

The kid's a winner and seems like a good person on top of it.

His best win (IMHO) was definitely over Logan. 

Edited April 6, 2020 by Cementmixer103
Spelling

[GockeS 548]

metcalf 08 first title one bonus win a pin

metcalf 09 2nd place 2 pins and a major and loss

metcalf 10 3 2nd title 3 majors

 

Zain 14 5th place no bonus wins

Zain 16 1st champ 3 pins a tech and a major in the final over 2nd seed sorensen of iowa (he pinned iowa's other guy lugo)

zain 17 2nd champ 4 techs and a pin   teched mayes 3rd seed in final

zain 18 3rd title 2 techs and a pin

[Eagle26 598]

From Cinnabons to burgers...

[MSU158 2,012]

58 minutes ago, Plasmodium said:

Not sure why the OP  chose Metcalf as a watermark when Caldwell was clearly better than him.  Perhaps he is the new incarnation of RS and he has to keep it Iowa. 

Metcalf had pace and a lot of it. That is why he dominated Bubba, for example. That would be a poor strategy with the Zain Train.  ZR 6-4 over Godcalf.  ZR 6-3 over Caldwell. 

Caldwell was a bad matchup for Metcalf, but clearly better?  I love how everyone just summarily dismisses the All Star result. 

Caldwell was definitely super talented, very dangerous and a very good wrestler  when peaked. However, he was absolutely inconsistent and injury prone. There is a reason he was only a 1xer. 

Metcalf, on the other hand, was probably the most consistent wrestler from the beginning of his career to the very end.  He was going to be just as hard to beat in November as he was in March. 

[TobusRex 2,108]

37 minutes ago, Cementmixer103 said:

I disagree with this take. The kid kept great positioning an was an absolute hammer on top. One of the best top position wrestlers ever, in my opinion.

Two time hodge winner. Made a world team while still in college. He beat something like 26 different All-American's in his collegiate career (numerous times). Only had 4 career losses and beat Logan Stieber as a freshman and was a bonus point machine.

He took losses to Pico in freestyle but I don't count freestyle towards college wrestling. 

Kids a winner and seems like a good person on top of it.

Not only that I think a majority of the guys in this forum thought Zain should've gotten the Hodge his SOPH year as well (over Dieringer). He was more dominant than Ringer was, despite losing the award to Ringer.

Regarding Metcalf and the "stacked" tourney everybody crows about: those guys weren't all NCAA champions at the time. In fact NONE of those guys had won an NCAA title at that point (except Schlatter before he blew his knee out 2 or 3 years before), and I find it ridiculous when people say "oh yeah, there were 5 National Champs, 3 runnerups, blah blah blah" at that tourney. Guys get better (and sometimes worse) over the course of their careers. The Jordan Burroughs that finished 3rd that year wasn't anywhere near as good as the Burroughs that won 2 NCAA titles, the Dustin Schlatter that finished 7th that year was a SHELL of the Dustin Schlatter that won the NCAA title a few years before. JP O'Connor won an NCAA title at a higher weight class a year or two later. Just look at the wrestlers results and be content with that. Fact is: Zain was more dominant. Would he have majored Metcalf?? Probably not,  I was talking a little out my ass, but I think Zain would've properly hammered him from the top and Metcalf's motor would've given out. Zain was, at least (imo), 4 or 5 points better than Metcalf as college wrestlers.

For the record I think Zain isn't all that far behind a couple of the 4 timers. I'd compare the last 3 years of Zain's career to any college wrestler, and that includes Cael.

Edited April 6, 2020 by TobusRex

[GockeS 548]

metcalf was always content to win by 6

[Cementmixer103 71]

39.47% of his wins were against All-American's. That's a pretty cool stat.

[GockeS 548]

which one?

[TobusRex 2,108]

Just now, Cementmixer103 said:

39.47% of his wins were against All-American's. That's a pretty cool stat.

It is, but he had the benefit of a B1G schedule. Lots of good wrestlers in that conference.

For the record I like Metcalf, although at the time I didn't like him much (seemed like too much of a hothead). He was a great college wrestler, but Zain was better. Yeah, Metcalf was better on his feet, but that's no guarantee he'd have been able to take Zain down.

[MSU158 2,012]

1 minute ago, GockeS said:

metcalf 08 first title one bonus win a pin

metcalf 09 2nd place 2 pins and a major and loss

metcalf 10 3 2nd title 3 majors

 

Zain 14 5th place no bonus wins

Zain 16 1st champ 3 pins a tech and a major in the final over 2nd seed sorensen of iowa (he pinned iowa's other guy lugo)

zain 17 2nd champ 4 techs and a pin   teched mayes 3rd seed in final

zain 18 3rd title 2 techs and a pin

This sounds a lot like the Taylor vs Dake comparisons. Those didn’t work out too well for Taylor.  

Also, it can be a bit misleading when you say it like you did. Including the scores of the other matches, again similar to Dake, would show that nearly all the matches weren’t close, even if they didn’t result in bonus:

08:(argued to be the toughest bracket of all time)  fall over Rowe, 10-5 over Kinser, 3-2 over Palmer(I would argue him to be much better than anyone Retherford wrestled at 149), 8-4 over Burroughs and 14-8 over Jenkins. 

09:  fall over Levalley, fall over Barnes, 14-5 over Terry, 6-2 over Palmer and loss 11-6 to Caldwell. 

10:  15-6 over Washington,  20-7 over Borschoff,  16-4 over Mueller, 6-2 over Terry and 3-2 over Palmer. 

[TobusRex 2,108]

3 minutes ago, GockeS said:

metcalf was always content to win by 6

Then why was he crushing the vast majority of his opponents? I think you are confusing Metcalf with Dake, maybe. Don't know how, lol, but the brain works in weird ways.

[GockeS 548]

it was a joke

a play on something metcalf said... or some other iowa guy

" he was content to lose by 3" or something to that effect when the other guy was down but still stalling 

Edited April 6, 2020 by GockeS