Amercian freestyle Mt. Rushmore without Olympic gold?

[Katie 1,076]

Can a wrestler be considered to be part of the American freestyle Mt. Rushmore without winning an Olympic gold medal?

Incredible American wrestlers who never won Olympic gold include:

• Kyle Dake (2 golds, 1 bronze)
• J'Den Cox (2 golds, 2 bronze)
• Terry Brands (2 golds, 1 bronze)
• Lee Kemp (3 golds, 1 bronze)

[Mokoma 324]

Just now, Katie said:

Can a wrestler be considered to be part of the American freestyle Mt. Rushmore without winning an Olympic gold medal?

Incredible American wrestlers who never won Olympic gold include:

• Kyle Dake (2 golds, 1 bronze)
• J'Den Cox (2 golds, 2 bronze)
• Terry Brands (2 golds, 1 bronze)
• Lee Kemp (3 golds, 1 bronze)

Interesting that none of them have a silver.

[de4856 370]

So here’s three,

Rick Sanders. Three world medals, ( 1, Gold, 1 Silver, and 1 Bronze, along with two Olympic Silvers. Might have had more except that he was killed in a tragic automobile accident. Additionally Sanders like Bobby Douglas competed in Greco as well as Freestyle on the World team. 
Larry Kristoff winner of 5 World medals, ( 3 Silvers, 2 Bronze ). Plus a pretty good coaching career afterwards. 
Bobby Douglas as mentioned above Wrestled Freestyle and Greco, and won a World Silver and a Bronze. Like Kristoff, Douglas had a very significant coaching career afterwards. 

[Billyhoyle 2,469]

It's hard for me to put Dake and Cox at the level of Kemp and Brands, given that their golds all came at the less competitive non olympic weights. Zeke Jones should be considered with these names as well.  

 

 

[GreatWhiteNorth 530]

1 hour ago, Katie said:

Can a wrestler be considered to be part of the American freestyle Mt. Rushmore without winning an Olympic gold medal?

Incredible American wrestlers who never won Olympic gold include:

• Kyle Dake (2 golds, 1 bronze)
• J'Den Cox (2 golds, 2 bronze)
• Terry Brands (2 golds, 1 bronze)
• Lee Kemp (3 golds, 1 bronze)

 

[de4856 370]

Another one might be Bill Scheer, an Olympic Bronze, a World Gold, two World Silvers, and a World Bronze. 

[CJE64 21]

If one is going to make the distinction between Olympic vs non Olympic weights then shouldn’t one also make a distinction between Olympic medals earned in games with just 6 weight classes vs. those earned with 10 or more?  Math wise, the depth of field for each weight increases as the number of classes decreases, especially in the middle weight classes. Thus medals won in a 10 weight class era would be viewed as being less impressive than those won recently.  The double bronze would also have to be considered in some regard. I have argued for some time that it is unwise for uww to keep a selection of the same classes for the olympics that they use for non olympic years. Establishing Olympic weights between the existing non olympic weights would force all competitors to cut or bulk for the olympics and better distribute all talent across the non olympic classes removing the disparity that exists 3/4 of the time currently. The six weight class limit at the Olympics is an injustice to the sport imo. It just doesnt accurately represent the broad distribution of the talent globally in a fair manner relative to the pool of participans.

[NJDan 1,058]

8 hours ago, Billyhoyle said:

It's hard for me to put Dake and Cox at the level of Kemp and Brands, given that their golds all came at the less competitive non olympic weights. Zeke Jones should be considered with these names as well.  

 

 

At the time Kemp and Brands were wrestling there were 10 Oly weights so 4 of them, I guess, were "less competitive."

[Lurker 2,033]

8 hours ago, Billyhoyle said:

It's hard for me to put Dake and Cox at the level of Kemp and Brands, given that their golds all came at the less competitive non olympic weights. Zeke Jones should be considered with these names as well.  

 

 

I don't necessarily disagree but I think there has to be some weight to the fact its still ten weights, and Dake and Cox had a bracketful of Russians.  If there is one soviet union, Dake doesn't get waxed in the semi's by a Belarussian.  But I kinda agree with the theme of if you're going to be on the Mt Rushmore, you have to have won the pinnacle of the sport.

[jchapman 1,317]

I put Kemp on Mt. Rushmore.  The 1980 Oly boycott was unfortunate.  It was right in the middle of Kemp's prime.  Plus Kemp won the 1980 World Super Championship.

[Katie 1,076]

[Deleted — Posted something similar to jchapman at nearly the same time]

Edited September 13, 2021 by Katie

[de4856 370]

Well if we are going old era vs new, that may need it’s own thread. You can say a lot about what it was compared to what is. But I think the best way to look at it is, our wrestlers competed in their time, and regardless of the hardships or benefits, they did what they did. 
 

[GoNotQuietly 1,168]

I think the more Russians and less weight classes certainly at least equals out any argument about modern non-olympic weights being less competitive. 

[HawkY 112]

9 hours ago, CJE64 said:

 The six weight class limit at the Olympics is an injustice to the sport imo. It just doesnt accurately represent the broad distribution of the talent globally in a fair manner relative to the pool of participans.

The one per nation rule is a much bigger culprit of this than the weight class shrinkage in the Olympics. The  US has a ridiculous amount of people mass participating in wrestling and is producing excess elite level talents compared to the starkly limited opportunities. The one per nation rule really is designed for the old the eastern European model where you have a group of maybe 50 people in a fairly broad age cohort try their hand in wrestling and it naturally whittles down to one or two reps with a couple backups to make up the wrestling scene in their country. 

You can also analyze it in a facts on the ground manner besides amount  weight class . In the  1950s Turkey won in FS since barely anyone in the world practiced FS then. Their fortunes dramatically declined when the Soviets began taking FS seriously. Thanks to Ossetia and Dagestan Russia has kept its high level in FS. 

[de4856 370]

So this got me thinking, I know that we have a National Wrestling Hall of Fame in Stillwater, and we have the Dan Gable museum. I have never been to either so I don’t know what they have there. I do know what you can run a person’s name in the Nat Hall of Fame and see if they are there, and when I ran Bobby Douglas it just showed a picture of his plaque and very little else. So, I thought who decides who’s in our out, and what criteria do they use? But the point that I am getting at is that I think USA Wrestling should have a page, or a section of Hall of Famers. Thoughts ? 

[Plasmodium 2,218]

6 hours ago, HawkY said:

The one per nation rule is a much bigger culprit of this than the weight class shrinkage in the Olympics. The  US has a ridiculous amount of people mass participating in wrestling and is producing excess elite level talents compared to the starkly limited opportunities. The one per nation rule really is designed for the old the eastern European model where you have a group of maybe 50 people in a fairly broad age cohort try their hand in wrestling and it naturally whittles down to one or two reps with a couple backups to make up the wrestling scene in their country. 

You can also analyze it in a facts on the ground manner besides amount  weight class . In the  1950s Turkey won in FS since barely anyone in the world practiced FS then. Their fortunes dramatically declined when the Soviets began taking FS seriously. Thanks to Ossetia and Dagestan Russia has kept its high level in FS. 

This seems overstated.  Only a couple of countries were able to field a full team. Outside of Russia, very few countries were running two deep on medal contenders at any weight.  Anyway, here is a good article on where the Olympic wrestlers actually come from.  Transferring is straightforward and I bet it is not hard to read the tea leaves of your future in the Russian Wrestling Federation fairly early on.  Wrestlers only transferred from three countries, one of which is Cuba and they are  probably looking for something other than wrestling.  For the US, my impression is Micic has strong ties to Serbia and would prefer  representing them.

Edited September 13, 2021 by Plasmodium

[HawkY 112]

25 minutes ago, Plasmodium said:

This seems overstated.  Only a couple of countries were able to field a full team. Outside of Russia, very few countries were running two deep on medal contenders at any weight.  Anyway, here is a good article on where the Olympic wrestlers actually come from.  Transferring is straightforward and I bet it is not hard to read the tea leaves of your future in the Russian Wrestling Federation fairly early on.  Wrestlers only transferred from three countries, one of which is Cuba and they are  probably looking for something other than wrestling.  For the US, my impression is Micic has strong ties to Serbia and would prefer  representing them.

Thats kind of my point. I'm not that saying  number 2s in Italy, France  and Armenia aren't getting an opportunity . Just that  a lot of top talent  is concentrated in very few countries , like Russia.

Transferring has to do with citizenship and the program that each country runs right.  It still has hurdles that you need to cross,  plus the lack of money in wrestling. As these sort of pioneer generations from Russia establish themselves and make it easier for their compatriots to network and transfer over, I wouldn't be surprised if it becomes the norm for central and Eastern Euro FS teams to have  Russian Fed reps in the future. 

Well it is a win win for Micic . You can claim whatever reason you want but walking into a country with a weak wrestling culture after developing in the US just gives him more opportunities.