Why is sportsmanship in wrestling so very poor

[knoxpk]

I wrestled all 4 years of high school and for a year afterwards. I wrestled in a very competitive state (California) and rarely encountered any of the extreme attitudes some of the posters before me have mentioned. I can only remember 2 instances (both were during the state qualifying tournament) where I was surprised by the attitudes of my opponents or their coaches.

One of my opponent's coaches actually told him to sell his soul to the devil if it meant beating me. (I actually find this quite amusing now).

It is true that the win-at-all-costs mentality is present in wrestling but my coaches and most of my oppoonents coaches did not let us use that as an excuse to act like idiots if we lost. Nor did they ostracize wrestlers who lost; unless God forbid, you quit or gave less than 100%.

Maybe its the more laid back attitude we have regarding life in general in California, but it is very possible to be intense and ultra competitive without acting like a spoiled child after losing.

This is Far more common IMO and along the lines of what I was saying on page 4.

Touche.



Im not so much advocating DISrespect. For example Samuel Braga with Gui Mendes was really inappropriate. That kind of thing is common sense.

But the idea of forced "respect" goes way too far. So what if I lose and leave the mat without shaking the other guys hand? It's not an intentional insult, so much as I just lost and want to leave. For example Forrest leaving the cage when he loses. Why is that bad? Why should he have to stand there, feeling like shit, pretending he feels a way he doesnt? People actually get mad about things like that, and its ridiculous to me. That kind of "respect" isn't a real thing. Its an expected act for some reason. If you are upset you lost, and wanna leave, fucking leave. People expect so much of other people. Maybe I just have poor social skills. Whatever. People should be able to do what they want without other people running their mouths.

I agree with this also, FORCING someone to act a certain way since it is agreed upon to be the correct way to act.

Granted I think it IS better to be able to dust yourself off and live to fight another day but if you are really upset about a loss, why give the guy who just beat you a handjob?

That seems to be way to prevalent in sports nowadays!

 

[Kozbot]

You don't understand. It gets into the parents too. The parents will actually go along with all of it. I don't like it either but it's how things were and if you didn't like it you could leave. That was the only alternative.

Again, I like BJJ so much more just because you're expected to come in and get your ass kicked in order to learn. I like that. Plus the commarderie is there win or lose.

I wrestled in HS and while intense we never left a kid behind for losing

 

[knoxpk]

I wrestled in HS and while intense we never left a kid behind for losing

I know this whole thread smells of mel gibson 'esque scare tactics!

You deserve to be noodle whipped by a pack of wild gypsies!

Give me back my son!

 

[troublefunk]

In the first two years of my son's H.S. wrestling career I have seen very little bad attitude or negative behavior.

Smack talk is rare, and usually quickly stomped out by coaches and teammates. In wrestling you get to show how tough you are (or are not) on the mat, so tough guy antics are not nessecary (and indicate fear).

Most of the time neither the winner or loser shows a lot of emotion. Everyone in the gym saw what happened, no need to prance around like a peacock if you won, or be ashamed if you lost (so long as you competed hard)

While I understand the "winning is everything" attitude that a lot of posters describe, I have to respectfully disagree with it's merits. Win or lose, it takes courage to put yourself on the mat with people watching. You give everything you have, and generally the better wrestler wins. If you win, you celebrate for a few minutes, but life carries on, and you have to keep practicing and sacrifice to keep winning. If you lose, you are pissed off for a few minutes, but life carries on, you keep practicing and sacrificing to win the next one.

The kid I admire most on my son team is one of the worst wrestlers. He is a horrible athlete (weak, slow, uncoordinated). He is also a bit timid and shy. He only wrestles JV and almost always gets mauled. But he still shows up to practice every day to work hard and get better. Would you? Would you have the determination to keep coming to practice, knowing that you were never going to be even mediocre?

After 4 years he will still be a lousy wrestler, but I challenge you to explain to me how he is not a success story for wrestling.

 

[AgonyandIrony]

You wrestle to win, that's the only reason. It's an ultra competitive sport. Ask any wrestler to recount his first loss and see why everyone's so serious.

 

[206warrior]

where do you watch and when is it???

 

[killakoy]

Good story. In my previous posts, I was delving into my mentality as a wrestler and I think others have generalized the type of mentality that wrestlers have. However, I respect all that have gone out on the mat to give their 100%.

Cool anecdote:
The wrestler I was most proud of on my H.S. team wasn't who you'd expect. We had state champions, others who would go on to the collegiate level, and even others who would make it semi-big in MMA, but I've never seen heart quite like this one kid. If I said he had not a shred of athletic talent, that would be an understatement. But he was determined to be on the team.

Let me take a step back and say our coach didn't believe in cutting. We had a self-cut. We'd have hellacious 3-hour practice that would start with anywhere from a 2-mile to 10-mile warm-up run. That was always the easiest part of the practice, in which we'd hot-box ourselves in our wrestling room which was a small, portable building with all the windows closed (I swear it'd make it into the 100's with 100% humidity). We'd start a season with ~80 people and end with ~20-30 people. These were not easy practices as there were a lot of varsity football players that even cut themselves.

Anyway, the kid I'm talking about has no business being there. He's the dead last to finish the run. Comes into the wrestling room and gets tooled for the full 3 hours... only taking breaks to run outside and puke. I shit you not, he puked every single practice we had (even if he didn't eat the whole day). But he did everything that everyone else did... or at least most.

Every Saturday was like routine. He would go out for his JV match and lose, usually with a pin. But every Monday he'd still be there doing the same things everyone else was. One Saturday, he had been paired up with a girl wrestler... she quickly pinned him. But come Monday he was still there. This went on from one season to the next. Finally, his last year, in one of his last matches, he did the unthinkable. He pinned his opponent! Our team went ape-shit! Heart... it's an amazing thing. Our coach went on to tell him at our end-of-the-year banquet that it was a pleasure coaching him and he had one of the biggest hearts he's seen in all of his years competing and coaching.

 

[fourfif**]

In the first two years of my son's H.S. wrestling career I have seen very little bad attitude or negative behavior.

Smack talk is rare, and usually quickly stomped out by coaches and teammates. In wrestling you get to show how tough you are (or are not) on the mat, so tough guy antics are not nessecary (and indicate fear).

Most of the time neither the winner or loser shows a lot of emotion. Everyone in the gym saw what happened, no need to prance around like a peacock if you won, or be ashamed if you lost (so long as you competed hard)

this was more my experience.


The CHARACTER of the wrestlers I know and respect is what I remember most.

 

[D4rthKitty]

It's because you do wrestling for the competition

No other reason, at all. BJJ you can do for self defense, maybe even to stay in shape

Wrestling you want to prove you are the best.

Particularly if you were watching wrestling from either rival schools or international level

They are generally not mean, or anything like that. Wrestlers tend to be very good friends with people on there team, just not people on others

 

[Gabicho]

Well I know a bit about the wrestling scene in Germany, and it's nowhere near what everyone is explaining here.

Could it be that it doesn't have to do with teh sport really but rather with college sport culture in the US ?

I'm surprised to see so much people agreeing on how the wrestling scene and mentality go in the USA.
I know pan-american and olympic wrestlers from Venezuela and Mexico, and they are nothing like that.
I also know russian wrestlers and while they may be "cold" with their opponents when they win, they rarely if ever give a bitch attitude when they lose.

edit: Have to say i'm shocked about this thread. Amazing to see that even grapplers consider most wrestlers violent competitive selfish meatheads. I didn't know the scene in the USA was so bad.

 

[Scooter Brown]

Okay, that second paragraph made a lot more sense than the first one.

 

[AgonyandIrony]

I'm surprised to see so much people agreeing on how the wrestling scene and mentality go in the USA.
I know pan-american and olympic wrestlers from Venezuela and Mexico, and they are nothing like that.
I also know russian wrestlers and while they may be "cold" with their opponents when they win, they rarely if ever give a bitch attitude when they lose.

edit: Have to say i'm shocked about this thread. Amazing to see that even grapplers consider most wrestlers violent competitive selfish meatheads. I didn't know the scene in the USA was so bad.

People are just agreeing how hyper competitive American wrestlers are. For good reason, there's a reason why we dominant the FS Wrestling globally.

 

[knoxpk]

I'm surprised to see so much people agreeing on how the wrestling scene and mentality go in the USA.
I know pan-american and olympic wrestlers from Venezuela and Mexico, and they are nothing like that.
I also know russian wrestlers and while they may be "cold" with their opponents when they win, they rarely if ever give a bitch attitude when they lose.

edit: Have to say i'm shocked about this thread. Amazing to see that even grapplers consider most wrestlers violent competitive selfish meatheads. I didn't know the scene in the USA was so bad.

Meh, I think like anything else, the actions of a few reflects on many. There are plenty of us that have been around wrestling for long periods of time and yes we have seen everything. But the most prevalent attitude IS competitiveness and while there are some jack asses that is not the norm.

 

[phillys-finest]

I'm honestly not particularly to friendly before or during a match. The only time i'll smile at you is if im doing it to be condescending. Wrestling is much more intense than BJJ. Be cordial in wrestling and see how far you get. Have you ever seen a wrestler after winning a big tournament especially olympics? They make mma fighters look tame. Guys jumping in to metal bleachers,throwing coaches into the air,spazzing to the max lol.
For the longest you had the mentality that this guy was going to beat you infront of your friends, your family, possibly your country. You don't want to be his friend at that moment. You see him tomorrow and shake hands and smile at each other.

Some people are just jerks however. Their goal is to kill and destroy everything infront of them.......they win championships.......looking at you brock

Wrestlers/football(US) players are bipolar. Aggressive during sport and usually normal after.

 

[Normot]

People are just agreeing how hyper competitive American wrestlers are. For good reason, there's a reason why we dominant the FS Wrestling globally.

We don't...

 

[Normot]

There is a shit ton of exaggeration in this thread.

 

[hughes fan]

I do admit to touching gloves in training without looking at someone if I'm pissed off, so transform that to a much larger stage where tensions run high against people who have trained forever to be there and you understand why frustration may cause them to act in a manner deemed unsportsmanlike.

 

[Gabicho]

Meh, I think like anything else, the actions of a few reflects on many. There are plenty of us that have been around wrestling for long periods of time and yes we have seen everything. But the most prevalent attitude IS competitiveness and while there are some jack asses that is not the norm.

Agreed.

There's a few gyms/trainers/wrestlers that bitch SO much about loses or bad performances that they give a very bad reflection of the sport in general.
But it's been blown out of proportion in this thread.
I'd even suggest people who think wrestlers are "athletic evil win-or-die cave-men" to go to a wrestling club. You'll be pleasantly surprised (unless you come across a pseudo-spartan coach, which there are also in Judo, BJJ and any other sport or profession).

 

[curb1850]

Interesting thread to read for sure. I do agree that forced "sportsmanship" is crap.

 

[radman]

Read that Dan Gable article from yesterday that someone posted. Gable said the non-U.S. wrestlers are not like the U.S. wrestlers. He said they quit when you get ahead on them.

Just sayin, that's what Gable said.

Butthey still bring home medals.