raf tonight

Jul 4, 2025
231
600
93
Leydecker, an Iowa recruit, got beat 10-3 by the world silver medalist Guzman. A little inexperience shown by Leydecker on those single legs, giving up the cheap tilts.
 

HawkAlum2002

Senior
Oct 18, 2017
307
653
93
O'toole had a worse RAF debut than Spencer or Zahid had. Tough match for Leydecker but it's refreshing that our women's pound for pound number one recruit is still only 17 where the tops guys in her same class are practically college sophomore age.
 
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Sep 20, 2018
96
359
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Leydecker, an Iowa recruit, got beat 10-3 by the world silver medalist Guzman. A little inexperience shown by Leydecker on those single legs, giving up the cheap tilts.
I absolutely f*cking hate those tilts. Idc if it's our wrestler scoring those points. It's an awful scoring mechanic and always has been.

With that said, I'm pumped for Leydecker to get to Iowa City.
 

InTheBlood45

Freshman
Feb 6, 2014
39
51
18
UFC guy throwing knees and punches at end of match. Looked like it was planned to me, all his fans in the stands on the mat fighting right away.
 

Babbahganoosh

Sophomore
May 4, 2023
66
196
33
Their target audience extends WAY past us wrestling fans!

They are aiming at getting mma fans involved, thus them calling matches “fights” and setting up matches with non wrestlers or 40+ year old former wrestlers with huge mma followings.

That was the greatest thing ever imagined for them!
 

HawkAlum2002

Senior
Oct 18, 2017
307
653
93
I'm guessing Armen won't be invited back. It's too bad he wasn't in there with someone that would've teched him and humiliated him, but if that's how he responded to struggling against a low level guy he'd probably handle losing even worse. And you don't even need guys like that around. Most of the MMA guys understand they are the underdogs and have a good time with the challenge, but he seemed to have no idea what a competitive wrestling match entails. He beat Lance Palmer so quick maybe he thought he was actually really good at this.
 

Libertylover

All-Conference
Dec 17, 2020
769
1,280
93
Yes.
It was only a matter of time until the mean mugging and woofing led to something like this. RAF cannot expand the footprint of freestyle wrestling in any positive way It will only degrade it.
When you bring mma guys and want to tap into that fan base and WWE fan base, this is what you will get.
 
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vhsalum

All-Conference
Nov 14, 2002
947
2,051
93
Yes.
It was only a matter of time until the mean mugging and woofing led to something like this. RAF cannot expand the footprint of freestyle wrestling in any positive way It will only degrade it.
It won't degrade the footprint of freestyle wrestling. And it won't add anything positive to it either. It just won't bring in new fans who will actually care about FS wrestling.

RAF, if it is successful, will be because it didn't/doesn't cater to hardcore wrestling fans. It's going to be WWE/UFC. I guess kudos if they create their own market, but yeah...


No Way Randy GIF by Zack Kantor
 
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dtripp26

Heisman
Oct 29, 2003
10,184
30,401
113
This was always the path RAF was going to take IMO. In a mix of real wrestling and MMA/WWE type products, real wrestling will always take the back seat.
 
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HawkAlum2002

Senior
Oct 18, 2017
307
653
93
This was always the path RAF was going to take IMO. In a mix of real wrestling and MMA/WWE type products, real wrestling will always take the back seat.

It's a mix, but you don't change weight classes around to align with Olympic weights and sign the best international guys in the world to make dream matches happen if it's the back seat. But you can't just have matches for the sake of matches either, freestyle wrestling doesn't draw anybody on it's own and will be back on the chopping block in no time if it stays that way. It's sad to see at most 400 people in a crowd to watch tournaments like last week for Lee and DeSanto that on paper actually mean something for rankings. And we're told the international wrestling fans care more about it than American fans, but it doesn't bare that out. It's cool to see how many kids are actually at the RAF events (and that's why you see the social media guys compete on the shows too), which is actually how you do grow the sport. Kids aren't really at MMA shows, WWE is dying except among the celebrities that buy their overpriced tickets and doing shows in Saudi Arabia, so amateur wrestling has a chance to fill that niche void in this moment. Bassett screwed us over, but he's still great for the sport. Hopefully Leydecker can be the female version of that. And I just watched an Okie State guy come out dressed like Michael Myers against Iowa, so it's not an "RAF thing", it's just common sense to be entertaining when you can be otherwise we wouldn't have entrance songs for dual meets to begin with. AJ doing his splits after a win gets a better reaction than the win itself, and people that bought tickets look forward to seeing it. It's always about the total package being entertaining, in every sport. We just had two Olympic gold medal hockey games decided in 3 on 3 overtimes. That's not real hockey for the purists, but damn if it wasn't entertaining and drew more eyeballs than almost any hockey game ever and the sport is better for it going forward.
 
Last edited:

BrianLafevre

Senior
Jun 30, 2025
216
752
93
It's a mix, but you don't change weight classes around to align with Olympic weights and sign the best international guys in the world to make dream matches happen if it's the back seat. But you can't just have matches for the sake of matches either, freestyle wrestling doesn't draw anybody on it's own and will be back on the chopping block in no time if it stays that way. It's sad to see at most 400 people in a crowd to watch tournaments like last week for Lee and DeSanto that on paper actually mean something for rankings. And we're told the international wrestling fans care more about it than American fans, but it doesn't bare that out. It's cool to see how many kids are actually at the RAF events (and that's why you see the social media guys compete on the shows too), which is actually how you do grow the sport. Kids aren't really at MMA shows, WWE is dying except among the celebrities that buy their overpriced tickets and doing shows in Saudi Arabia, so amateur wrestling has a chance to fill that niche void in this moment. Bassett screwed us over, but he's still great for the sport. Hopefully Leydecker can be the female version of that. And I just watched an Okie State guy come out dressed like Michael Myers against Iowa, so it's not an "RAF thing", it's just common sense to be entertaining when you can be otherwise we wouldn't have entrance songs for dual meets to begin with. AJ doing his splits after a win gets a better reaction than the win itself, and people that bought tickets look forward to seeing it. It's always about the total package being entertaining, in every sport. We just had to Olympic gold medal hockey games decided in 3 on 3 overtimes. That's not real hockey for the purists, but damn if it wasn't entertaining and drew more eyeballs than almost any hockey game ever and the sport is better for it going forward.
RAF, like other leagues before it is great for amateur wrestling. Another way to make money as a post graduate that gets athletes names out there is a net positive.

UWW world championships doesn’t move the needle and the Olympics are only every four years.

The ones crying about the entertainment factor are the same ones that nearly allowed wrestling to be dropped from the Olympics.
 
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WillieTheBrain

All-Conference
Jun 29, 2025
187
1,075
93
It's a mix, but you don't change weight classes around to align with Olympic weights and sign the best international guys in the world to make dream matches happen if it's the back seat. But you can't just have matches for the sake of matches either, freestyle wrestling doesn't draw anybody on it's own and will be back on the chopping block in no time if it stays that way. It's sad to see at most 400 people in a crowd to watch tournaments like last week for Lee and DeSanto that on paper actually mean something for rankings. And we're told the international wrestling fans care more about it than American fans, but it doesn't bare that out. It's cool to see how many kids are actually at the RAF events (and that's why you see the social media guys compete on the shows too), which is actually how you do grow the sport. Kids aren't really at MMA shows, WWE is dying except among the celebrities that buy their overpriced tickets and doing shows in Saudi Arabia, so amateur wrestling has a chance to fill that niche void in this moment. Bassett screwed us over, but he's still great for the sport. Hopefully Leydecker can be the female version of that. And I just watched an Okie State guy come out dressed like Michael Myers against Iowa, so it's not an "RAF thing", it's just common sense to be entertaining when you can be otherwise we wouldn't have entrance songs for dual meets to begin with. AJ doing his splits after a win gets a better reaction than the win itself, and people that bought tickets look forward to seeing it. It's always about the total package being entertaining, in every sport. We just had two Olympic gold medal hockey games decided in 3 on 3 overtimes. That's not real hockey for the purists, but damn if it wasn't entertaining and drew more eyeballs than almost any hockey game ever and the sport is better for it going forward.
good take imo.

i'm involved so i'm obviously proud/protective/optimistic

but i like what we've done so far. i think it's been a good balance of really great wrestling with some get-the-eyeballs type stuff. and i know what we have coming up.

i totally get the push back on some of the fluff and pure entertainment. i sometimes roll my eyes at it myself. but at the same time, Kadi-Dake-Wick and Givi-Buchanan are absolutely world class type bouts that put FS on full display.