American universities dropping wrestling

Stephen_King

Apparently this has been going on for some time, quite a few universities in the States are dropping their wrestling and football program's in favour of (no s*it) men’s golf and 'soccer'. From what I gather the reason's are numerous, ranging from budgetary restraints to gender equality legislation, but it looks like collegiate wrestling might be dying a slow death.

What affect (if any) do you think this will have on the future development of American MMA fighters, given that most of the top American fighter's have roots in collegiate wrestling?

http://www.sherdog.com/news/news/Brilz-Praying-for-a-Miracle-After-Wrestling-Power-UNO-Drops-Program-30907

http://news.theopenmat.com/2011/03/the-hits-keep-coming-uncg-to-eliminate-erestling-program/

http://www.google.ie/search?sourceid=navclient&ie=UTF-8&rlz=1T4ADFA_enIE369IE369&q=universities+eliminate+wrestling

Barry.Oglesby

From my pal in the US... basically there's a lack of support for the programmes and parents don't necessarily want their kids wrestling. There's a huge shift towards "softer" (read non-combat) sports. He reckons wrestling could easily be an extreme minority sport in the US in 10 years. The big colleges and better equipped high schools will always win through of course. In his opinion not enough has been done to promote wrestling in cities and in poorer areas. In may respects it's still seen as a more rural sport according to him.

I'm paraphrasing our last conversation (we were talking about something else but this came up) but yeah, he thinks it's dieing and he say the UFC/MMA is doing nothing for it. He says that kids are wrestling to 14/15 then joining an MMA gym in a lot of cases. 3 years later they're not training at all whereas they might have trained up to college at least if they'd stuck with wrestling.

All of this is second hand but he got quite animated about it

Stephen_King

Barry.Oglesby wrote: »

From my pal in the US... basically there's a lack of support for the programmes and parents don't necessarily want their kids wrestling. There's a huge shift towards "softer" (read non-combat) sports. He reckons wrestling could easily be an extreme minority sport in the US in 10 years. The big colleges and better equipped high schools will always win through of course. In his opinion not enough has been done to promote wrestling in cities and in poorer areas. In may respects it's still seen as a more rural sport according to him.

I'm paraphrasing our last conversation (we were talking about something else but this came up) but yeah, he thinks it's dieing and he say the UFC/MMA is doing nothing for it. He says that kids are wrestling to 14/15 then joining an MMA gym in a lot of cases. 3 years later they're not training at all whereas they might have trained up to college at least if they'd stuck with wrestling.

All of this is second hand but he got quite animated about it

I would imagine he did, most of the forum posts etc I read about it are the same-wrestling is seen as the American's traditional marital art (along with boxing) and its supporters are generally very passionate about it. The collegiate leagues give (or gave) the tradition a huge support structure, with sports scholarships, an organised competitive league, a talent pool and progression path for the Olympic team etc.

I just find it a bit odd, I would have thought that given the (generally) positive exposure American wrestling has had in the UFC, that there's not a bit more support for it. As you mentioned though, it should definitely work out better for the MMA gyms over there, at least in the short term.