No more wrestling in the Olympics?!?

[TheGlyphstone]

Olympic Professional Wrestling would be hilarious and awesome.

[Brittany]

Olympic Professional Wrestling would be hilarious and awesome.

I read an article where people were arguing for amateur wrestling, and some professional wrestler was saying they should have Olympic professional wrestling, and make it like gymnastics and ice skating where they put on a show and are scored by judges.   ;D

The guy was really serious too! :)

[Oniya]

Professional wrestling (as a choreographed event like ice skating)

That's - brilliant!

[Brittany]

That's - brilliant!

WWE wrestler and Robot Combat League Host Chris Jericho : “Think about it, pro wrestling as an Olympic sport would be pretty cool. Look at figure skating or gymnastics, what is it? It’s a choreographed performance that is judged. It’s whoever puts on the best performance. Why can’t you do that with different countries like a Canadian team, an American team and a German team go in there. Then whoever puts on the best match according to the judges wins. You take two of the best American workers in a match against each other and get scored by the judges. It’s the exact same thing as figures skating, so why not?"

;D

[TheGlyphstone]

Would you only judge the choreography, though, or would the attached storyline be scored as well? :D

[Oniya]

I want tickets for the Mexico/Japan cruiser-weight match.

[Brittany]

Would you only judge the choreography, though, or would the attached storyline be scored as well? :D

5 available points for the entrance
5 available points for the storyline and interviews
5 available points for the choreography
5 available points for the costume and character name
5 points for creative use of household items
Bonus point for how entertaining their ringside manager is

To be honest.... it already sounds better than everything in the olympics besides gymnastics and field hockey  ;D

[Sasquatch421]

5 available points for the entrance
5 available points for the storyline and interviews
5 available points for the choreography
5 available points for the costume and character name
5 points for creative use of household items
Bonus point for how entertaining their ringside manager is

To be honest.... it already sounds better than everything in the Olympics besides gymnastics and field hockey  ;D

Get Jimmy "The Mouth From the South" Hart involved and it would guarantee a gold for the US.....

[Retribution]

Despite saying I would not weigh in on a political thread I thought I would offer some perspective here.  I am a retired wrestling coach and actually wrestled an Olympic trial many years ago.  I have acquaintances who are gold medalists and my teenage son just ended a wrestling career via injury so I have some perspective.

In the wrestling community we have heard rumblings of this for a long time. Real and true amateur wrestling is hard to follow and score if you do not know what you are looking at. So to make it more appealing the IOC over the years has added beach wrestling, women's wrestling, and tweak the rules to classic Freestyle and Greco.  The last two are those with roots back to classical times Greco being different in that you cannot use your legs for anything other than to stand on. Obviously the wrestling community is enraged with the recent decision for reasons already listed in this thread. Wrestling is subject to regional tastes. It is huge in the Midwest and the Eastern block such as Russia. Not so much in other places though there are various pockets. If you are looking at the US the college Big Ten area are the wrestling titans. Dropping from the Olympics well is a knife in the heart because everyone who has ever competed the ultimate goal is an Olympic medal a ticket to immortality.

But I think what really sticks in the craw is that the IOC is just plain corrupt.  Look at past scandals such as the bribery when it came to the Salt Lake City games. There are other examples as well that corruption has run rampant in the IOC and those who read the news can smell the corruption in this story. That is what really leaves a bad taste in the mouth of those like me.

[Retribution]

Oh as for references aside from personal knowledge

http://www.slate.com/articles/sports/sports_nut/2013/02/olympic_wrestling_dropped_why_the_ioc_makes_dubious_decisions.html

[Deamonbane]

Yes!!! Finally!!! And then they incorporate BJJ in its place *nods vigorously*

[Oniya]

...I've been here too long.  I literally can not come up with a clean interpretation of that. >_>;

[Brittany]

...I've been here too long.  I literally can not come up with a clean interpretation of that. >_>;

Neither could I.  I looked it up. 

Brazilian jiu-jitsu.

I hope he meant this, and not what I was thinking of, I don't think my interpretation of those initials would go down with the IOC.

[TheGlyphstone]

...I've been here too long.  I literally can not come up with a clean interpretation of that. >_>;

I must not have been here long enough, because I recognized what it stood for immediately, and I'm not a wrestling/MMA fan at all.

[Retribution]

Actually I would not mind seeing BJJ in the Olympics and if I had body parts that still worked I would give the sport a try [minds out of the gutter children]  Unfortunately wrestling has broken my neck, my nose 14 times.....you get the idea so BJJ is not a good idea for me.  And I saw Dana White and MMA mentioned in other posts. I got no issue with MMA in fact know several of the well known UFC guys and I love that UFC gives us old wrestlers someplace to go professional even if I was too broken by the time it took off.

I just am not sure MMA is an Olympic sport.  BJJ however guie [sp] on I could so see.

[itsbeenfun2000]

What amazes me is that the countries that support wrestling, US and Russia to name two major ones, could easily say have it or don't expect us to support your movement. The IOC gets most of its revenue from NBC for TV rights.

I two was a high school wrestling coach and what this will do to College wrestling is tragic. It gives schools one more reason to cut the sport because outside the midwest as it was pointed out it is not a money maker.

[Love And Submission]

Why get rid of Wrestling but keep olympic boxing? After the Roy Jones Jr. controversy olympic boxing has become a joke. It's about as much real boxing as a  Veggie Burger is actual red meat.

[TheGlyphstone]

Better marketing. To Joe Q Average, boxing is Rocky fighting Apollo Creed, and wrestling is men in primary-color speedos doing flying elbow slams.

[Trieste]

The Olympic games are the most famous amateur sports competition in the world. The reason to include or not to include any sport is pretty much the same: those athletes have worked very hard and I know that I, personally, would like to see as many varied sports players be able to compete in the Olympics as possible. It's a challenge and an honor, and as far as I'm concerned part of the benefit of having so many games is to expose children who watch the Olympics to a variety of ways to get out and get moving. If their idol is a water polo player and they end up in the pool every day ... if their excellence wins them a sports scholarship so that they don't have to borrow money from the Dept. of Ed. in the US - how could that possibly be a lose? I actually can't think of a downside to having more variety to the Olympics - if you don't like the sport, just change the channel.

...I've been here too long.  I literally can not come up with a clean interpretation of that. >_>;

I couldn't, either. ::)

[minds out of the gutter children]

Nevernevernever.