final podcast

Michael Ruiz, a three-time All-American and assistant coach, discusses how folk-style wrestling in the United States puts them at a disadvantage compared to other countries who focus on freestyle and Greco-Roman wrestling. The women's national team has surpassed the men's because they train in Olympic styles in college. The struggle for the men's national team is due to the focus on collegiate championships. Regional training centers limit the development of college athletes for the national team. The U.S. also struggles on the international stage due to selection processes and the lack of emphasis on Olympic styles at a young age. The rule changes in freestyle wrestling are disliked by some as it takes away from the sport. Today, I'm here with Michael Ruiz, a three-time All-American NAIA National Finalist, who also happens to be my assistant coach. Today, we're going to talk about how folks out wrestling gives the United States a disadvantage because of the focus that other countries have on freestyle and Greco-Roman wrestling. Most of the wrestling community agrees, in fact, according to the research I've done, Devin Hirst from Flow Wrestling, the women's national team has surpassed the men by miles because in college, instead of folk-style wrestling, they do Olympic styles. Today, we are going to talk about it. The problem with the men's national teams, according to Jordan Burroughs, a former Olympic gold medalist, one of the greatest wrestlers for the United States in history, the reason we struggle as a team is first, every kid in the country wants to be a collegiate champion. I think he is correct here because from the second I started wrestling, my goal in the sport was always to be a college All-American or champion, and that's what has motivated me to be here wrestling today. What do you think, Coach Ruiz? I think college wrestling has changed a lot. With the women's wrestling at the collegiate level, they've kind of shown why freestyle is more valuable, though every women's program is pretty much a regional training center or Olympic training center, and they've allowed the girls to thrive and pretty much surpass the men's team. Their goals aren't necessarily just to be collegiate All-Americans or collegiate national champions. They're looking at every school with women's wrestling is looking at it as a way to get better and get ready for the Olympics. Second, Burroughs says Americans struggle on the international stage because the people that are on the teams are tied down to whatever regional training centers they sign to. I personally disagree with this statement because I think that if the national team only trained with each other, it would create a cycle where there would be no one getting better besides for these select people by the team training at the regional training center, which makes it harder for them to prepare college athletes who are going to be the future of the United States teams. I don't disagree with that, but the truth is the reason why the U.S. usually struggles on the Olympic level, I feel like, this is my personal opinion, is because we do Olympic trials and we do world team trials. We're not necessarily sending the best guy in that way to go compete. Like you have situations where we had Jordan Burroughs and Kyle Dakin in the same weight class. But if we sent them at two different weight classes, just without them having to qualify or anything, it's just like, hey, we think you guys are going to go win it. And if we separate you guys at two different weights, that that's just I think the way Russia does it, they don't they just pick who's going because they want to they send whoever they think is going to win it at that weight. They don't go with they don't do trials. They just are like, hey, you're going to do the best. We're sending you. You match up better with everybody. It's that's what we're going to do. So I think that's what puts us at a disadvantage with other countries. Just that that little that little thing, it set that up. The third reason he has is Olympic style wrestling doesn't have a heavy influence on youth competition because kids start folk style wrestling instead of learning Olympic styles at young ages, whereas Russians who seem to win every year start Olympic wrestling as early as six years old. I personally think he is correct in saying this, because even when I was younger, the first time I learned about the Olympic styles, I was in high school, I think I was a sophomore. I didn't learn that style of wrestling until I was almost 16. How did you learn about learning? Well, me, as soon as I started wrestling, I wrestled year round and my I was very fortunate and blessed because my high school coach just so happened to be a three time Olympian. So I kind of learned about freestyle and Greco really early. But as I got older in high school, by the time I was a junior senior, freestyle and Greco were pretty much dying off because there was tournaments for folk style year round. So even now, the best kids in California, the state champions in California, state champions from Pennsylvania, state champions from Iowa, none of them really go to Fargo, which is the biggest high school tournament in the country. But the real hammers don't ever even go because it's freestyle and Greco. And they're just at that point focused on folk style so they they can compete in college. And I think it really is. I think it really deters kids away from freestyle and Greco when they're wrestling folk style year round. And I don't think it helps them to develop and become better wrestlers overall or on a world level. I think it kind of it kind of holds us back and just because they don't have the same experience. Yeah, they don't have the same experience as the kids in other countries where it's just freestyle Greco year round and they're developing those skills to get them to the next level. My first question I have for you, how long have you been in the sport of wrestling? I have been wrestling since I was 12 years old. Well, for myself, I've been wrestling, I started in eighth grade, I'm 31 now, so about 18 years. It's been great. When I started, I started in eighth grade because I was a troublemaker, I used to get in trouble a lot. And I had a school security guard who knew I liked to fight. So he asked me one day, hey, come on and try wrestling. I want to keep you out of trouble. And I was like, I guess whatever, let's just go. And I went I won three matches my first year. And then I just was like, well, this is hard, but I like it. So I just stuck to it the next year. I won over 20 matches as a freshman in high school. And I think what motivated me and kept motivating me was, for myself, at least, I had a family situation. My mom was in prison from when I was in eighth grade to my junior year of high school. So wrestling just helped me stay focused and stay on the right track. It gave me really good positive influences to look up to. My godfather was one of the assistants, our head coach was a multi-time Olympian who used to just go above and beyond to try to help me to stay on the right path. And so I think things like that kept me, I never cared to be a national champion and things like that. I think those were kind of just things that were out there that other people saw that I could do. But I think for me, it was just making the people proud that continued to invest in me, not only financially, but just as a person and a human being. Where did you start and what made you keep pursuing it? I answered all that right there for you. I guess you did. I did that intentionally. It made it sound better, like, more... The second question for you is, what do you know about the Olympic styles of wrestling? Me, I've been wrestling for quite a while. I know there are multiple styles, obviously, Greco, Freestyle, Folkstyle. They're both unique in their own ways. Freestyle is the closest to Folkstyle, includes most of the same moves besides for top and bottom. From my research, I found that Greco-Roman wrestling was the first form of organized so-called fighting. According to the Journal of Hellenic Studies, this style of wrestling was done on soft dirt and was one of the most prized events in the whole Olympic tournament. What do you know? What do I know about the history of wrestling? I could be wrong, but I think it was Jacob that historically said wrestled God for three... Was it three days? Or how long? The night. It was through the night. It was through the night. Yeah. And so, I mean, I, like, really, I attribute that to the first, like, wrestling in history. But I don't really keep up with... I've never really kept up with the history of wrestling as far as knowing, like, different wrestlers and whatnot. But I do know that Greco-Roman was the first style of wrestling. Freestyle kind of came on later on to make wrestling more exciting. And then, yeah, I mean, I really... They all have their own... They all have their own strengths and they all have their own positions that help develop kids into better all-around wrestlers and understanding certain positions. So, I mean, overall, I think all wrestling styles kind of can benefit from one another. Yeah. From the same journal again, I know that freestyle wrestling came about in 1904. The rules were a lot different from... Different then than they are now, which I personally think is a good thing because it shows that our sport is continually growing instead of staying stagnant. How do you feel about the rule changes and how it affects the sport? I personally hate the new rule changes, if I'm being honest. And it's not because I don't think that they're trying to make it more... They're trying to make it more entertaining, but I think we take... I think they're taking away from the sport by trying to just make it more entertaining and more active. It used to be three two-minute periods and the best of three won. So you could lose the first round, win the second one, and win the third round, and you won. And I think that was a lot more entertaining because you had situations where if you threw a guy over your head for five points, the round is over. And so that was always interesting to me. Now it's like, you have two three-minute periods. I feel like guys are just carrying the stall more. When you have the two-minute... When you have three two-minute periods, you have more breaks in between. So guys are coming out better, more refreshed and able to hit big moves. So I felt it was more entertaining. But I also have to understand I'm older now. And so I understand things change and kind of just have to accept them as they roll. I personally don't like the new rule changes, but I'm still a coach and I still have to coach it. It seems like wrestling has had a huge impact on your life. Now, how do you think freestyle or folk style wrestling has made it harder for USA athletes to win world titles? We're pushing against the grain when it comes to wrestling on the world stage. I think we need to get back to focusing on folk style and Greco or create a whole other style within collegiate wrestling. Women do freestyle. I don't see there being a problem with adding a men's freestyle team. I could see that being beneficial and those kids that have Olympic aspirations can just go do men's freestyle. And I think that would be really beneficial to helping kids. But I definitely think that America is behind on that. And I hate saying that we have the best situation if we want to develop kids, but we kind of choose to continue to live and die on this idea of a fair opportunity for everybody to wrestle when the truth is we have other countries that just send who they think are going to be the best at that weight and win. Prime example, Jordan Oliver is probably my favorite wrestler ever, but he's never qualified the world team for the Olympics at his weight. And he's been the guy that won at the trials, but we know if we sent, I think Joey McKenna, I think it was Joey McKenna. If we sent Joey McKenna in his place, Joey McKenna would have qualified our weight for the Olympics. But we can't do that because of how the structure is set up. When Jordan Oliver went, he doesn't qualify the weight, so we don't take anybody at that weight. And other countries won't do that. They'll send their best guy who's going to qualify that weight just in order to get the country that weight certified and qualified so they can have a spot at the Olympics. During my research for this podcast, Devin Hurst from Flow Wrestling actually mentioned something saying that we should move on from both-style wrestling because it's making it harder for the U.S. to be good at these styles. And I think you answered that in what you were saying. But I also agree that, I mean, I think it's just pushing us back more instead of putting us forward. Because now you got the kids in high school who do want to be good at those world styles. They're missing out in college because their options are so limited. Like, yeah, they're really good at freestyle and greco, but then they suck at folkstone. I mean, you have collegiate judo. Why couldn't we have collegiate freestyle? I mean, judo is essentially wrestling, but there's collegiate judo, there's collegiate jujitsu even. So, I mean, I don't see why we couldn't just add collegiate freestyle and greco and just let those all fall into wrestling and have them in different seasons, kind of like how track has an indoor season and an outdoor season. We could have our folkstyle season and our freestyle and greco season and just go that route. For my next question, why do you think the Russians have superior teams than we do? I think they have superior teams because they are trained at such a young age, these styles of wrestling, that we don't get introduced until high school or college. Like, Jordan Burroughs, in the journal, the first time he went to a big freestyle wrestling tournament was when he was in college out of Nebraska, after winning his first national championship, and it was the Olympic qualifier. It wasn't just some small tournament. How do you feel? Well, I mean, I think I kind of answered that, why they're superior. They're not sending guys that are winning their national tournament. They're sending the best guy at that weight who's going to have the most success. And yeah, it sounds like it's not fair, and it probably sounds pretty communist, to be honest. But if we want to be competitive at the world level, we have to get away from that sort of thinking of, well, they earned the spot. Yeah, they earned the spot. I think they should earn the opportunity to compete, but I don't think that sending them to go there, knowing that they're not going to medal and we could send somebody else in their place who is going to medal. I just don't think that makes sense if you really want to go out there and put your best guys on the mat. And for my next question, how do you think, this one's kind of tough. How do you think the NCAA and NAI make things worse for world wrestling? I said, I think it makes it worse for world wrestling because they have the power to change from folk style to freestyle, just like they did for women. But I mean, for the women, it was different. They started off with freestyle. But I mean, the college organizations could relatively just switch whenever they felt like it. Just like this year, they switch rules on us all the time whenever they feel like it. So I think for some reason, they don't want to switch. And instead, they keep putting on competition and folk style. It's interesting because it's like a double-edged sword because the NCAA and the NAI schools, some of them do support some of their athletes going and doing freestyle greco. Even our situation, we asked the guys this year, as you know, we asked you guys, how many of you guys want to go wrestle at the US Open? We had one guy out of 30-something say they wanted to go compete. Some of them couldn't because academics and stuff like that. But overall, it was a very small number. We have one who's going to go and compete. And he probably wouldn't have been able to compete if he wasn't wrestling at an NAI school where we can help him financially to go do that. But realistically, I don't think it makes it worse for world wrestling, but I think it does limit US wrestling. Because the world is still going to be the world and the world is still going to do freestyle greco with or without the US. If the US missed an Olympics, it wouldn't really change the fact that the Olympics is still going to go on. Kind of like what happened to Russia and LA, the Olympics still happened without them. And so, I don't think it makes it worse, but I definitely think that changing over to freestyle greco would benefit the US specifically a lot. Yeah, I think it would make a big difference in us winning. For my last question, why do you think the United States never seems to get the job done at the Olympics or at the World Team? Because they're too focused on sending guys that earn the spot by winning a tournament versus sending their best guys. That's the only difference, I think, compared to other countries. I don't think, just because a guy earns a spot doesn't mean that they're going to have the best shot. And I know it seems like I'm kind of repeating that often, but that's a common theme that I've felt with the way the US national team goes about picking or having the guys wrestle and winning the spot to try to qualify the team. But I don't know. I don't want to even say it's coaching because I think at that level, everybody's tough. But when you get there, who's ready to compete and who's ready for it that day? I don't know what the answer is, to be honest. I think that's a really interesting point. And I agree because, I mean, obviously we haven't been able to win in a long time. But that wraps up the podcast and I thank you for joining me, Coach Ruiz. No problem. Thank you for having me.