RPW Coach Dan Chandler
Wrestlers, says Dan Chandler, have always been million-dollar athletes in a $100 sport.
He was one himself, beginning as a high school wrestler for Anoka (Minn.) High School, who went 33-1 his senior year and becoming an NCAA Division I qualifier for the University of Minnesota.
Then he began excelling in Greco-Roman competition.
“I’m 6-foot-1, and I’m mostly legs, and (in folkstyle and freestyle) I had a hard time defending my legs,” Chandler said. “I can actually wrestle harder and have more movement in Greco because I don’t have to worry about my legs.”
As a Greco specialist, he claimed 12-time national championships, became a three-time place-finisher in the World Championships and was named to the United States Olympic Greco teams in 1976, 1980 and 1984.
“When I was competing,” said Chandler, now a coach of Real Pro Wrestling’s Minnesota Freeze, “we always talked about baseball, football, basketball — how you can take it to the professional level and how (the athletes) can make a lot of money.”
He recalls the days of the former Soviet Union and hearing the stories of Russian wrestler who, when they rose to the top international level, were treated like rock stars.
“We used to say that if they lived in the United States, they wouldn’t be wrestlers; they’d be in the NFL or playing third base somewhere,” Chandler said. “Good athletes go where the money is.”
Even high school athletes consider the possibility of continuing in a sport, he pointed out. “We lose a lot of good wrestlers that way.”
That concern was instrumental in Chandler’s decision to take on the duties of a RPW coach — in addition to his role as state coach for Minnesota USA Wrestling/Minnesota Storm, where Wednesday night Greco practices have been a staple since 1985. A volunteer with the US Olympic coaching staff since 1988, he also served as the head Greco coach for the 2000 Olympic team.
Chandler calls Real Pro Wrestling “an exciting concept,” from the artwork and the mascots to the hybrid of freestyle and Greco-Roman rules to the angled setting and the platform that increase the intensity of the action.
“That tells me of a total carry-through on everything,” he said. “I like the things Real Pro Wrestling has done.
“And they’re making it sexy,” he added. “Wrestlers have the best bodies, and RPW is capitalizing on the physique. We don’t tend to talk about that, but it could be a good draw. People like looking at good-looking people of both sexes.
“And kids watching just might think, ‘If I go out for wrestling and keep doing my pushups and pull-ups, maybe I could look like that.’ “
Chandler thinks about those youngsters and about former wrestlers such as Michael Foy, who won multiple national Greco-Roman and Freestyle championships (and qualified for Olympic teams in both styles) and Stephen Neal, two-time NCAA champion and world freestyle titlist who is now a starter for the NFL world champion New England Patriots — even though he never played college football..
Then Chandler considers the potential of Real Pro Wrestling providing financial support and a future for the nation’s top grapplers.
“If we did have that opportunity,” he said, “think of some of the great athletes we could keep in the sport.”
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