The following are comments from the moderator of Amateur Wrestling Fans Addict Yahoo Group.
Ames: Nice little city. The smallest city to host the event in the five years I’ve been going, but I’m not aware of any problems RE finding lines at restaurants or restaurants not being open or ready for the hordes. Maybe because the hordes failed to materialize.
I drove to the event, but read Danielle Hobeika’s post at TheMat forum saying air travel in and out of Des Moines (the nearest major airport — 30 miles away) was a challenge — high-priced and limited service.
Attendance: A friend who is connected to the Iowa State program said the school was delighted with the attendance. I’m amazed. Easily the lightest-attended event of the five I’ve sat thru, starting back in 2001 in Cincinnati. Attendance at each of the five sessions was reported to be between 1700 and 1900 — I wonder if they counted the wrestlers and refs and ushers and ticket-takers. I bet there’s a lecture hall at ISU that could have held all the fans.
Hilton: My first time in the Coliseum named for that ubiquitious blonde babe (just kidding!!) So much great wrestling has occurred in this arena’s 35-year history. With its rough-hewn, poured-in-place concrete walls and monolithic Mayan temple exterior, it is very much a structure of the early 1970s… yet has been beautifully maintained. A much nicer place to see wrestling than the Savvis Center, which is 20 years newer. For starters, Hilton’s concessions are much, much cheaper. And the sightlines were great.
The rules: Nothing like new rules to make a fan feel like a stranger in a strange land. I guess I sort of got comfortable with the new format late Sunday afternoon. But most of us were in the dark. Miss Sandy “The First Lady of Wrestling “Stephens* gave us a Reader’s Digest version of things, but then would have to add brief explanations when necessary. The weirdness RE the Gallick match — where everyone in the Coliseum thought Nate had won — seemed like one of those situations where you’re playing Scrabble and a friend puts a weird word on the board and everyone assumes it’ll be disqualified until the friend gets out the rule book and there’s some crazy-sounding rule that sounds custom-made for this situation backs him up.
One positive: Even when a wrestler scores big during a period, there’s hope for his opponent to come roaring back in the next. Unless the match has been decided.
Another positive mentioned by bigjabronie: Greco seemed much more exciting than ever. Lots of great, mat-shaking throws. A little boy immediately behind us was really into that.
Pole-Axed: Looks like Boutronics and the other scoreboard makers will have to go back to the drawing boards to come up with a portable scoreboard that provides ALL the info needed in this new format. Because the “old “signs have no provision for informing fans as to who won a particular period, someone came up with the idea of putting up “poles “in red or blue to signify who won a period. But the polls were not really easy to see, and looked amateurish in the worst way.
Breaking the rules: A number of years after the rules governing singlets were changed (banning the “old-fashioned “design that revealed more of the chest, sides and back) there were still a couple wrestlers wearing retro singlets. I suppose if a guy came out in 1930s style wool tights he could have competed….
Not very GQ: And, while on the subject of fashion… whatever happened to the notion that coaches should look like professionals? Many of the coaches at the WTTs looked like they had wandered in from the pool, sauntering around in big t-shirts, baggy shorts and flip-flops. I think you could count the number of folks on the floor wearing ties using the fingers of one hand. Temperature was NOT an issue; the weather outside was perfect, and the temps inside were pleasantly cool.
Stop the music! I really, really, really wish that music would not be played during matches. The soundtrack is a weird blend of headbanger and techno… neither style is my type of music. Why not play Bach? It would be just as silly. I guess the music is to cover up the tomb-like silence from the small audience. But silence is golden…
… unless the crowd gets into the action, as they did for Mocco vs Thompson. The Cowboy big guy had a rooting section of approximately a dozen; the other 1800 in the hall were in Tolly’s corner. Mocco looked winded. After losing his second finals match, he didn’t barrel out of the arena with the same speed and force one usually sees.
If anyone else was there, weigh in please!
Moderator Mark
PS Danielle has posted some photos at www.amateurwrestlingphotos.com
* Her new title — how she was introduced to the crowd. I thought The Fabulous Moolah was the First Lady of Wrestling. 😉
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