BY MICHAEL ROSENBERG
FREE PRESS COLUMNIST
The day that amateur wrestling becomes a major spectator sport in America is the day that aliens land in Iowa and decide their favorite delicacy is cauliflower ear.
It just won’t happen, and I suspect most wrestling fans are fine with that. They get their sport to themselves. They get to rule the Palace for a weekend for the NCAA championships. And if you wonder why a bloodless match between two men in funny outfits can be so compelling, well, here are a few reasons.
“¢ 1. Matches are quick, easy to follow, and surprisingly suspenseful. Friday afternoon, North Carolina State’s 141-pounder Darrion Caldwell built a big lead over the No. 1 seed, Northwestern’s Ryan Lang, and the crowd was screaming for the upset, and then — wham — Lang hit Caldwell with a cement mixer.
Well, not an actual cement mixer. That probably would be illegal. Lang won on a move called “the cement mixer “– he pinned Caldwell to end the match.
You never see a football team win on a play called “the cement mixer. “Football coaches take themselves way too seriously for that. They think a play is more likely to work if it is called “Red Python 46 X-Z Double Murder.”
But “the cement mixer “is a wonderful name for a wrestling move. Other great names would be “the peanut sheller “and “the dirty truth. “(EDITOR’S NOTE: Like “the cement mixer,” “the peanut sheller “and “the dirty truth “also would be great names for mixed drinks.)
“¢ 2. It is a team sport, but without team dissension. Since wrestlers don’t have any assistance once they hit the mat, they can’t blame anybody but themselves if they fail. In wrestling, you get exactly what you earn.
“I think it reflects the natural world, “Lang said. “Everybody has their own place, their own obligations, their own responsibilities.”
“¢ 3. The wrestlers are all alone out there in the, uh, reflection of the natural world. This can result an immense pressure and unbearable intensity … for their parents.
As Mark Churella, a former three-time NCAA champion at Michigan, watched his son Josh, he screamed, “Move your feet! Move your feet! “To emphasize the point, Mark kept moving his own feet back and forth — left, right, left, right — as if he were wrestling.
Mark was probably 20 yards away from Josh at the time. No matter. Mark kept rocking back and forth. He did a little shuffle. By the end of the match, I think he was doing the Electric Slide.
Josh won.
Mark breathed again.
“In all the things I do in business, all the deals I do, there is nothing that gives me more stress than this, “Mark said.
“¢ 4. Author John Irving might show up today. He often goes to this event. Irving is a wrestling nut — his most famous character, T.S. Garp, was a wrestler, and Irving is a member of the National Wrestling Hall of Fame.
If you enjoy the English language, you know that if it is good enough for John Irving, it obviously is good enough for me.
“¢ 5. Wrestling is democratic. If you think you got jobbed in the last second of a match, you can protest it. There is even a “Protest Room “at the Palace. Of course, nobody ever wins a protest, but you can go into the Protest Room and pick up a picket sign and a bullhorn and get some things off your chest.
“¢ 6. The ancient Greeks did not have luxury suites, for an obvious reason: Without electricity, where would you plug in the TV?
This may explain why wrestling fans are not suite people. Many of the suites at the Palace were empty Friday. The Casino Windsor Club, which sells fancy drinks to people whose favorite sport is loitering, was closed.
Nobody goes to the NCAA wrestling championships to hobnob, or schmooze, or to hold lengthy discussions on the difference between “hobnobbing “and “schmoozing “while the matches are going on. They go because they like to watch wrestling. These are blue-collar fans, which brings us to …
“¢ 7. Iowans.
Every place needs to be good at something. Baltimore makes crab cakes, Traverse City grows cherries, Philadelphia boos people, and Iowa is the wrestling capital of America. This year, the University of Iowa is down a little bit. When do you ever get a chance to talk about the downfall of the mighty Iowans?
The wrestling finals are tonight — around the same time that Michigan State tips off in the basketball tournament. Friday afternoon, the basketball scores flashed on one of the scoreboards at the Palace. I didn’t see too many people looking up.
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