#112 Singlets, Saunas, and Nose Breaks: Dean Peterson's Tale!

Episode Transcript
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Speaker 2 (00:30):
and we are live.
We, I always, I always.

Speaker 3 (00:33):
Just ended abruptly because I want to get to the.

Speaker 2 (00:35):
I want to cut to the chase man.
This is another episode ofvision quest podcast, and I am
joined by none other than deanpeterson of the ruckers.
Right now, right now, ruckersright now soon to be hawkeye
right?
Uh, exciting news, socongratulations on that.
Not an easy decision to make.
Um, I respect it.
It is what it is.
Um, how are things going foryou?

(00:56):
How's your easter?

Speaker 3 (00:57):
uh, easter's been pretty good.
I got to take some photos withmy girlfriend, my little brother
and I don't know if you saw myinstagram story.
I had this nice anime storethat I was posted up with so
yeah, I was having some fun.
I won't lie, it's been a funeaster it's awesome.

Speaker 2 (01:10):
That's awesome.
See your home.
Are you at home, like parentshome?

Speaker 3 (01:13):
yeah, I'm at my home for easter.
Right now, obviously, my mom'scooking up easter dinner as we
speak, so nice, nice.

Speaker 2 (01:19):
Well, we won't hold you back too long then, because
you got to get into that dinner,man, let's I am, I am hungry.

Speaker 3 (01:25):
I won't lie, I can eat too, I can eat.

Speaker 2 (01:28):
What is it?
What is the ham she making?

Speaker 3 (01:30):
it's italian stuff.

Speaker 2 (01:31):
She's got some penny vodka, some meatballs going to a
lot of pasta, a lot of goodstuff a lot of good stuff, yeah
we just had, uh, my wife'ssicilian, we just had her, uh,
dad's 85th, my father-in-law's85th birthday up north, as well
as Easter.
So we had pulled pork, we hadporchetta, I mean, we had all
kinds of crazy just meats goingon everywhere.
It's always awesome going upnorth there because there's

(01:53):
porchetta and then there'spasties.
I don't know if you guys knowpasties.

Speaker 3 (01:57):
I know what you're talking about.
Yeah, so both sides of myfamily, they're both from Sicily
, so they came over on the boatsin like the early 1900s and
stuff, whatever so you knowEllis Island and all that so.

Speaker 2 (02:09):
I get it.

Speaker 3 (02:10):
I get it.

Speaker 2 (02:10):
Yeah, so they actually went up the Canada way.
They went up through Canada andthey came down through like the
upper Michigan area.
So that's why they wound up inthe frozen tundra way.

Speaker 3 (02:21):
You don't hear about that too often.

Speaker 2 (02:28):
You hear about that too often.
You hear about them coming tothe east coast and that's kind
of where you know, like new yorkcity and all them.
So I don't know if they, Idon't know if it was just
somewhere there, that it wasjust like a little detour, but
they just thought canada was alittle nicer that time of year I
guess they came across.
But but, dean, thank you, thankyou again for joining us.
It's, it's been kind of a wildride for you.
But I want to start out kind oftalking about, uh, where you
came from, how you started.
You know like where, what kindof what was one of the first

(02:48):
sports you ever played that youremember, like just in the yard
or anything like that I'vealways been in love with like
baseball, honestly like a lotlike everyone like used to play
football, whatever, but me andmy little brother would always
play wiffle ball and we'd go ateach other and this one time
I'll even tell you it.

Speaker 3 (03:03):
you, it was a funny story.
I struck him out on like threepitches and he threw the wiffle
ball at my face and I've got ascar somewhere on here that you
can see it.
But you know, we had so muchfun we probably played it for
like we still play it today.
We go out backyard, play somewiffle ball, have some fun.
So that's kind of where my lovefor baseball started baseball

(03:26):
when I was younger.
At the same I, at the same timeI started boxing at the same
time.

Speaker 2 (03:28):
I started wrestling when I was like four, so, okay,
okay, we had a couple otherguests that had done boxing as
well, which I find interestingbecause it's it's a more of a
light-footed sport, right, yougotta, you gotta be good with
your footwork, so that'sinteresting, I like that.
So baseball, not not different.
I was a baseball guy.
I played soccer, I playedbaseball, I played golf.
I mean, I did a bunch of stuff,did you?
Did you find yourself likethinking I'm gonna be an mlb

(03:48):
baseball player someday, youknow, especially with as good as
you were with a wiffle ball?
You?

Speaker 3 (03:52):
know, I was actually really good at baseball too,
because I was on like one of thetop travel teams or whatever
and I was like 10 or 11 yearsold at that point.
I'd been playing it for likeyou know, five, six years at
that point.
But what I would do is I wouldonly show up for the games
because I'd rather go towrestling practice.
And the team didn't like thatvery much.
So I just told him you knowwhat I don't feel like sitting
in the dugout, I'm gonna go justwrestle.

(04:14):
And they were like okay, we getit, we get it, yeah, yeah and
that's.

Speaker 2 (04:17):
That's that same thing.
Same thing for liam.
He wanted to do soccer, he wastrying it, trying it, but he
missed wrestling practice.
He didn't want to misswrestling practice.
So he's like, yeah, no, I'drather be there.
So that's cool, all right.
So we know now that wrestlingkind of bleeds into the baseball
a little bit.
We start to kind of see the,the wrestling light.
Where, where did wrestlingstart for you?

Speaker 3 (04:37):
uh, so my dad was running a rec practice over at
the high school and when I waslike four years old, so they got
me.
They got me with all the other,I think.
At the time I weighed like 35pounds.
I was super small, so they putme with all the other
four-year-olds.
I've told this story a milliontimes yeah, I was beating up on
all the four-year-olds, so likeyou know what, we're gonna go
push you with the six-year-olds,and I got my butt kicked so I

(04:59):
was crying.
I'm like, ah, it's like my dadand I got in the car.
I'm like, ah, ah, so like mydad and I got in the car, I'm
like I can't, I need to go backand I need to beat those kids,
and that's kind of where I fellin love with it.
I'm like, because I've beencompetitive since I was little,
I'm like I need to go back and Ineed to beat those kids.
I need to get on the mat again.
Get better, beat those kids.

Speaker 2 (05:26):
So that's kind of good.
We'll put them in something alittle better than just a rec
league.

Speaker 3 (05:29):
So my first year was basically rec and at the time I
lived in Barnegat and Southernwas a town over and they let me
wrestle for the Southern team.
And then, after I beat two kidsup, they I got kicked off the
team because they found out Ilived in barnagate.
someone someone wrote to theplace and was like he doesn't
even live in southern and likesouthern is 10 minutes down the

(05:51):
road so then, I got kicked outof rec or whatever, and then I
was gonna go to the statetournament like the new jersey
youth state tournament my firstyear, and someone convinced my
dad not to send me, so then Iwent a year later when I was
like five or six years old and Iended up winning it the first
time.
I was there like 40 pounds, 45pounds so so I don't.

Speaker 2 (06:11):
I guess that because we all know that wrestling fans
get crazy, but it's crazier outon the east coast, right and and
there's different levels ofcrazy there we're certainly kind
of noticing, as with collegewrestling right now there are
some, some crazy dads,especially in New Jersey.

Speaker 3 (06:26):
I mean, even you saw Jordan Burroughs tweeting about
it earlier this year because hewas at the New Jersey State
Tournament with his boys andthey were like giving him stuff
about it because he lives in PA.
I'm like it's like asix-year-old kid Let him wrestle
, what's the problem?
Who cares?
Actually, Like it's six yearsold, but these like dads get so
upset and worked up about it forno reason.

Speaker 2 (06:47):
I don't get it.
Yeah well, they're all gonna beolympic champions someday.
You know like everyone's gonnabe on the podium at the olympics
and that's the.
That's the problem.
And I'll be honest with you, Igot caught up in that a little
bit.
You know like you get you'retaking pride in because I was,
you know, a little bit of acoach at one point, and take
pride in what he's doing.
But then you're like, well, Ireally want him to do this.
He gets sucked into thatposition.
It's like, man, you gotta stepaway.

(07:07):
And that's that's why we foundgood coaches, all that stuff.
You don't have to worry aboutit, it's easy.
Parents, you can literally sendyour kids into a wrestling room
and just walk away yeah, youdon't have to watch the entire
practice, they'll be all right,I mean like my dad was.

Speaker 3 (07:21):
My dad was very involved too the beginning, but
he learned to take a step backand everything.
Especially once I got to highschool college, he took a step
back and he's like, yep, justlet him be.
You know what I mean.

Speaker 2 (07:30):
That's right.
That's right.
It's an intense sport already,right, like, and your kids go
into the most intense part.
It's intense for us parents too, don't get me wrong it.
Sometimes you gotta leave itoff the kids.
Now, what was that?
Was that kind of a feel for you?
Like, when you were younger,was your dad a little and like

(07:50):
intense like I was like I neverwent overboard with liam where I
like braided him on the mat.
I think I got upset one timewhen I slammed my hand on the
mat and then my wife kind oftold me she's like you gotta
stop doing that.
I was like she showed me.
I was like, yes, I gotta stopdoing that definitely like a
little bit like at the beginning.

Speaker 3 (08:01):
But you know, I I kind of like as a kid I was like
you know what, just let mewrestle.
You know, I've got to say thesame thing.
My entire life is like just letme wrestle.
Like even when I got to collegeI told the coaches like look, I
just want to worry aboutwrestling, I want to worry about
nothing else, I just want towrestle you know what I mean,
that's always been my biggestthing of like your, I guess like
your first tournaments as as akid I mean, it's hard to out

(08:25):
east.

Speaker 2 (08:25):
It's not like you.
You could go into a basicwrestling room where we would
look at and be like, oh well,look at all the beginner kids.
But you go in there and out onthe east coast it's like holy
cow, there's these kids.

Speaker 3 (08:34):
No technique already that, trust me, it was.
There was always good kids andthere was always new kids
popping up you know what?
I mean it like the competitionwas always deep at the state
tournaments.
Like I never was a pinner, Iwas never like a guy that just
ran through the tournament.
I would have tough bouts fromlike the quarterfinals on in
like the youth state tournaments.
Like it would be an 8-0 match,like a 6-1 match, 5-4 they'd all

(08:55):
be close-ish you know what Imean like I was winning them and
I was doing good, but it wasalways a dog fight.
It's always a dogfight inJersey.

Speaker 2 (09:03):
Yeah, yeah for sure.
I find it a little interestingsometimes, especially with the
level, and you see some of thegrowth as guys come out of high
school and they get into college.
But like seeing the level ofsome of these guys even now, and
not even just East Coast, Imean kind of all across the
country.
But levels have changed right.
Tournaments when I was a kidthere were bullpens right there

(09:23):
and you stood in line with stevemacko talks about a little bit.
You call them this bullpen.
You're talking to the dude thatyou're gonna wrestle for the
next like six minutes or fiveminutes on the mat.
You're like, hey man, how's itgoing?
What neighborhood you from?
You're like, oh cool, let's,let's play.
You know legos, when we're donehere, yeah, and now it's so
intense that even when you go toa normal kids tournament that

(09:43):
it's that, it's a little, it's ait gets a little heated.
But what was it like for you?
Kind of and like did you have agroup of friends that also
joined into wrestling?
Did you find out?
Find out your?

Speaker 3 (09:53):
oh man, jimmy's doing this too, or whatever you know,
I ended up falling into, likethe group that was actually up
north, because there was areally, really good club in
jersey called scorpions.
I don't know if you know thatyes, yeah so that's who I ended
up wrestling for now who I don'tknow.
So would you know, joey oliveri, who's that?
Right, yes, joey oliveri,anthony clark, who's at

(10:15):
princeton?

Speaker 1 (10:16):
you know, there's gerard angelo, nikki ramo, a lot
of those guys that went to wentto scorpions will guido who's
at like unc now oh, that's right, yeah, yeah, there's a look,
there was a bunch of a bunch ofguys like dylan sudanios who's
at virginia now yes, yes, yeahbut, uh, I grew up wrestling him
a lot.

Speaker 3 (10:32):
We ended up having like a triple overtime match at
the state finals and I don'teven know what years, but it was
.
It was a he, me and him hadsome battles.
He awesome, me and him probablywrestled like in a span of like
two months, probably like fouror five times.
It was insane.
And yeah, it was insane, we'dwrestle each other all the time
but, no, that's kind of thegroup that I fell into.

(10:55):
So it was kind of kind of like anice moment, especially like
when I got to ruckers and thenjoey was already committed there
and there were a couple otherguys on the team that I'd a lot.
It's a lot of jersey kids, soit was kids I grew up wrestling
with.

Speaker 2 (11:06):
So yeah, when you got , when you because it sounds
like obviously you're runningyou know in a in a nice, you
know in a good club, you gotgood partners, things like that
when, when you were little wereyou kind of already by little I
mean like 10 youknow 11 almostmiddle school, but like still a
little kid.
Were you dreaming aboutwrestling in college already?

Speaker 3 (11:26):
When I was literally when I before that, when I was
six years old there's a video ofme talk, because I used to go
and run at my high school trackall the time when I was little.
That's one of the workouts thatmy dad would put me through.
He's like you're going to runbleachers and you're going to
run on the track because I wantyou to have strong legs.
So, um, I think there's a videoof me saying I want to be a
four-time ncaa and ncaa champion, like six years old, and I'm

(11:47):
like I want to dominate, I wantto kill people.
I'm like watching it back.
It's so funny.
I'm like I love this it's.
It's just one of those videos Ilike to go back and re-watch
sometimes.

Speaker 2 (11:57):
So yeah, yeah no and so that's kind of interesting
too, because, like I meandifferent levels.
So I we talked to uh, you know,some people that come from
Georgia.
We talked to some people thatcome from, like, north Dakota,
and it's different, right, andagain, the sauce is a little
thicker when it comes towrestling out on the East coast.
So just just kind of curious asto when these guys get these
dreams in their head.

(12:19):
Cool kind of area.

Speaker 3 (12:20):
You were six yeah, no , I was little.
I've had that same dream.
I'm I basically.
It's been my my whole life.
For the for the most part,everything not everything
revolves around wrestling for me, but that's how I basically.
It built me into who I am.
That's, yeah, you know, thesport built me into who I am as
a person so we talked a littlebit about your dad.

Speaker 2 (12:39):
How was your mom with wrestling?
Some moms didn't like the factthat their kids are in wrestling
she wasn't.

Speaker 3 (12:43):
She just wasn't very involved and she didn't mind me
getting beat up and coming homewith whatever.
She was like you know he's,he's good at it, I like watching
it sometimes, but you know shedoesn't like watching it too
much because she, you know shegets a little bit.
She's like oh, no, no, no, no.
She's like that's where my kneeis getting tweaked and she's
like no, no, I no, I can't.
I'm like looks away, she can'twatch that.

Speaker 2 (13:03):
So does she go to events like big events?
Does she ever?
Is there a head in the hands?

Speaker 3 (13:07):
Yeah, she came to a lot more events recently.
She's actually in thebackground when I pin Richie
Figueroa.
From some of the angles you cansee her like jumping up and
down and like grabbing my littlesister and she's like that like
during when I got taken down,like two seconds before that
she's like yeah.
I'm listening.
That's the same thing.

Speaker 2 (13:30):
She just takes special pens, like she gets
nervous.
Wow.
And I don't blame her, I meanbecause I'm just as worked up,
as intense sometimes.
But she gets to the point whereshe gets so worked up she can't
.
She has to pace, she's got topace.

Speaker 3 (13:49):
She's got to walk around.
I'm there with her too.
We put on like 20 000 stepseach tournament.
You know like it's crazy.
My dad would always make thejoke that we should bring like a
portable defibrillator for hischest, for like if his heart
stops she's like shock him, gethim back up I get it, though I
get it it's it's.

Speaker 2 (14:00):
It's tough, especially, like you said, when
your mom sees you, your leggetting tweaked in a certain
direction, and you're like, ohmy God, you just don't want to
see you get hurt.
But at the same time, though,too, you're like, oh, he's going
to do it, he's going to do it.
And then, dude, that pin wasawesome.
We're going to talk about thatin a little bit.
That was sick.
But as you're kind of goingthrough the years, then Real and

(14:20):
big, but I mean like a Super 32or Tulsa Nationals, what was
the first big tournament youremember?

Speaker 3 (14:30):
The first one that I probably remember was winning
the Kickoff Classic right before, because I ended up winning the
Trinity that year.
But I had been to the KickoffClassic before and I kind of ran
through it.
I went to Tulsa Nationals, tooksecond and I went to Reno when
I was like eight and I won it.
So I had won the beginning inthe last tournament but I'd

(14:51):
never won the one in the middle.
So when I won, went to tulsanationals I actually beat.
I'm trying to think of who itwas because he was a hawkeye oh
boy no, you know what me and itwas for it might have been
during the thing.
It was shriver, I think oh yeah, I don't know who I beat in the
finals.
Yeah, you know who I beat thefinals.
He's that rider now.
He was at cal baptist was eligriffin oh really in the tulsa

(15:13):
nationals to win my like beforeI won the trinity that year.
But that was probably the firsttournament because I know you
were talking about earlier howmako used to talk to the
whatever talking to people inthe line or whatever.
But at Tulsa Nationals you do,You're like in the line with the
kids before you wrestle them.
And.
Eli Griffin was like talkingsmack to me before we wrestled
and I'm like that was the firsttime I had dealt with anything
like that.

(15:33):
I'm like dude.
I'm like 10 years old.
I'm like I don't even know whatto say.
I'm like I'll beat you.

Speaker 1 (15:42):
Oh God, it was not funny though.
I'm like OK, what do you wantme to do?

Speaker 3 (15:47):
I'm ready to wrestle and he's like like getting him.
He's like you know, I'm goingto beat you, I'm going to, I'm
like dude.

Speaker 2 (15:52):
So they eat glass and stuff.
He's biting on nails.
He's like flexing.

Speaker 3 (15:56):
He's like look, I beat you.
That's awesome.

Speaker 2 (16:02):
Hey, more power to him.
Right, he was ready to bring it, but you said you beat him.

Speaker 3 (16:06):
Yeah, I ended up beating him 6-1.
It was a good match.

Speaker 2 (16:09):
It was a good match, it was close At the time.

Speaker 3 (16:11):
I mean we were both really good kids, yeah, yeah
yeah, he gave him a toss-all.

Speaker 2 (16:14):
He gave you a toss-all, that's good.
Well, telling you about some ofliam stuff, you know all that
other, you know stuff that he'sdone recently or whatever and
you're like, well, I haven'tdone that.
Like liam's never won a tulsanational as a kid.
And see, now this is where yousee some of that part of that
parent shining through like that, does that shit really matter?
It doesn't matter.
But like, at the same pointyou're like man, it would have.
Would have been cool as a dadto have his kid win at the time

(16:38):
it feels like the biggest thingin the world.

Speaker 3 (16:40):
But like after like, a couple months later, you're
like what's next?

Speaker 2 (16:43):
Like what's next yes, and we're going to talk about
that because that happens evenwhen you're in high school,
because after you win a statetitle, about a week later nobody
gives a shit anymore.
I don't care if you want tostay, that is literally like
it's the toughest.

Speaker 3 (16:54):
I think mentally it's one of the tougher, tougher
times, like after, right afterstates, after you win a state
title.
It's like yeah what am I goingto do now?
What do I?
Do now.
So came off this huge high andit's like everybody's like, yeah
, whatever it's next week andnow like I heard my name on the
school announcements and noweveryone in the school is not
gonna know who I am the weeklater walking through the hall

(17:16):
there.

Speaker 2 (17:16):
Everybody knows, nobody knows who I am, nobody.
Okay, nobody knows who I am,that's fine, it's fine.

Speaker 3 (17:20):
No big deal, it's not a big deal so when?

Speaker 2 (17:23):
when you were, uh, what area did you live in for
high school?

Speaker 3 (17:27):
I still lived in barnagin.
I've basically been in barnaginmy whole life, but I asked to
go to southern for high schooland the coach at the time
basically told me he didn't wantme to go there.
So I was like okay, cool, andmy brother, my older brother,
who also wrestled a little bit,was up at saint john vianney up
in Holmdel, which is where Knoxis at right now.

(17:47):
So, they had never had a statechamp.
They weren't good at wrestling,but they brought in one of the
legendary coaches from the 90swhich is like one of my best
friends now was Tony Caravellaand Denny D'Andrea.
Obviously, denny ended uppassing a couple months ago,
which is pretty sad, but that'skind of where I wrestled.
I wrestled for four years.
I didn't even get to wrestlefour years.
I didn't wrestle my senior year, high school, but that's where

(18:08):
I wrestled in high school and Iwould drive up every morning
about an hour to school.
So oh my god yeah, yeah, it wasa journey, it was a, it was so
was that?

Speaker 2 (18:19):
was that sacrifice for wrestling?
Was that to okay, that was thisokay?
So because we get around here,we get this uh stigma of people
like that's way too much, you'redoing way too much.
You know, in some, in some eyes, it might be right.
In someone, someone's field ofview, it could be.
But when you see something inyour kid and this could be

(18:39):
soccer, this could be lacrosse,could be badminton, I don't care
if they're.
If they're, if there's someonethat could do something really
well, you try to advance thatRight.
And it sounds like that's whatyour parents kind of understood,
because otherwise they're theones that make that decision
ultimately.

Speaker 3 (18:52):
Right, yeah, I mean like hearing from six years old
that I wanted to be a nationalchamp.
They just want to give me everyopportunity to be where I
wanted to be and get where Iwanted to get to.

Speaker 2 (19:01):
Right, Right.
So, and sometimes, yes, we canbe crazy as parents when we do
that stuff, but it's that viewright there, that when, when we
see that our kid has that visionas a, as a child, you're like
do you think they had thatvision?
I think they did, and we'rejust trying to facilitate it a
little bit for them.
So that's cool that that theywere able to.
To make that happen, we moved Imean, we literally moved from
one town to another so that wayhe could be on, you know, a

(19:25):
really good team.
When you wound up doing that,did you find any difficulties as
far as where you led versuswhere you're going to school and
like friends, things like that?
Did you find that you werehanging out up by school longer
and then maybe stayed at afriend's house?

Speaker 3 (19:42):
The days were definitely longer, but I would.
I didn't stay up there a lot, Ithey were, I was.
I didn't have any troublemaking friends with the kids up
there, which I still talk to thekids that were in my homeroom
till this day like they werelike when I pinned richie figs,
everyone was like all right,dean, we got it, we saw,
everyone saw it.
What happened?
they was like give us like thetea of it, to give us the
rundown yeah but what itdefinitely like at first, like
in the first year, like myfreshman year of high school,
was definitely difficult, causeI'm getting home at like seven

(20:04):
or eight o'clock at night afterwrestling practice and I'm just
like I'm dead tired and they'relike Dean, get up, get upstairs
and shower and I'm like fallingasleep on the couch downstairs
trying to get.
I can't even crawl, I'm likecrawling up the stairs, I'm
exhausted.
So that was one of the timesthat it was.
It was a little bit difficult,but I want to say that I didn't
even not that I didn't have achoice to go to my high school,
like Barnegat High School, butthe year before I went into high

(20:27):
school the coach ended upgetting arrested for some pretty
bad stuff.
So, I was just trying to stayaway from it as much as possible
.

Speaker 2 (20:36):
And I read an article .
It was another school.
I read an article about anothercoach that was doing some
not-so-safery stuff over inJersey.
But you know, and he actuallyhad like mob ties, I think it
was, I was reading an articleabout that, where there's a lot
of some of that in jersey forsure.
I'm not gonna say it was Ican't remember what school, so I
didn't want to tie the twotogether, but it's like it's
kind of, I know this shithappens, but it happens over
here too.

(20:56):
It's no, no, uh, no surprise.
But when, when you startedgetting into, like I would say,
middle school things like,things like that were, you did
you have like big growth jumps,like from your seventh grade to
eighth grade year?

Speaker 3 (21:10):
I think the biggest jump I ever had, because I think
my first year of middle school,in sixth grade, I was like 65.
And then I went like 90 or like85.
And then my last year I think,I was like a hundred pounds.
So I was, I was just on trackto basically be a one oh six
pounder when I got to highschool.
So I didn't have, I didn't haveto like reclass, I didn't have
to take an extra year orwhatever.

(21:31):
I didn't have to gethomeschooled.
Because that's one of the bigthings in Jersey is kids will
like take a year or two beforethey get to high school and
they'll reclass.
And then they're a little bitolder, which got I not that I
don't respect it, but I wasn't abig fan of it personally yeah,
yeah, and I'm not.

Speaker 2 (21:46):
So I'm not either.
I'm not a huge fan.
There are reasons.
You know, everyone's got thereason for something right, but
a lot of times when you look atthe competition side, it was
like, well, he wouldn't havebeen big enough by the time he
was a freshman.
So get him on some weights, youknow.
Make him eat some more protein,exactly.
You know, have liam, the onething we never did with liam.
I'd never say this stuff everto like pat myself on the back,

(22:06):
or even, you know, christina,but I just never saw the
advantage of constantly cuttingright, especially as kids.
You know, when they're kids,you're stunning growth.
We see the result of it.
Some, you know some, and somekids in the state here, um, it
is what it is.
Some kids, you know somecertain competitions, we cut a
couple pounds, but we alwayswrestled up a weight, you weight
.
Sometimes he wrestled up aweight and he wrestled up an age

(22:27):
group.
He was 12.
It's funny.
I ask you this because Liamwent in from his 7th grade year
into his 8th grade no, 6th gradeinto 7th grade year, and he was
from 90 pounds to 125 pounds.
While it's COVID, these kidsare sitting around doing nothing
, like you got your headset onand everything, so he's just

(22:48):
playing video games.
So it is what it is.
But then I told him he was 12and I was like you're going into
15, you 125 pound, you knowweight class, he goes okay.
And I took he got smoked, likeI didn't take him there to win.
I was like this is what's gonnahappen, this is what you're
running into, so that way you'reready and we always did that.
Now I again.
If you, if you think your kid'sbull Bassett and you think he's

(23:09):
going to win four natties, hey,you do it.
You do you boo, you do what yougotta do right.

Speaker 3 (23:14):
You do what you gotta do.

Speaker 2 (23:15):
Yeah, you do what you gotta do.
But any other guy on on anyother kid grow, you know, let
him, let him wrestle and havefun with it.
And it's easier said than donewhen and because, again, I've
been in that weird position.
But how did your parents dealwith the like your?
What was your dad's view on theweight cutting thing?

Speaker 3 (23:31):
I have the perfect story for this.
So when I was around I Icouldn't tell you how old I was.
We were at a camp for jordanburroughs and his driver did not
show up and he lives in Jersey.
So my dad was like we're goingback there, We'll drive him back
.
So me and him sat in the backseat and watched family guy for
like four or five hours.

(23:53):
Yeah, no, four or five hoursJust watching family guy and at
the time he was writing like anarticle about how kids shouldn't
cut weight.
Oh really, I rubbed off on mydad.
So he was like, dean, I don'treally want you cutting too much
weight.
So I cut, I cut a little bit.
I would say I cut most of myweight eighth grade, in my
freshman year of high school,but after that I wasn't cutting

(24:14):
a ton of weight.
I never cut.
I never cut what some of thesekids got.
I never cut more than 15 pounds.
That never, never, even, nevereven a thought.
The most I cut, probably inhigh school, was to make 106.
And that was a struggle.
It was probably like 11, 12pounds and that was for me that
was a lot.
But even once I got to college Idon't cut too much.
Like right now I'm walkingaround like 131, 132.

Speaker 2 (24:37):
That's awesome, yeah, that's awesome, yeah, yeah, and
I'm a big proponent of that.
I love that, and and and again.
I'm not here to bag on parents,but some of y'all need to calm
down with the whole way cuttingwith your kids, cause it's not
really worth it.

Speaker 3 (24:49):
And plus, there's no college recruiter that's
watching your 10 year old, soyeah, cutting 30, 40 pounds
probably isn't the best for yourbody down the line anyway.
You know what?
I mean, like that's like growingup, even even though, like a
lot of kids in Jersey cut a lotof weight, like you'll hear
stories about how parents had tolike hold these kids up to hop
onto the scale, like it was.
It was pretty gross, prettydisgusting at times here and

(25:10):
that the weight that some ofthese other kids had to cut
cause like I don't want to sayI'm a baby when it comes to
cutting weight, but like I wouldlike lose like two or three
pounds and be like, oh, I had tolose two or three pounds but
bounds, but like in the grandscheme of things, I'm not losing
anything close to what thesekids are cutting right now.

Speaker 2 (25:25):
Yeah, no it's nuts, and there's some of the high
school guys, there's some highschool coaches that have
requirements, for these kids arelike I need you here, I need
you to do this.
Like, do you, though?
Do you really can you take an lon that spot?
Just put the other guy in seewhat happens if he's not that
good kind of thing.

Speaker 3 (25:40):
But high school is the worst time for the kids to
be cutting in the first placebecause, like my junior and
senior year, I didn't cutanything like when I was
wrestling 2026.
I could eat a pack of skittlesand down a mountain doing beyond
weight you know what I mean andstill make weight and I'd be
all right but like, even likefor the certifications.
Like people would like changethe numbers, change your height,
change your weight, just tolike certify them for these

(26:03):
weight classes.
They didn't need to be yet yeahso yeah, it's it's crazy.

Speaker 2 (26:08):
And I think again, if you're going for something
that's highly competitive, a usopen or an olympic trial, you
know things like that.
Yeah, you know, because there'salways a number one, there's
only so many weight classes, butI get it that, you know you
you're trying to make it becompetitive, as competitive as
possible.
But yeah, when it comes to thekid stuff, it's a little crazy.
So when you got to high schooland it, what was your schedule

(26:31):
like?
So I don't understand.
I don't fully know exactly howNew Jersey rules are when it
comes to high schoolcompetitions, cause our public
schools.
If you're WIA, you can't gooutside except for two events
and it has to be okayed, right.
So you have to get the athleticdirector, things like that.
What was your school able toattend and do for tournaments?
Where were you guys able to go?

Speaker 3 (26:50):
So we weren't really able to do much because our
school kind of sucked atwrestling so we didn't get
invited to a lot of goodtournaments.
But after I won my state titlemy sophomore year, so freshman
year I lost in the state finalsto Joe.
E yo, which was you know a greatmatch and he was one of those
guys.
It was I was.
I walked out there and I'm likeI've been knowing this kid my

(27:11):
whole life and it's like, oh man, I gotta wrestle like one of my
, my best friends growing up.
This sucks.
But yeah, um, after I won mystate title, my sophomore year,
junior year, we got invited tobeast of the east and that was
like our big tournament for theyear, whatever.
Um, I ended up winning that orwhatever.
But we never really had likehuge tournaments we went to.
So like we had like sam cali,we didn't really get to go to

(27:32):
like escape the rock in uh,what's it?
The other one, escape the rock,and then there's another,
there's another one in powerade.
We never got to go to those.
We kind of really it was justbasically jersey competition for
me.
I mean in the off season Iwould go to like super 32 and
those other tournaments to getcompetition, but we didn't
really like our school schedulewasn't anything like that tough
to be real, yeah yeah, but youguys, I mean just to say that

(27:54):
you're, you're wrestling injersey alone.

Speaker 2 (27:56):
I mean you got tough competition either way, so so
you really had to kind of gooutside of your comfort zone
during the off season then to beable to go and chase some of
those guys down.
So where were, where were someof the top?
Was it the usuals was like usopens and and doing little
things like that, or where didyou guys wind up going when you
were trying to get on the scenea little bit?

Speaker 3 (28:13):
super 32 was the big one for me.
That's where we ended up going.
So my eighth grade year I endedup, if you look at the eighth,
like my eighth grade year.
I think it was 98 pounds orsomething like that.
It's actually it's a crazybracket.
It's got Jesse Mendez in it,levi Haynes, uh, peyton Keller,
vinny Um, there's just a lot oflike.

(28:33):
If I sent you this bracketyou'd be like oh my God, there's
so many college guys that are,like all Americans, national
champs, right now in thisbracket.
Uh, I ended up beating Mendezlike 5-1.
That's my only time in eighthgrade though in eighth grade,
doesn't you know, it's whateverand then I ended up.
I think the next time I went tosuper 32, I was 120 pounds.
I ended up wrestling jordanwilliams in the semifinals and

(28:57):
losing in the last seconds.
He hit me.
They used to call him the iceman yeah, I was up 3-2.
With 30 seconds left he hit mewith like a super duck oh I was
like oh, my god so that was oneof those one of those
tournaments, super 32 was thebig one for sure, though were
you?

Speaker 2 (29:12):
were you much into freestyle, did you?
Did you like freestyle thatmuch?

Speaker 3 (29:16):
I would go to freestyle tournaments and I
would just have like up and downperformances just because, like
not that I didn't get the style, I just I didn't train it
enough.
I wasn't training freestyle andgreco enough to like be good at
it.
So we have northeast regions,which is like our big qualifier
tournament, and the one time Iwent I had I beat cooper flynn
the day before 10-2 and then I Iended I was winning 8-0 against

(29:40):
anthony noto.
He ended up beat me 10-8 andthen the next day I have to
wrestle cooper fly on the backside.
He gets me in a leg lace in thefirst 20 seconds I lose 10-0.
So that was like I just wasn'tconsistent and created freestyle
to be real.

Speaker 2 (29:54):
So well and I look at I do look at, you know,
sometimes the duels.
You know you look at juniorduels and things like that.
When it comes to all the Fargotalk and Fargo stuff, like
Jersey's always been kind of upthere, you know kind of thing,
never been real dominant.
So I kind of even wonder ifthat's kind of like a passion
anybody in Jersey has.
It's not it's not very.

Speaker 3 (30:13):
It's not trained very often at all.
I mean my senior year of highschool because I didn't end up
wrestling the state tournament.
My senior year because it gotpushed back because of COVID and
I ended up getting.
My nose is still crooked.
So I ended up.
I was playing baseball.
I was playing baseball and mybrother hits a fly ball.
I lost it in the sun.
Oh, I needed.

(30:34):
I had two deviated septums,nasal valve collapse.
I broke my nose so I needed toget the surgery because they
said I had cartilage floatingaround and if I didn't get the
surgery I could just sniff thewrong way.
It could surgery because theysaid I had cartilage floating
around and if I didn't get thesurgery I could just sniff the
wrong way.
It could go into my brain.
It would be bad.
And, oh my god, I was like Ineed to get the surgery and get

(30:55):
it out.
So I went to fargo by my senioryear and, like I actually ended
up losing to, uh, vincentrobinson, I got.
I got attacked by him.
I look, I got killed by him.
He hit me with that wrist snapright by, got me pretty bad.
It was all over flow wrestlingat the time.
It got blown up.
But then I hurt my knee and Ilike defaulted out of the
tournament.
I went like two and two orthree and two or something like
that.
So freestyle again, just notnot huge in jersey and I've

(31:17):
never been great at it.

Speaker 2 (31:18):
So well, that's, and I think, uh, I think a lot.
I think we've had a couple kidsnow out of Wisconsin that we
know they like competing in it.
Right, they had fun doing thatkind of thing, but they're like
I'm sticking to folk style.
I really have no interest infreestyle.
So I was like, all right, allright, it's an acquired taste.
They're all acquired tastes,especially Greco.
Nobody really seems to spin offinto that one too often.

(31:41):
But we're getting better, we'regetting better.

Speaker 3 (31:48):
I want to dabble in greco a little bit.
I feel like I'd be pretty likeeven though my style has kind of
changed a little bit once I gotto college, like now, I feel
like I'd be a lot morecomfortable wrestling freestyle,
like I think my freshman year,my redshirt year, I kind of went
to.
I went to the us open and I wasI again.
I made the blood round.
It was one fun round away fromplacing, but at the time I was a
little bit fatter.
I couldn't make 25.
So I was up at 61 kilograms,like 34, 35.
And that's what I was walkingaround at.

(32:08):
I shouldn't have been there.
I shouldn't have been there atthat weight at all.
I just like the kids werewalking out, like I'm like five,
three and the kids are walkingout at like five, eight and I'm
like yeah, I'm looking at thekid I'm like, oh Jesus, five
three, that's.

Speaker 2 (32:22):
Oh, my god, that's.
That's another thing thatfloors me, as we see you guys on
tv, right, and you're all builtright, you're athletes, you're
built athletes.
And you walk down the hallwayand you're like, hey, there's
steve macco.
I'm almost the same height asthat guy.
Holy, that's crazy.
And then you're like I'm five,three, five, four.
I'm like that is the shortestman I think I've stood next to
his five, three, five, four.

Speaker 3 (32:42):
I get that a lot like people see me they're like
that's dean peterson.
Why is he so small?

Speaker 2 (32:47):
I'm like yeah liam's getting a complex.
All of his cousins are likesuper, super tall.
His cousins like number sevenin the country's a quarterback
is that in california he's likesix foot three.
He was like five, six, seven ohman so there's definitely a
complex when it comes towrestlers, but when, when you're
kind of starting to navigatethrough high school I mean you,

(33:07):
so you're having fun, folk styleyou're, you're in a great area
and obviously freestyle justisn't like really something
you're striving for.
But what, what are your goalsonce high school hit?
Restart and already kind oflook at colleges and everything
like that when you got like yourfreshman sophomore year, or was
that a distant thing in yourhead at that point?

Speaker 3 (33:24):
I never really thought about where I wanted to
go college wise.
I kind of just wanted teams toteams to reach out or whatever.
But what I made the mistake ofdoing is I committed really,
really, really early in theprocess so originally I wasn't
committed to ruckers, so I wascommitted to princeton.
Actually it was the other jerseyschool and like I just started
to have a lot of doubts about itbecause like it's a rich kid's

(33:47):
school for the most part andlike you wear suits to class and
I'm just like I don't know, Idon't fit the bill for that at
all.
You know, I'm like a Jersey kidthrough and through.
I'm not like that.
I don't want to say like snobby, snotty nose, but I'm not like
the yeah, I'm not the suit andtie type of guy.
So I was like, and I had aconversation with one of the
coaches.
They're like you can be achameleon for four years.

(34:08):
I'm like I don't, I don't wantto do that, I don't want to do
that.
So I, when I was at Fargo, oneof my coaches was like saw Goody
, like the Rutgers coach, andwas like, hey, if you guys
needed 25, dean's thinking aboutdecommitting from Princeton,
and that's kind of how the ballgot rolling on that and I ended
up committing.
Like two months before schoolstarted I ended up switching
over to Rutgers.
So I didn't really get to talkto a bunch of schools I talked

(34:31):
to like I think West Virginiaand even like Penn State had
asked for my transcripts andthen they kind of like ghosted
me, which is funny.

Speaker 2 (34:37):
Yeah, harvard does the same thing to Liam.

Speaker 3 (34:48):
Yeah, it's good, it's good.
I just I didn't get it, likewhy why ask for my transcripts?

Speaker 2 (34:50):
and then we gave them to you, and then you're like,
oh cool, yeah, thanks for thepaperwork.
Yeah, so, when you so, whenyou're, when you're looking,
even in the process, like you,you decommitted.
What was that like, though?
Because we've had a couple guyshere that like, uh, you know
Eric Barnett, he committed NorthCarolina first, then he went to
the Badgers.
Did you catch?
Did you catch?
A lot of shit for that Wasthere?

(35:10):
Was there a blowback for that?
Trust me, I, I had I had.

Speaker 3 (35:15):
Look, that's trust me like it was probably worse than
like because I've gotten someblowback from like obviously
going to iowa and committing toiowa and everything guys.
But it was probably way worsewhen I decommitted from
princeton because, like yeah Ihad like obviously at the time,
because pat glory was the 125, Ihad like that dude like

(35:35):
flipping on me a little bit.
I I had some like other guysthe RTC that weren't happy with
it and they're like we trainedyou.
I'm like you guys because thething is at the time that was
also that kind of went.
What in what went into mydecommitment is it was during.
Covid and.
I was trying to train with theguys that I'm like how am I, how

(35:55):
am I supposed to like be a partof this if you guys won't even
let me train with the people Ineed to train with?

Speaker 2 (35:59):
yeah, yeah, right, and that was, and that's so.
That's interesting.
You say that because I know youknow that what, when, when liam
goes around and he's able totrain in certain places, things
like that, like it was, they'repretty open, you know.
They're like oh yeah, if youwant to practice, just let us
know, so that way we can getthem set up ahead of time.
It almost sounds like they'rekind of like yeah, no, we don't

(36:24):
want to show them how good youare.

Speaker 3 (36:24):
Yet Recently Jersey has been getting better, but for
the longest time they werereally tight-knit and people
wouldn't let you into certainclubs.
If you went to this club, Iwasn't allowed into what's it
called.
One of the bigger clubs injersey is short thing, so I
wasn't allowed to go to shortthing because I beat up the kids
or the guy's son that owns theclub.
I beat him like six or seventimes in high school so he just

(36:47):
like wouldn't let me train withother short thing guys or be at
that club.
Like I was like banned fromshort thing.

Speaker 2 (36:53):
I was never, never allowed to be in there there's
some closeted kind of crazy shitlike the hide people away.
But I mean, I I can't, I can'tbang on it too much, because I
remember before Liam was even inhigh school, his youth
tournament was coming up and hewas at at Kekona practicing with
Kekona kids.
So he was in that group Right,and there was a dad that wanted
his kid to be able to come upinto like kangaroo to practice

(37:14):
and Liam was up there and theyknew that he was going to
wrestle Liam at state.
No, we can't.
No, you guys can't.

Speaker 3 (37:19):
Yeah, I never got that.
If you're two of the best kidsin the state, why aren't you
going to wrestle?
You're going to wrestle anyway,just wrestle, it's wrestling.
Have fun, go out there Wrestle.

Speaker 2 (37:40):
Yeah, it's going to make fun of stuff once in a
while too.
But the absurdity of things.
But when you, when you decidedto go to rudkers and with with
the, you know it's not that farfrom home, kind of thing?
um, what were your thoughts onon a school in general?
Were you ever at the pointpoint of like I got to get out
of Jersey, I want to go here, Iwant to, you know, go to here,

(38:00):
but you just never got the offer, kind of thing?
Was it Iowa?
Were you looking at Iowa whenyou were looking at colleges at
all?

Speaker 3 (38:06):
I.
I never got the call from Iowa.
I'll be real, they I didn'tthink they had any interest in
me.
I one of interested in wasstanford, because I wanted to go
where it was like nice all thetime.
Yeah, the warrior for me is atthe time.
That's when stanford's programwas getting cut and I wanted, I
wanted so bad to like go out,get out of jersey and do
whatever.
But yeah, I was so worried.

(38:27):
I'm like, are they gonna losetheir program?
And now I'm not gonna havesomewhere to wrestle, like I'm
worried about that.
At the time I'm like, oh god,what am I gonna do?
But I think after, like myfreshman year at ruckers, I kind
of I got some like not likeunder the table offers for the
most part to go yeah I rounded12 and people were like well,
well, you know, if you want tocome here, you can come here,
and I feel,like I should have jumped at it

(38:49):
at the time because I know Icould have grown a lot more in
my college career if I wassomewhere else.
Sure, sure, for the most part II felt like Rutgers was the
comfortable decision, like thesafe choice.
Like you said, it's close tohome.
I've been here my entire life.
I'm not putting myself in anuncomfortable situation, and
that's where I believe is youget better when you put yourself

(39:10):
in uncomfortable situations.

Speaker 2 (39:12):
For the most part, You're going to have fun in Ohio
.
You're definitely going to bemade uncomfortable.
I'm new to how kids work out,so you are going to you.
You're going to have fun on anaisle.
You're definitely going to bemade uncomfortable.
They're going to do it.
So I'm I'm new to how kids workout, right.
Like I'm not into.
I don't.
I see YouTube stuff but I'm notlike trying to scroll down to
find out what high school kidsare doing to work out Right.
So when I took him down therelike you're doing sauna workouts
, like it's crazy, Like I neverunderstood the amount of workout

(39:34):
stuff you guys put into yourday, and then desanto put them
through something.
There's a couple other kids Ithink cassiope's little brothers
are down there too, so thoseguys are going through and I was
like oh, how was that?
You guys can't hang out in thesauna talking.
He's like no, we're working outin the sauna.
Shut your mouth.
Yeah, no that's look.

Speaker 3 (39:54):
I don't like to be in the sauna too much, but we do
this thing called the russiansauna.
So what we'll do is we're goingfor 20.
You'll bring some fruit in,bring in some water.
You're eating, drinking, you'removing around a little bit, go
out, eat and drink fruit andthen you come back in for 10, 5,
whatever it's like.
You go lower, lower, lower butyeah no definitely working out
there.
I I do some crazy workouts.
I do some really not becauselike even right, like this

(40:17):
morning.
So when I weightlift I don't go, I don't try to lift heavy.
What I'll do is I will go.
I think I did this morningprobably over 400 or 500 reps of
like different types of benchpress for my chest.
So we started out with justregular bench press.
We did about 50 reps.
We would incline bench presswith a plate on each side, 50
reps, and then we went isolated,one arm at a time, 50, 50, then

(40:41):
both the same 50.
Then we did some hangs and wewere doing obviously there's a
couple machines you do for themtoo.
But I'm really big on likeendurance, training my muscles
so they can go longer and lastlonger.
I'm not super big on like themuscle aspect of it and ego
lifting like super, super heavyweight.
I just I yeah, I'm not gonnatry and deadlift 400 or 600,

(41:01):
whatever many pounds aj ferraridoes or whatever yeah, yeah, you
can smell that guy's hair gelthrough the screen.

Speaker 2 (41:09):
I swear to god.
But yeah but that was the thingtoo, like with liam, with the
conditioning, like there's it's.
It's crazy on the amount oflevels that you guys jump and
have to jump going into collegeCause you're wrestling also
other state champions and otherstate qualifiers and other guys
that have made world teams orsomething like that.
So you're not, you're notwalking into a room with some

(41:30):
kids that, oh, it's thought I'dtry wrestling this year.
You know it's not like that.
So you have to be wellconditioned.
I think I'm starting to.
We're looking at liam a littleweird.
Sometimes right now he's likeI'm gonna go work out, I'm gonna
go work out.
I'm like seriously like thatmuch.
Okay, again, cool, you can'tlook at it.
Yeah, again like you just didit like this morning.
But now, like knowing you guysand hearing the stories I could
hear from you, I'm like okay, itmakes more sense.

(41:51):
All right, I I will not get inthe way as much, I'll make make
sure that you get your workout.
But were you guys doing that inyour high school program?

Speaker 3 (42:00):
Um, you know we would have some.
The thing is with my highschool program, like I said,
like our program wasn't reallygood.
So I kind of what.
I would end up doing is I would.
I'm going to club club practiceover like regular practice, so
like I would teach the techniqueat my high school practice and
then I would go to, I would goto.
I would go to elite, where theword the room is a hundred
degrees, literally a hundreddegrees.
They make it as uncomfortableas possible, very hot, and

(42:22):
you're like you, you go right in, you warm up for 10, 15 and
it's right in the live and thentechnique.
So you really have to like Ithink that's the best way to do
it, because then you have toreally concentrate your mind
because you're tired fromwrestling, you're tired from
warming up and if you're, if youreally want to absorb the
technique, you got to reallymentally focus on what's going
on in front of you I agree, Iagree, I wholeheartedly agree

(42:43):
with that and that's that's.

Speaker 2 (42:44):
I think that's the biggest thing is just exhaustion
, because you think about itover time.
Third period, things like that.
You've already been going forsix, seven, you know eight
minutes already and, man, andyou're not wrestling again guys
that are new to this and yourbody is struggling that whole
time just to keep someone downor take them down.
So yeah, and I think a lot oftimes I mean you were coach
peterson pretty early, so Ithink a lot of times kids can

(43:07):
take away the fact that a theyhad, you know, good partners,
guys that cared about the sportand cared about each other, just
in the room and having goodcamaraderie, and that goes a
long way, cause I mean, I'lltell you what you can be a
championship team and hate eachother and give you the worst
experience.

Speaker 3 (43:21):
I mean I've always loved the teams I've been on.
I've always been like aroundguys that have been like a good,
good team atmosphere.
But yeah, no, I've never reallybeen around like guys that that
, yeah, it's crazy, it's crazy.

Speaker 2 (43:38):
So with with your, with your high school kind of
career was coming to an end.
You pick ruckers.
Yeah, your, what was your lastday tournament like uh in high
school?

Speaker 3 (43:48):
so that was my junior year so yeah, that's right I
had.
It was kind of weird.
So the week before I waswinning a match 11 and like
three and then I got put on myback and I almost got pinned.
I almost got pinned.
I ended up winning like 11 to 9.
It was a close match.
But I go like people were like,oh my god, he's not gonna
whatever, I'm the one seed goingin like at 120, so like I'm

(44:10):
expected to do whatever, andlike people are having doubts
because I I got put on my backthe week before and then I go go
into the state tournament and Idon't have a single point
scored on me.
So I got, I got to.
Just you know, I ended upwinning in the finals like one
zero.
I rode the kid out for twominutes but like he had his head
in the mat the entire time and,funny enough, it was that kid's
son of the club or whatever,cause I, I in the bracket which

(44:39):
you know, I was like good forhim.
He got his state title.
But it was funny because mycoach called me up and he's like
, yeah, the kid's not happyabout it anyway, cause he didn't
get to wrestle you.

Speaker 2 (44:48):
Yeah, I'm like I get it, I get it.

Speaker 3 (45:01):
Let him have that one .
Yeah, it's all good.
I mean it sucks because I'monly a two-timer.
I wish I was a three-timer.
I'm a four, I'm a three-timefinalist, two-time state champ,
but I really wish I I got beenable to wrestle my senior year.

Speaker 2 (45:05):
It kind of sucked but so what was the call to not to
not go to like school?
Your senior year were youhomeschooled and you were
training kind of thing.
What was that?

Speaker 3 (45:12):
no, that's that surgery.
I had that surgery on my nose,that's right.
Yeah, yeah, so the reason thatthe surgery yeah.
So I was trying to wait tillthe season was over, but what
ended up happening is covid, soit ended up pushing the state
tournament about a month back.
So I was like I can't keepwaiting to get this surgery
because, like I said, if Isniffed the wrong way, what if

(45:32):
you know, cardios in my brain orwhatever?
So I'm like I need to get thissurgery.
I've been trying to schedule itfor months and, like I was told
originally, I'm like, okay, I'mgonna be back after four weeks.
And they're like, no, afterfour weeks you can slowly get
back into working out, becauseif you go, if I go too hard
right away, I'll just startgetting like nose bleeds and
mess up everything that I'vealready done.
So I'm like, oh, and they'relike, yeah, you got another six

(45:54):
weeks.
I was like and I'm like oh, soI'm not even gonna get to
wrestle and I was like this thissucks that's horrible.

Speaker 2 (46:03):
Yeah, that sucks well and liam has.
We don't know how it happened.
Liam has the same affliction.
Uh, he, currently it'sdifficult to breathe.
So we actually give him likeallergy meds and when he doesn't
need allergy meds becausethat's what I would do.

Speaker 3 (46:18):
That's what I would do.
But even now it's like I regretgetting the surgery because two
weeks later I took like a kneeto my nose and broke it again
and that's why they said theywon't give him the surgery until
he's done competing.

Speaker 2 (46:28):
They won't do it because they're like if you, if
you get it done, it'll be great.
You know things like that.
But you're in a sport where ifit just gets tweaked just a
little bit, it's going rightback to the way that it was.
We're like well, that sucks,man, you're kind of like half
blind, can't breathe out of onenostril, so he's really got the
card stacked against a littlebit when he goes to the matches.
But well, at least, I mean atleast you got it done, but it

(46:49):
just sucks that it came rightback and didn't even matter the
first place.

Speaker 3 (46:53):
I can't breathe that well through my nose.
I'll tell you that much.
I'm a mouth breather at heart,for most of my life.

Speaker 2 (46:59):
So that's for sure, you guys are matching twins when
it comes to mouth breathing.
And I just it was funny becausehe was just complaining about
something in the day and he putshis head back.
You can see like the whole oneside just collapsed over.
It's like, yeah, poor guy, Ifeel bad for him, but yeah, hey,

(47:20):
it's, it's what happens.
I and I think, uh, I blamed, Iblamed, uh, my wife.
I was like it probably happenedwhen he was born.
It's nothing I can, I didn'thave anything to do with it, I
didn't beat him that bad, but no, it's uh.
I think I think when you, whenyou jump, that I think uh, going
just into a college environment, I think guys get a little
twisted.
I think guys get a littletwisted.
I think they sometimes getscared.
They sometimes you know you'rehomesick, you know you're in
college, even if you're just anhour up the road or something

(47:41):
too.
You know you wind up.
Not, I don't want to be here,I'm going to go back home and
hang out with my buddies.
What was your thought kind ofwhen you jumped into college?
Were you homesick?
I mean, even though you're atRutgers, not too far like I
don't know if I want to go tocollege.

Speaker 3 (47:54):
It was definitely an adjustment.
I wasn't like I didn't want togo to college, but like I would
come home on the weekends and belike I want to come home for a
little bit.
You know, whether it's for likea day or two days.
I wanted to come home and justlike be around like my brother
and stuff and like spend timewith him, because like I'm
really close to my brother andlike even moving out to iowa

(48:16):
it's gonna damn.

Speaker 2 (48:17):
I want to go home a little bit, you know I was
definitely homesick yeah, mybrother went to parkside, which
is like two hour two and a halfhours south from us, like he was
homesick too, like he stilltransferred back up to the
college that was literally rightin our town because he was so
homesick and I was like then hecame back and he didn't want to
be in college in general, thewrestling coach yeah nick becker

(48:39):
I'm thinking of a differentparkside, I don't know, because
he would.

Speaker 3 (48:42):
You know who john trend is?

Speaker 2 (48:44):
no, all right all right, he went to lake lehigh.

Speaker 3 (48:47):
He wrestled kale sanderson in one of his state or
in one of his ncaa finals andstuff oh really I think he
coaches at a school calledparkside, so that's why I was
thinking about that.
I don't know where that that'sat, but it's probably another
small.

Speaker 2 (48:58):
So Parkside's probably one of the as far as in
our state one of the better D2schools that we have.
Nick's done a really good job.
He gets a lot of the Askrenkids.
He gets a lot of the Askrenkids that come down because
Becker's an Askren kid himself,so he gets.

(49:18):
He's also gotten some decenttransfers to come into a school
too.
So kudos to him.
I know everybody's kind ofpissed off with the Badgers
right now and things are goingon around there, but yeah.
I think, yeah, I, I complain alittle bit too, but I'm not like
I'm not, I'm not a Badgers fan,right, so it's like I get where
the people are coming from, upwith it, kind of what's going on
up there what is going on outthere like I'm a wisconsin guy.
I'm hearing all my friendscomplain about it.

(49:38):
Now I'm looking, I'm like holyshit, they got a reason to
complain.
But so when, when you, when youstart in college, who was?
Who were guys you were rollingaround with in the rutgers?
When you got in there?

Speaker 3 (49:50):
nah, I'm trying to think.
Let me, I gotta think of whowas there.
I was rolling around withshaver, honestly, because he was
the 25 at the time.
What's his name?
Robinson was a guy that wasleaving.
He was Blair Academy I'm tryingto think of his first name, oh
man, nico Messina, which was aJersey kid I was rolling around
with.
Kletzos, got in there the yearafter me, but at the time there

(50:10):
wasn't a whole bunch of 25s whenI got in, to be real, we didn't
have a lot of like smaller guysto roll with.
Like I tried to go with seb asmuch as I could, but like seb's
like a 41 pounder and he's kindof bigger for me because that
was my guy, but I'm like I triedto go with him as much as
possible.
I went with joey a little bit,um, but that was kind of like
the guys that I went.
And then, uh, we had what's it?
One transfer come in.

(50:31):
It was, um, oh man, oh man, I'mso bad with names sometimes but
I can't even think of it.
Yeah, no my memory is shot rightnow, Cause I can only cause.
I've been in college for fouryears now, thinking about my
partners, my freshman year Ican't even remember who I was
rolling with.

Speaker 2 (50:47):
Did you consider, like was it hard?
Was it something that you'relike man?
And this is a little tougherthan I thought it would be?

Speaker 3 (50:53):
The toughest part was stop being chunky, because I
walked into college.
I was if compared to what myface looks like right now if you
looked at me my freshman, if wecould get a picture of I had
long blonde hair and I had a fatface like I was.
I was walking around at like 42and I just was a pudge ball.
Well in my own eyes, I waspudgy.

(51:14):
Yeah.
But yeah.
So like I don't know, I just Iguess what I wasn't in the
hardest part was trying to make25.
I didn't make 25 at all myredshirt year, so I went to.
So what ended up happening?
My redshirt year is I tore myhamstring in one of the
preseason workouts sprintingacross the football field, just

(51:36):
grabbed my hand.
I'm like oh, whatever.
And like, dina, you're allright.
I'm like nope, something justpopped in my hamstring and then
I tried to come back for acouple like open tournaments,
and I got walking pneumonia andI was coughing up blood and I
was in the hospital and then Itried.
I was trying to recover fromthat and they're like okay,
we're gonna put some contrast inyour, in your whatever, to see

(51:57):
what's going on in your lungs.
Yeah, I had an allergicreaction to the contrast and I
started I'm like I can't breatheand I started spitting up more
blood and I was like so I didn'teven get to my first college
open tournament until january,second semester, and I ended up
taking out, uh, julian clayablefrom arizona state.
Oh, yeah, that was like my firstbig win.
But at the time we like hadthis crazy scram while I hurt my

(52:18):
knee and I was like, oh man, Iended up defaulting out of the
tournament.
Again.
I was like two and two and Iagain I wrestled one open
tournament, my red shirt year,which is not the type of red
shirt year you want to have atall so like I had a, I had a
rough red shirt year like allaround it was yeah, it was a
tough time for me when I firstgot into college so was it?

Speaker 2 (52:36):
was that, was it like a like, a, like a legitimate
tear in your, in your hamstring?

Speaker 3 (52:41):
yeah, they were a little bit confused because
usually when you tear yourhamstring you can see the
bruising.
But it was so deep in myhamstring they're like, oh,
you're probably fine they, theyx-rayed it and everything.
Like you tore your hamstringpretty bad, and I'm like I was
out for, I think, from octoberuntil like late december, so
like I was out for like two, two, three months almost and I
believe that.

Speaker 2 (53:00):
So I'm.
I'm an old dude, right, and Iplayed soccer.
So I was like I'm gonna sign upfor soccer again, right, and I
I'm in this adult league, I'mready to just go kill it because
I'm this dude, you're playingsemi-pro soccer, I can do this.
And I get out there and I did akick that I've been doing.
So I was 12 years old.
Straight up, I wailed on thatball so hard and then when I,
when I woke up and got upbecause I passed out almost from
it I got up and I was holdingmy leg and I looked at the ball.

(53:22):
The ball went like maybe 20feet away from me because I hit
the ground so hard when I swung.
I the the and you're talkingabout how many months it was.
I've never seen this underneathmy leg because I never tore my
hamstring in my entire life.
Underneath was all black andblue.
When you mentioned the blackand blue thing, all over, like
the whole thing and I didn'teven pay attention to that, like
I was, like it just hurts,right, it's, there's no coloring

(53:44):
.
So I didn't even look at it andI looked at the next day.
I'm like, oh my god, I think Iwas at the, I was at the gym, I
was doing whatever I could towork out and my leg just taking
a shower saw my leg.
So yes, two to three months.

Speaker 3 (53:54):
I definitely you Cause that stuff hurt that was
bad, yeah, and like you feel itfor a little bit afterwards too,
like there's a constant, likethat little like twinge of like
pain, that like sharp painpretty deep in the hand.
I'm like, oh man.

Speaker 2 (54:06):
Yeah, it's almost like you're.
It's almost like it's aconstant um, uh, flexing like
you're, like you're, like yourmuscles just flexing.

Speaker 3 (54:13):
You're like constantly flexing your leg and
you can feel it and I'm like, ohmy god, I can't make it stop.

Speaker 2 (54:20):
Yeah, so I feel you on that.
I did it in a, in a completelyhorrible way as a, as an old man
who didn't stretch out and dothe proper things you're
supposed to.
But it's, it's crazy how thatkind of ended your season.
But were you down, like whatdid that kind of send you
spiraling a little bit like?

Speaker 3 (54:35):
oh man, you know that's a rough take on your
redshirt year, you know mentallyI wasn't probably in a great
spot because I wanted to wrestleagain.
Like I got into college I wasready to wrestle, I was ready to
do all these things and it'slike I couldn't even compete.
My redshirt year, that's thewhole.
That was the whole point oflike.
Redshirt is like oh, I need toget some competition in.
Get against these college guys,see where I'm at.
And I didn't really get to seewhere I was at against like top

(54:57):
guys where I wanted to be andall this other stuff.
I was kind of just, you know,on the sidelines recovering from
injury after injury.

Speaker 2 (55:04):
So so you had a good run.
I mean, I you know not good runyour freshman year, but you,
you have a good spot.
I mean, were the coaches prettyoptimistic, like, hey, we'll
get this taken care of, we'llget you brought, get you brought
in, we'll make sure that you'reall set for the next season.
Maybe we'll get some in theoffseason for you.
You can compete here.
How does that go for guys incollege?
When you deal with an injury,what do the coaches wind up

(55:26):
telling you?

Speaker 3 (55:28):
I was not basically fully recovered, but they tried
to get me.
That's the year I did the USOpen and everything.
They were trying to get me incompetition after competition.
So before I did the US Open, wehad something called the
National Freestyle Duos that wedo in New Jersey.
So I got a couple good matchesat that.
I was supposed to wrestle Vito.
Didn't get to wrestle Vito.
I got to wrestle Caleb Smith atthe time and I beat him 4-3 in
freestyle, which was my best.

(55:49):
It was a fun match.
It was a fun match.
So I did get to see where I wasbit and that's kind of where
you know.
They were like, okay, he'sready to go, he'll be, he'll be
ready to go for the next season.
But at the time, um shauver wasstill at 25.
So when I was coming in theywere telling me, oh, he's gonna
bump up to 33, bump up to 33.
But when I came in for myfreshman year, shauver came in

(56:10):
and said I want to go 25 still.
So for the first three or fourmonths of the season up until
midlands, we were fighting forthe spot my freshman year.
So I didn't even have the spotlocked up because we went to a
couple of duels.
I would have ended up wrestlingRichie Figgs, my freshman year
at some school in PA, but wewere splitting matches that day.
So I wrestled the first matchand I'm like I wanted the

(56:31):
Arizona State match but since hehad already been the starter,
they gave him the match.
He ended up losing like sevensix.
It was pretty bad refereeing.
He probably should have won thematch but he ended up losing.
And that's when richie was in,like his freshman year, his
redshirt freshman year too,because he was behind courtney
at the time.
So yeah, definitely my.
That beginning of my freshmanyear was pretty interesting for
the most part fighting for aspot yeah, that could have been

(56:52):
a sweet wraparound, having thatmatch again.

Speaker 2 (56:54):
Get him, get him your freshman year.
Then come back around and I'mlike holy cow that we're gonna
talk about that in a second,because that was.
That's pretty sweet to watch us.
Yeah, either way, because youwalk into a tournament, you're
hearing all this buzz, you, youhear expectations, right, like I
mean I was like this guy shoulddo this, this guy should do
this and and then it doesn'thappen.
It happened all over the placein the tournament.

(57:15):
Right, I mean it's.
It's just crazy.
Did you find your freshman year?
Like, did they take you to thetournament?
Were you able to be there?

Speaker 3 (57:22):
They took me to Big Tens that year.
I was able to go to Big Tensand watch everything and be
around like what it was like tobe at a Big Ten tournament.
Which I will say this the BigTen tournament is probably
tougher than the NCAA tournamentbecause there's a good guy
every single round, even in theprelims.
You're not wrestling anyslouches.

Speaker 2 (57:40):
Yeah, and I can't argue with that.
I mean, in almost everyconference, though, too, it's
like either way, you're going tobe going against the toughest
guys that you should have beenwrestling all year anyway.
So that's like, oh man, how isthis going to turn?
Out this weekend Because youknow, if you had a rough go, but
when you kind of got into aposition when you were, you know

(58:01):
, put into the starting lineup.

Speaker 3 (58:02):
What was your first duel?
My first duel, oh man, my first, I can't even.
I couldn't even.
It might have been likesomething like bloomsbury.
It was actually like some, somelight match that wasn't super,
super difficult, yeah I can tellyou what my, like my toughest
match of the first semester wasbecause, like I locked up the
spot at midlands, because Iended up making the semi-finals
against barnett from wisconsinso I was like my first, like

(58:24):
real match, and he, he, he, meand him were like talking to
each other during the match,like in a.
In like a positive way yeah,because I was like it was like
talking smack a little bit butit wasn't so he was beating me
at like six to six to one or sixto nothing at the point, and
then he's like he was telling meto shoot.
He's like take a shot, take ashot, take a shot.
I ended up scoring on himbecause he was pretty good at
scrambling.
I ended up winning the scramblewhen I was like, yep, I got one

(58:46):
, I was on top.
I'm like, yeah, I got one, Igot one, and he won like six,
three, but I he was like thatwas good, that was a good shot,
whatever, and like we kind ofexchanged words a little bit but
, like it was a positiveexperience.

Speaker 2 (58:59):
It was like positive, like trash talk you guys are
bantering with each other,that's fine it was great, but
that was definitely like my wakeup call.

Speaker 3 (59:05):
I was like you know what?
You're here, you're there.
Like it was 6-3.
It was a close match.
I'm like this dude is alreadyan all American.
You're ready to go so that'sawesome.

Speaker 2 (59:13):
It doesn't surprise me that, barnett, I had him.
He's just from down the road,so I've had him on the show a
couple of times too and justkind of and knowing and knowing
who he is, and like you'retalking about scrambling, like
I'll be honest with you, I loveEric, but man, that kid did not
have a shot.
He was.
He was a defensive wrestlercoming out of high school and we
were worried, like becausewe're all excited for him, like

(59:33):
I wasn't always a big barnettfan, like a lot of people didn't
like him coming out of highschool, but I always and it was
fun watching him wrestle becausehe was so competitive and he
would let it fly if he needed to.
Right, if it was the lastseconds that kid was going to
make sure he let it fly, but hejust didn't seem to shoot.
Loved crackdown, loved it whenyou shot on him because he like
come around the backside alittle bit and scoring you that

(59:53):
way.
But then he got.
When he got to wisconsin and II praise gross for this one he
got this single leg and it waslike, oh man, he can wait a
minute, he's got a shot likehe's gonna, he's gonna start
shooting.
This is awesome.
And he started getting betterand better.

Speaker 3 (01:00:10):
But he couldn't get off from bottom either yeah, so
that's another thing that washard for him when I wrestled him
he rode me out on top becausehe's pretty good on top.
He didn't take that single legon me.
I took a high crotch and hescrambled out of it twice and
beat me up pretty bad.

Speaker 2 (01:00:24):
Yeah, that was Eric.
He was good at it.
You couldn't argue with a kidwho was good at something.
Everybody's got their one thing.
I think that's kind of coolthat you got to wrestle me.
He was talking shit on the mat.

Speaker 3 (01:00:39):
Who's the biggest shit talker on the mat that
you've ever wrestled?
Oh man, I mean he might be oneof the bigger ones because, like
he was talking smack on the mat, but you know who is kind of a
little bit it's Braden Davisfrom Penn State.
A little bit.

Speaker 2 (01:00:50):
Is he?

Speaker 3 (01:00:50):
really he was talking a little bit.
When I wrestled him the onetime I ended up losing to him,
but I lost on a pretty I don'twant to say BS, because I don't
like to say I takeaccountability for my losses or
whatever.
Sure yeah, but it was at the BJCand at the time I took, I will
say I took him down with like 30seconds left, put him on his
back and they didn't give me thetakedown or whatever.

(01:01:11):
I tell my corner, throw thebrick, throw the brick.
And they hand that brick rightback to my corner and say what?
In a Big Ten duel there was novideo review because it went out
right before the duel orsomething in the BJC and I was
like you're a Big.
Ten program.
You're the best team in thecountry.
You don't have video reviewright now.
And that was like the weekafter the same thing Not the
same thing happened.

(01:01:31):
But he had wrestled Kilcurryfrom Ohio State and the dude
tossed him with like fiveseconds left and they waved off
the call and everything.
So off the call and everything.
So like everyone was pretty,pretty heated about it too.
They're like dean shouldn'thave lost to davis because it
ended up going overtime and atthe time I I I don't want again.
I take accountability for mylosses.
I had the fluid time.
I I run off the mat because I'mtrying to get to the trash can,
because I gotta throw up.

(01:01:52):
They're like get back to thecenter.
I get taken down in like 20seconds.
Then I run to the trash can,I'm thrown up and then it's a
full pack BJC.
So I have Penn State fanschirping me while I'm thrown up
in the trash can and I'm likeleave me alone, please.

Speaker 2 (01:02:07):
That sucks.
Why were you sick?

Speaker 3 (01:02:10):
I think I had like a one-on-one or a one-on-two fever
at the time and I was just likeI was not not in a position to
be wrestling in front of as manyfans as I was.
But Okay.

Speaker 2 (01:02:20):
So now tell me about that position, because that's
interesting.
Guys wrestling injured you knowthat that's one thing in and I
get it there's.
There's either it's a big duelin line, kind of thing like that
, but what, where?
Where's the decision making?
To wrestle sick right, like I'mrunning 102 fever, or or you
know I I was throwing up beforeI came in.
Where was it?

(01:02:40):
Because I'm here, I need tomake sure I do this kind of
thing.
Does it feel like it's a job?
What was it?

Speaker 3 (01:02:46):
So for the most part at Rutgers, I never really had a
full-on backup Again.
We didn't have a lot of.
We weren't pretty, we weren'tdeep at 25 at that year
eligibility, so like he ended upgetting like a little bit of an
injury, they had somethingfixed up.
He didn't lose that year.

(01:03:06):
But we didn't have another 25,we didn't have someone behind me
.
So anytime I needed to go outthere, whether I was hurt, sick,
injured, I needed to go outthere, and that's kind of what
they told me, that I knew thatgoing in though you know, that's
kind of what it is.
It is that it's a job, but itis your spot, it's my spot, I
won it, I wrestled for it andthat's what I signed up for.
But I think even the next yearwe didn't really have a guy that

(01:03:29):
we not that we didn't trust him, but we didn't have a guy that
could compete behind me at 25that would be competitive in the
duel or be competitive againstthese other guys.
So so, no matter whether I wasinjured or whether I was sick, I
was going out there to wrestle,okay.

Speaker 2 (01:03:41):
It's an expectation.

Speaker 3 (01:03:42):
Yeah, and then this was the first year that I had a
backup that could like his AidenSmith.
Honestly, I trained them allyear.
Great kid, great wrestler wasthe first time I had an actual
backup so, like when I was sick,he got to wrestle the Michigan
state match this year and heended up winning an overtime,
which.
Like.
I actually had a backup thatcould go out there and wrestle
for me when I wasn't in aposition to wrestle.

Speaker 2 (01:04:02):
Okay, okay and that's so.
That's kind of the intricaciesthat I think that a lot of kids
don't get to see, cause theythey're like, well, I don't know
, I don't know if I want towrestle sick or if I want to
wrestle hurt.
I mean, sometimes you know,like you said, that was your
spot, you wrestled for kind ofthing.
In a position to be on a teamlike that, a Big Ten things like
that.
You're already above and beyondwhat you're thinking, what you

(01:04:23):
need to be doing, and that'swhere you put yourself.
And a lot of the kids do that,especially these high-level kids
, and I don't down them for it.
Sometimes you kind of questionlike, was it really worth it,
kind of thing, but in the end,like you said, otherwise, your
team is taking the L Otherwisethey're taking minus a six If
you can go out there and justsee, even if you don't win, if
it's minus three, we'll takethat over the minus six kind of

(01:04:44):
thing.
I get it and I commend a lot ofyou guys.
That's dedication to be likehey, especially then having to
go throw up and listen to peopleberate you while you're
throwing up the Penn State fansare funny.

Speaker 3 (01:04:55):
but look, I turn back at them and I've said some
things on Twitter at them.
So we all know about that.
I don't know if you know aboutit, but I said some crazy things
after I beat Luke this year.
I had to delete that tweet, butI wish I could have kept it up.
The only reason I deleted thiscause, you know, my coaches were
getting calls fromadministration.
They're like you got to deletethat right now and I'm like,
okay, I will.
But if I could have kept it up,I would have not that I hate

(01:05:19):
Penn State, but you know I don'tlike them.
I don't like them.
I don't think a lot of peoplelike them, but it's not because
they're the best team in thecountry.

Speaker 2 (01:05:26):
I have my reasons.
Right, and so that's the thingtoo.
I think a lot of people getlost in this fact of like oh,
you just don't like them becauseyou don't win.
You know, some people havedifferent angles on things.
Right to you, you know, or insomething just might I get worn
in different ways than otherpeople might, right, like and I
told this to someone the otherday sometimes things wear me
down and I get.

(01:05:47):
I get to a point where it'slike I don't want to.
This is stupid, and I point outthe absurdity of things.
Right, and that's that's kindof where I'm at.
When you see anything that comesout like negative about me,
it's because I've seen it about30 times.
I'm tired of seeing it, and nowyou're going to hear me be
tired of seeing it, and nowyou're gonna hear me be tired of
seeing it, and that's whathappens.
So and I I don't blame it youguys have to be able to have
your reactions too, and it'sjust like being at a job, though

(01:06:08):
if you're, if my employerdoesn't, hey, why are you
posting that stuff about someone?
That they work at a company orsomething like that?
You gotta take that out.
So I get that too, but you'restill in a place where you're
like yeah, you know what that?
That was me.

Speaker 3 (01:06:20):
I did win that yeah, you know, you go back to the
year before with the whole nobrick, no review call like yeah,
I, I, I.
I feel like kale should havesaid something to me and been
like you know that is on us orwhatever, and that's kind of
where some of that comes from islike you guys did nothing, said
nothing to me after that.
Like that's ridiculous that youguys let that happen,

(01:06:42):
especially as the number oneprogram in the country not
having video review in the bjc,no less, with like 20 000.
However many fans like yeah, youguys are the best program in
the country and you don't havevideo review for a big 10 duel.

Speaker 2 (01:06:54):
That's ridiculous tell me your ab lab kids aren't
hanging around.
They could hook some shit up.
I mean, that's what I'm sayingyou can't, you can't wait five.

Speaker 3 (01:07:00):
You don't tell me someone wasn't recorded on their
phone.

Speaker 2 (01:07:02):
They can't look at the broadcast right quick
exactly, exactly, yep, exactly,and that was so a lot of people
were saying that during thewhole thing, like how, what?
There's no, how is it?
not, we're watching it liveright now yeah, like someone's
getting it in a databasesomewhere, right, we can pull
that view back up.
But yeah, that was a littledifferent and I think a lot of

(01:07:24):
people are kind of getting lostin this whole duels thing too,
like and you and I were kind oftalking about before.
But they have their owndecision, they have their own
reasons for doing something.
We get it, but fans still havean opinion about why they
they're not seeing things rightthere.
They still have a of a look oflike okay, well, if you're going
to do it, then why do you actlike you're up here hoity-toity,
everybody else is all game todo it.

(01:07:44):
You win a lot, you're respectedbecause you win a lot and
people want to see you put thatup and whatever it is.
And sure, time of year,injuries may happen, things like
that.
But you and I were talkingabout that no-transcript.

Speaker 3 (01:08:06):
They're wrestling the best guys in the country.
What's different from the duels?
There's nothing different fromthe duels.
I get it, it's your, your,whatever, but again, it's also
little bit.
I honestly, I'll say it, Ithink it's a little soft it is.

Speaker 2 (01:08:25):
It was a little soft, yeah, because we're worried
about our national championshipand I think a lot of people are
throwing the legitimacy of it'snot even an ncaa event kind of
thing under the bus too.
It's like now you're, nowyou're diminishing something
that everybody's been talkingabout what they wanted for how
long right to bring back, andit's just crazy and you and I
there's certain things withwillie that I agree with on it,

(01:08:45):
like how people are just beingkind of a little ridiculous.
I'm one of the guys that waslike fine, if they don't want to
come, don't come, don't invitethem, make them ask, make them
ask to join don't shut them out.

Speaker 3 (01:08:58):
The thing that sucks is like people are like oh well,
the penn state's going.
Does it really matter?
Yes, it still matters.
Like I get it, they're notgoing.
It still means that there isgoing to be a dual meet
championship and the winner,that is the dual meet champion.

Speaker 2 (01:09:10):
Like we'll be crowned a champion whether they're
there or not correct, correct,and and if they I think someone
else made a good point too, uh,I think it was um papalizio had
set up those collegiate duels.
They weren't there the firstyear for that either.
They waited, then it was thenext year they're at it.
So you know, maybe kale'swaiting to see what it's really
like and kind of, you know,watch as a spectator to see what
things are like.
I get it.

(01:09:30):
But at the same point, though,too, we're still like fans, like
come on man, like we're finallypossibly gonna see iowa versus
you, and I right, oh oh yeah.

Speaker 3 (01:09:40):
I'm excited.
I'm excited because I heardthat's a pretty big, pretty big
thing like out in Iowa.

Speaker 2 (01:09:46):
It's been called out forever and I know that Iowa
gets a lot of crap for notaccepting it because Schwab will
put anything on the line I loveSchwab, he talks a lot.

Speaker 3 (01:09:55):
Yeah, he talks a lot, and I love it, but he puts up
right.
Like the guy, he's a greatcoach.

Speaker 2 (01:10:02):
I want to say he's a great coach and he is.

Speaker 3 (01:10:03):
He's tough as hell.

Speaker 2 (01:10:04):
I'm up to a brick wall for that guy and I'm 46,
right, like I'm not even readyto do that stuff, all right, and
we're going to talk about youkind of getting to the Iowa
decision here and then we'regoing to kind of talk about that
for a second.
But we, you've been on for awhile and I know you've got to
eat, because it's Easter dinner,man, your mom's been cooking.
So you've had a really goodcollege career at Rutgers, right

(01:10:25):
, you've formed some bonds.
Not everything there is justlike any other kid at any other
college.
Not every single thing is asexpected.
I can't talk all of a sudden.
My exes are getting stuck.
Not everything turns out asexpected, right.
But at the same point, though,too, things were learned.
You also, you still build bonds,you still have coaches that you

(01:10:47):
have respect for things likethat, right.
But so you know, time comes toan end.
You're at four years, you'recoming up in your fifth year,
and not every school has room oris allowing someone to stay for
a fifth year.
Nope, we're done here kind ofthing, and you jump off.
So your decisions are yourdecisions, but how?
How?
Let's talk about this again.
You and I talked about thembefore we jumped on.

(01:11:09):
How was your decision makingprocess with this whole transfer
thing, because it's crazy outthere right nil, all this other
stuff.
This was something that hadbeen in your head for a little
bit, so it wasn't something thatjust popped in.
You're're like no man, I'm donehere, I'm going to go to Iowa.
You're kind of thinking aboutsome little bit of a move.
So talk about that a little bitand kind of the decision-making

(01:11:29):
process of that.

Speaker 3 (01:11:30):
So there was a couple of things that like led up to
the decision.
So originally I will, I willsay, before I even hit the
portal, I tried, I tried a lotto try and stay at Rutgers at
the time because at the time Iwanted to.
I wanted to because I'm allabout loyalty, staying,
finishing out what I startedhere and all that.
So I came back to the coachesand we had we had talked about
some things and we had somethingworked out and a lot of what

(01:11:52):
they worked out ended up fallingthrough and like they had told
me, they had basically made mesome promises about some stuff
and they were telling me thatthese things were going to
happen and those things didn'tend up happening.
I won't get into the specificsof them, just because I don't
want to.
I don't want to blow up whatever, everything online, but you
know it led up to my frustrationand I was like you know what?
I'm going to hit the portal I'mgoing to.

(01:12:14):
You know I'm going to DMSpencer Lee.
See what I can get going see ifI can get to these other schools
.
And then, once I hit the portal, I was getting.
I was getting a good amount ofcalls, I was getting a good
amount of offers.
But what I noticed a lot of thetime, like once I, once I got
into the portal, like once I waslive is I tried to get probably

(01:12:34):
from three different schoolspressure to make my decision on
the first day, really like overthe phone, without seeing the
school or anything.
They're like we're going tooffer you this and this and if
you accept it, we'll give it toyou whatever, blah, blah, blah,
you won't have to worry about it.

Speaker 2 (01:12:44):
I'm like I kind of want to go and like see what my
options are a little bit, youknow, explore hell, yeah, so
that they were like, oh well,that's not what we're here for,
and then yeah, and then they'rejust done.
Yeah, okay, okay, that's rough,that's rough, but were they
schools?
Let's look at it this way,though, too Were they schools,
that they were something youwere actually considering, or?

Speaker 3 (01:13:04):
were you like?
No, there were some that I waslike.
You know what I would thinkabout it Because, like a couple
of them were still on the EastCoast, they were a little bit
further down south, but I heardthey were getting some guys I
didn't want to be on the teamwith so that's kind of where
decision was.

Speaker 2 (01:13:23):
That happens, right.
Yeah, you have to be happy withyour environment, and I can
preach on about that too.
You have to be happy with yourenvironment.

Speaker 3 (01:13:26):
So, yeah, yeah, yeah, so I was like you know, that
was kind of what went into myagain, like I didn't want to get
rushed into a decision in 24hours.
You know, I wanted to becauseit was also part partly because
in high school I didn't get togo through that process.
Like I said, like I committedearly, I didn't get to explore
my options and see what schoolswanted to reach out to me.
I was committed at almost likea month or two after I could be
contacted.

Speaker 2 (01:13:44):
So yeah, so, as you're going through the process
, obviously things blew up alittle bit online, right, and we
, we all know how twitter can beand I'm a part of the disease,
not gonna lie, I'm one, I'm oneof the disease carriers when it
comes to twitter.
I got caught up in the wholewanting to release information,
right.
You know, I it's kind of one ofthose things like oh, it's kind

(01:14:05):
of cool because you get clicksand likes and shit like that and
everybody kind of lives offthat stuff, right, especially
when you're online, um, but I, Ido, I do, I do try to kind of
curtail things a little bit foryou guys, like I don't do
announcements anymore, right,like I don't.
My theory on that and I got inan argument with someone the
other day, but not exactly justabout this, but a myriad of

(01:14:26):
things and things that I'd saidbut to my theory on the
commitment thing is, I think youguys should be putting out I'm
going to be making myannouncement on so-and-so's
podcast tomorrow, right, or onthursday.
That's cool, because it's yourthing.
It's your thing, theannouncement.
I don't care if you make theannouncement.
The announcement is not whatbothers me, it's the people that
are jumping onto a dick to beable to get some clicks and

(01:14:49):
likes, to be able to do it.
And again I'm guilty.
I did the same thing back inthe day.
I was asking big, trying to getbig name high school kids to
come on and make theirannouncements in
Wisconsinisconsin.

Speaker 3 (01:14:58):
You know things like that the thing that really
sucked is I'll you know.
I'll just say he, who shall notbe named, didn't just leak my
commitment.
He said I was in the portal twodays before I was even live in
the portal.
So he was basically not, youknow, putting me in a spot, but
he's making it look like I'm ina portal that I'm not in yet you
know what I mean like I had twodays before I'm live, like it's

(01:15:20):
a process, you have to gothrough it or whatever, and like
it's almost like he was tryingto get me in trouble in a way
and I was like that's justreally really weird.
Right then I wasn't even donewith my photo shoot with like
the iowa singlet and it wasleaked on twitter that I was
committed to iowa.
I had like I couldn't believeit.
I was like still takingpictures and people are posting

(01:15:41):
like I was still in iowa whenpeople leave, because I didn't
want to release it right away.
I wanted to wait a couple days.
You know, celebrate a littlebit on my own.
Yeah, it was already everywhereand like even when I first hit
the portal, people werecommitting me to iowa before I
even did it.
Because of who said what hesaid.
I was just like this isridiculous.
Like at the time that he leakedthat I was committed to iowa

(01:16:04):
the first time before I actuallycommitted I was I hadn't even
gotten my offer from iowa yet.
I hadn't even talked to brandsyet.
I hadn't even talked to thecoaches yet.

Speaker 2 (01:16:14):
Yeah, it was kind of ridiculous so so it's a, to me
it's a.
I'm not gonna say privacy,right, I mean you guys in the
public eye.
It's just like a football guything, like that.
But we're athletes Like you saidyou had you hadn't even gotten
done with a photo shoot yet,right, Like.
So that's where some of thisstuff does.
It gets a little absurd to meand that's the stuff that I wind

(01:16:34):
up getting worn by and thingslike that, the of things.
And then you know, butsometimes you have a little guy
that makes the call that thatmay know someone, right, that
that says something out there,and then, but because they're
not big enough, like thenthey're just some new guys that
are absurd, their opinions areweird, things like that some
people do you and I talked aboutit too, like my opinion about
the penn state thing might bedumb, right like.

(01:16:56):
As far as I'm like, just letthem ask them make them request
it.
Yeah, yeah, I think that's funny, though that's funny make them
ask you didn't want it so badbefore.
It's fine, you don't need it.
Then just if you want to comein, you can ask us.
But I think I, a lot of guyswind up getting, I guess, the
lesser look when you know likesocial media kind of stuff, and

(01:17:18):
then you guys are out there,like you said, you want to enjoy
the moment you want to kind ofdo, then guys, fat dudes like me
sitting around doing nothing,wind up ruining things because
we want to tell people stuff andit's fun, banter.
I'm not going to deny it and itdoes.
It creates a buzz.
So I'm not going to deny thateither.
But sometimes we have to lookat a line.
You know just a little bit of aline, just a smidge.

(01:17:40):
You know like maybe evenmessaging the guy hey, is this
true?
Can I say something?

Speaker 3 (01:17:46):
You know I had a lot of people reach out and like,
hey, can I do this, can I postthis yet?
And I'm like a hundred percent.
You know, I'm glad you asked mebefore you did it, though, you
know.

Speaker 2 (01:17:54):
Right, right, right, and I'm not, I'm not going to be
the guy that's like, uh, uh, Ido everything, perfect.
But when it comes to that, Idid one announcement and I I
felt weird, right Like, becauseI'm the one who went to the kid,
you know, and I was like God,this doesn't feel like.
And they were fun, they, theyhad a good time doing it, it was
fun for them.
They still made theirannouncement, but I felt weird

(01:18:16):
about having to, like, ask a kidto do that.
Would you do it on my show?
Would you do it on my show?
So I get guys that do it.
It's cool, whatever you do yourthing.
But I think a lot of guys thatwant to be a part of that, and
then they are a part of it andthey say something and they get
called out like there's somenoobs and shit like that and
like hey, actually that guy hadmore information than you did
and it was accurate.

(01:18:36):
He was a little more respectfulabout it and then call someone a
retard for it.
You know that kind of so that'swhere I sit with it and I feel,
you know, again, you athletesare in a different position.
It's your information, you know.
So the respect thing for megoes a little bit further,
because I I wasn't a famousathlete, but I was an athlete
nonetheless.
That was, you know, doingthings in a, in a, in an area of

(01:18:57):
of you know, people that arecameras are around and you can't
say certain things, you can'tdo certain things, and you guys
have rules you have to follow.
So who knows if someone'ssaying something that could have
broken a rule at the same time,too, when it comes to NCAA
rules, because then everybodyknows all those rules.
So we appreciate you guysallowing us to do the things
that we do.

Speaker 3 (01:19:17):
Yeah.

Speaker 2 (01:19:18):
I'm not really going to call myself, you know, I
guess I'm not really newsworthy.
I guess I I'm not really gonnacall myself, you know, uh, I
guess, uh, I'm not reallynewsworthy.
I'm not a news guy.

Speaker 3 (01:19:25):
No like.

Speaker 2 (01:19:25):
I'm not.

Speaker 3 (01:19:26):
I'm not a news guy, it's not like yeah, I guess
that's not the way to put itMedia maybe just like media in
general.
Yeah.
That works, that works you knowit encompasses a lot, so right.

Speaker 2 (01:19:42):
I respect the guys that do it and I and I and I
understand that you know certainguys are doing certain things
and it is what it is, but it'sjust sometimes, like I said,
there's gotta be that line.
You're just asking that lineand I think you guys are stuck
under the bus sometimes with it,but you guys have fun with it
though too.

Speaker 3 (01:19:54):
I think I think, seeing some of the reactions
that you guys get, when I sawsomeone just draw with, like MS
paint, the Iowa singlet on meover my Rutgers singlet, I was
like, yep, that's my profilepicture.
That's hilarious.

Speaker 2 (01:20:06):
That was great.
Yeah, I love that one.
It was just.
Yeah, it was just odd, justdraw really crane.

Speaker 3 (01:20:11):
It looks like a dress and I'm like, oh my.

Speaker 2 (01:20:12):
God, that's awesome.
That was awesome.
So you're going to, you'regoing to be in Iowa, you're
excited to be there.
I Iowa, you're excited to bethere, I'm excited to see you
there.
Finishing up, what are yourgoals, I guess?
Uh, academically there.
What, what do you?
What are you going to be doingacademically there?

Speaker 3 (01:20:26):
So what I have to do here at Rutgers is I'm taking
some summer courses to finish upmy degree a little bit, Cause I
was going to spread them outover the next year or so and
just graduate as like a regular,without without going to like a
graduate program.
So by the time I get to iowaI'll be a graduate.
So I've got a major inpsychology with a minor in
criminology.
I'm hoping I can get into likea forensic psych program over at
iowa which is like all aninterview like insane people

(01:20:49):
figure out if they're actuallyinsane and stuff after they
commit crimes yeah, it's likethat kind of stuff.
Yep, yeah, that's what I'm into,a little bit so so you'll.

Speaker 2 (01:20:58):
you'll be the guy that may be kind of digging into
some of these minds that'swalking around doing shootings
and stuff all the time.
Right, If we save them, ifthey're saved.
That's a guy that I want toopen his brain up and figure out
what makes someone fire the waythat they fired.
No pun intended.
Sorry, I didn't mean to do that.

Speaker 3 (01:21:13):
What's the thought process basically?

Speaker 2 (01:21:15):
That was good yeah.
The insanity behind it all.
So that's cool.
That's kind of a fun degreebecause a lot of times you see,
like I think I remember when wefirst got back into wrestling we
were watching the Nationals andevery Penn State guy that came
out, kinesiology, kinesiology,kinesiology, kinesiology.
It's cool to see you're doingsomething kind of different.
You know you're doing.
I think some guys are going todo some financial stuff, but a

(01:21:36):
little criminal investigationstuff yeah, it'll be fun.

Speaker 3 (01:21:39):
It'll be fun, trust me.
I've been at it for a littlebit now.
Once once I got like into myminor into the criminology
aspect.
I was like because I was tryingto decide between like sports
psych and like forensic psychand I'm like you know what
forensic psych is a little bitmore interesting it definitely
is.

Speaker 2 (01:21:55):
It definitely is.
You might still run into somewrestling mind there.

Speaker 3 (01:21:58):
Anyways, you never know I think for sure I will.
I mean, I know there's somecrazy people in the wrestling
world, so I'll definitely runinto them eventually what is?

Speaker 2 (01:22:06):
when is your?
Uh?
When do you move?
When do you decide to move?

Speaker 3 (01:22:10):
so my lease in iowa starts on june 1st.
So my lease in new jersey is upon the 25th of may.
But I will be out there for thecamp that spencer's doing with
uh dylan, uh l40 camp.
I'll be out there on the 17thfor that, so I'll be out a
little bit early or I'll fly outthere and then fly back to
jersey.
But I'll be out permanently iniowa on june 1st, june 2nd.

Speaker 2 (01:22:33):
So that camp is on the bufu app, so you need to go
check that out and get on there,and that is something else that
we're're that that I want totalk to you about.
So training partners you wouldkind of talk about a little bit
too, and obviously the RTC atIowa is really not that shabby
when it comes to trainingpartners, is it so, with the,
with the, the prospect of havingthose training partners, are

(01:22:54):
you eyeing up a little bit moreinto the freestyle world?
What do you?
What do?
What do you?

Speaker 3 (01:22:57):
think that's basically been.
That was one of the biggestdecisions in coming to Iowa.
For me is like I would look atthe other RTCs of these other
programs and I'm like there'sjust so many.
There's just so many guys atIowa.
You've got Spencer Lee, ayalaDeSanto, even like Dennis is one
of the coaches.
You've got Ironman still there.
You've got Joey Cruz.

(01:23:20):
You've got the other Petersonthere, you've got.
You know, you got joey cruz,you got the other peterson there
.
There's just so many guys forme to train with that I know
that if I want, like I told him,I'm like I want to go into
freestyle, I want to give myselfat least one chance at the
olympics and stuff, and I knowspencer's the guy, but I'd love
to be in that room and train andtry to get better at freestyle
and and then throw my hat in thering, whether it's in freestyle
or greco or either both, liketry it, try it all out.

(01:23:40):
You know, yeah, it's somethingthat I'm definitely interested
because I don't want to just bedone wrestling after college.
I want to keep going.
You know, like I love thissport so much, I've been doing
it forever and I want to keepgoing, keep doing it you could
do the next best thing and pisseverybody off.
Wrestle for italy I could dothat, I could do that, I could
do that they haven't had anybodygood since frank jamezo, though

(01:24:02):
.

Speaker 2 (01:24:02):
So that's what I'm saying.
Bring him back a little bit,right, you go over the train
with frank just for acompetition.
You know you get.
You get up and beat spencer,right?
Oh man, no, spencer.
We're not saying that.

Speaker 3 (01:24:13):
We're not saying that'd be fun yes, look, I still
gotta train with him the nextyear.
He's gonna be, I know.
Right, I didn't make him sayanything.

Speaker 2 (01:24:20):
It was me, it was all me, spencer.
He said nothing, nothing.
So, um, so I, I'm excited tosee you on the move.
Um, it'll be fun watching.
You know, it'll definitely be.
Your environment's gonna change, my friend.
Let me tell you that.
Let me tell you that I'mexcited.
We had season tickets for twoyears.
I was a hawkeye fan forever.
I mean, I, I was.
I grew up with brands brothers,right, like that's what.

(01:24:42):
That's what I was fed, that'swhat I was given to watch when I
was a kid, for wrestling likethese are the guys we're gonna
be.
So my brother and I tried to bethose guys.
So I've always been a hawkeyefan.
I'm now a cavalier fan, right,my son's gonna be going to
virginia.
I'm always gonna be a fan ofwherever he goes.
Hawkeyes are always to be likein the shadow back there, just
still kind of waiting behind.
As much as I'm a Cavalier fan,I'm still a Hawkeye fan.

(01:25:04):
So 17,000 screaming, right, Idon't know what a state
tournament's like for you guysin high school, but, holy man,
you are about to experience somedefinite fandom and some
craziness, and it's one of themore electric environments in
wrestling in general, and I'mexcited to see him black and
gold.
So if you got any shout outsman, you're doing that camp

(01:25:27):
again through the Bufu app.
What do you got going on?
Anybody you want to shout outat all?

Speaker 3 (01:25:31):
Oh man, I don't even know if I can't do shout outs
right now.
I've been talking for an hourand a half.
I wish I could shout people out, but I don't know if I could
right now.
Like I look, I've enjoyedtalking for the, but my mind is
probably fried a little bitafter talking, for I've been
going from the beginning of mywrestling career until now and
I'm just like, oh, but yeah, Imean obviously I'm doing that
camp out in Iowa on the 11th.

(01:25:52):
It's an Albee, it's only acouple of hours away from Iowa
city.
So you know, that's obviously.
That's probably the one thing Icould shout out is like I'm
gonna be doing that with jordan.
That'll be exciting, you know,we're gonna, I'm gonna.
Maybe I'll teach my navy seriesmy secret sauce a little bit.
You know the thing I put my pin, richie figs with and stuff.

Speaker 2 (01:26:07):
Teach that cradle, you know come hide the phones,
though no phones no phones, nophones, no phones that's cool.
Well, I congratulations on themove, man.
It's gonna be fun watching.
I appreciate you here.
We're gonna talk for just asecond when we hang this up, but
, um, man, it's been anotherepisode of the vision quest
podcast with mr dean peterson ofrutgers, soon to be iowa.

(01:26:27):
We appreciate it, man.
Um, everybody, we're out.
Peace, peace.

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