5PM56: Rich Carlson and Spencer Woods

Episode Transcript
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(00:00):
I'll rip for on app. Stopworrying about stupid procedures and do pull up
sixt warning about making self gift great. Why we had to this podcast the
one to call the pot point move. I'm frustrated with the word I grecle
guys for the United States are trueand because they have good athletes, they
have good human beings that but brownand win. We've got to help me

(00:24):
get that what I want. Peopleknow me from all of our results where
everything comes from five point Move.Hello and welcome to episode fifty six of
the five point Move podcast. I'mTim Hans, founder and senior editor of
five point move dot com, andI don't have a co host. Don't
have a co host today anyway,as Dennis Tall is saturated with his coaching

(00:52):
responsibilities at the University of the View. Ken't get into the View RTC and
so forth. And I'm not goingto keep you along before we get of
the interviews. And we've got twoof them. We've got ninety minutes of
interviews coming up back to back.Rich Carlson and Spencer Woods. Of course,
everyone, those of these two guysare eighty seven kilograms, which currently

(01:18):
is the best weight class in theUnited States, at least when it comes
to Greco Roman wrestling. Rich Carlsonbeen on a couple of national teams,
always a very solid, consistent competitorknocking on the door. And then there's
Spencer Woods, who just short oftwo weeks ago picked up national title number

(01:38):
three. Has represented the United Statesthat the last two World Championships, was
on a huge twenty three World teamas well, and he's the Alaskan Assassin
and he came away on top inFort Worth over former Egyptian Olympian Mahmoud Sebi.
So we're going to talk to bothCarlton and Woods. First Carlson,

(02:00):
then Woods and just I don't know, discuss recent events, stuff about the
last competition, what's coming up.I think everybody knows the drill and news
news. We'll get to some otherstuff after we're done with Woods and Carlson.
But just released right before Christmas andI'm recording on December twenty seven.

(02:30):
Here, So is that starting Januaryone, Herb House will officially become the
national team head coach for Greg RomanWrestling. Previously, he was under like
a modified label something like assistant nationalteam coach, which is the same thing
as being o DC coach and whatever. It's a whole amalgamation of labels over

(02:54):
there at the national governing body,but no more ambiguity herb House. Starting
January one, he's the United Statesnational team coach. And January seventh,
US seniors leave for Croatia. Ithink it's well, there's going to be
a few others, but it's mainlythe first and second placers from the US

(03:15):
nationals on December sixteen, fifteen andsixteen, and so if you don't know
who those people are, you apparentlylive in a cave. Let's see here
bild R half he's off sixty kilograms. Hayden Tuma. He didn't wrestle the
final, but he you know,he had made the final, so he's

(03:37):
second, sixty seven kilograms. AlexSancho was first, Robert Perez was second,
seventy seven, camal Bay first,Benji Peak. We got to talk
about Peak after this too, eightyseven, the aforementioned Spencer Woods and SEBBI
ninety seven, Alan Vera making hisninety seven kilogram debut sort of his debut,

(04:01):
and Joe Row reigning World team member. One of the best stories of
the year was Joe Brow coming backto competition and one thirty heavyweight that's Colton
Schultz and Adam Kuhn, respectively.So Benji Peek, Yeah, we'll go
over that real quick. Benji Peek. Yeah, it doesn't get enough credit
because that was his first tournament backin quite a spell a year and change

(04:26):
or whatever, year and a half. I can't even count anymore. Benji's
had to cut short two seasons inconsecutive years with shoulder stuff, and he
had a well of a tournament,didn't he at the Nationals, making the
final, and he had to goagainst you know, someone who looks at

(04:46):
as you know, a brother,little brother. Maybe maybe that's starting to
wear a little bit, but PeytonJacobson and Benji before going against Peyton had
beaten Keeking off and before that waswas it Britain might have been Britton Holmes.
Yeah, that was the quarterfinal whenBrittain Holmes injured his recently repaired me

(05:12):
and whatever. Yeah, that wasawful, but nevertheless, it was a
great performance by Benji all around.But Kamalbay, you are never safe wrestling
kamal Bay. There's nothing safe.There's no position where you are safe.
Kamal gets put down first period,Benji Peak goes for a lyft and good
luck. Kamal turns the tables onthat kind of thing pretty regularly, but

(05:35):
nevertheless, great performance by Benji Peeke. Coming back. What else we got
We got tons of other stuff,but we'll get to that after the the
two interview segments, because you're nothere to hear me speak. You're here
to listen to the athletes. Andit's true. Look at I mean,

(05:56):
you could go ahead and quibble withwhich you think is the best. A
seven is the best way class.It's the best weight class right now.
It is as we sit here nowwith you know, four months or so
until the Olympic trials, eighty sevenkilogram is the best weight class. I
mean, just as far as domesticdepth, is it the most dynamic weight

(06:19):
class? No, that's sixty sevensixty sevens when you were going to see
where you are going to see,I think the most we'll call it kinetic
movement. But eighty seven. Asfar as tough, tight, compelling sort
of matchups, you got Spencer Wood, now, you got Sebi, you

(06:42):
got Ben Proviser, who's it's likeeverybody's sleeping on proviser, two time Olympian,
multiple time World Team member, multipletime national champion. It's going to
be better at eighty seven than Ithink he was at eighty two the past
couple of years. You've got RyanEpps, You've got cars, You've got
Stefano Witz. Who am I missing? Tim Deong for crying out loud,

(07:05):
Zach Brownegel, reigning World Team member. It's an absurd weight class. Tommy
Brackett, Andrew Berriessa, you nameit. Eighty seven's got it. It's
my favorite weight class this year.It's usually my favorite way class when it
is well populated. At least it'sbeen. That's been the story since I

(07:26):
think twenty seventeen, when it waseighty five kilos and you looked at the
World Team trials that year and it'slike, my goodness. I mean,
you had Pat Martinez, you hadKevin Radford, who had won a national
title, obviously provisor. You hadJoe Row, you had John Anderson,
you had Luke Sheridan. Yeah,twenty seventeen is when it really started.

(07:47):
I wouldn't say the Rio Quad RealQuad was okay. It was pretty strong.
Once that Rio Quad turned over andwe hit that first year after with
twenty seventeen. It's like twenty seventeenwas sick. Twenty eighteen would have been
nuts at the World Team trials exceptfor Joe Raw couldn't compete in it.

(08:09):
That was when Pat Martinez made histhird World Team, beating out Provisor and
you know, grueling best of threeAnd actually that topic comes up with Carlson
briefly. Twenty nineteen great Way classagain and then all of a sudden after
the Olympic Trials of twenty twenty tooka big dip for about a couple of

(08:31):
years there. Twenty twenty one andtwenty twenty two not as strong. And
that's nothing against regal gentlemen known asalan Vera, but it just wasn't as
deep because eighty two was in playand so you had to split the difference.
Olympic year we got another one andonce again eighty seven. So where

(08:52):
it's at. So without filling thisup with more, this isn't dialogue.
This is my log. Let's getto rich Carson. All right, Rich,
let's we can go in order,but we're gonna go in reverse order
here just to deal with the concernsin the moment you had I thought a

(09:13):
great tournament in undisputably the most competitivebracket we have this Olympic year. I
don't think there's any question about that. We can go ahead and run through
that after this. But if youlook at eighty seven, and this is
the way that I had envisioned eightyseven going into the twenty twenty two to

(09:39):
twenty three season, because I expectedthere to be more movement last year up
to eighty seven, but there wasn't. But this year the bracket looks pretty
much exactly how we all thought itwould leading up to this upcoming Olympic trials.
It's just overpopulated with excellent competitors.You are one of them, and

(10:05):
you had a five point arm throwagainst your friend Ryan Epps, and you
know, yeah, the one matchagainst Sebby is where it stopped it from
making the finals. And then youwent and recovered on the back end,
obviously, and among your victories therewas a victory over Stefano, which so
if you could great your performance,I mean I'd give myself a nine out

(10:33):
of ten of that I was.Obviously it wasn't perfect. I didn't win
the tournament, but I was prettyhappy with how I performed and I felt
good, And that's that's the biggestthing for me, is just doing everything
right leading up to the tournament tomake sure that when the tournament comes around
that I feel good that I managedmy weight correctly, that I tapered correctly,
did all that stuff, and Idid all that right this time and

(10:56):
felt great during the whole tournament andcompeting. Yeah, I was thinking about
the gap between New York and thistournament, which was a little less than
a month, right, because Ithink New York was November seventeen, and
obviously this tournament was December fifteen,sixteen, So that's four weeks. New
York first form of the season,and it's always when we have a normal

(11:20):
season, New York is always aweird tournament. It is a lot of
times for people. It's the firsthorm of the year. We don't have
enough competition in this country, andthere's not too many opportunities for guys to
get out of the country so much. In other words, it's unless you
were on the world team. TheNYC tournament is always coming off of like

(11:43):
a six month five month hiatus,right, so everybody's sort of getting back
into the swing of thing. Whenyou got out of New York, and,
like I said a month ago,what did you work on as far
as your major concerns heading into thenational especially with qualifying on the line addressed?
I mean, to be honest withyou, I didn't change a whole

(12:07):
lot. I just kind of chalkedup New York as a loss and like
it didn't go my way. Ihad a bad day and I wasn't to
be honest, I wasn't feeling thegreatest either. I had kind of come
down as a little bit of acold, and at the time I wasn't
really sure if I was or wasn'tsick. But then the next couple of
days I knew that I for surewas Wait a minute, time out,

(12:28):
did you get the COVID? Inever tested for it, so I don't
know if I did or didn't haveCOVID. Okay, Well, I talked
to you a good bunch in NewYork, right, Yes. The answer
to that is, well, Igot mad sick the next day, dizziness
and all that other stuff you know, like fever, chills, and you
know, started coughing, and acouple of days later I tested positive for

(12:52):
COVID. Well, I mean maybeI did. Maybe I didn't, but
I never tested for it. Iwould have been realised it was. I
would have been surprised if it wasCOVID. I didn't think it was the
although I guess you can get allsorts of symptoms for COVID. But yeah,
to answer your question to me,I don't know. All right,
don't act like an alpha male aboutit. Maybe you didn't get it and

(13:15):
I'm just vulnerable, like anyway,Okay, So yeah, you were,
like, let's say, internal symptomssometimes more difficult to deal with, and
like if you go into a tournamentwith a spring dankle, at least you
go into a tournament knowing you havea spring dankle. If you're going to
a tournament and you feel compromised,like in an ear nose and throats sort
of way, sometimes that's worse.Yeah, Like I think the best way

(13:37):
I can describe it is, Ifelt like my last year wasn't there.
So like in my match with Tim, I'm down seven to zero and I'm
like, I've got to score alot of points here, and I started
making my comeback and I'm down fourto seven with I don't know how much
time was left but I just likein my head, I just knew.
I was like, my body doesn'thave it. It need to go one

(13:58):
hundred percent. Like I knew Icouldn't go as hard as I should have
been able to. I was likesomething's missing, my last year is missing.
I can't shift into it. Whereaslike in this past weekend, like
I didn't feel like that at all, Like I felt like I could have
gone a whole another period with everyoneI wrestled with. Yeah, which is
also, I mean that's kind ofone of the things you're known for too,
is conditioning, is being an excellentshape, the ability to go,

(14:22):
you know, have the capacity togo nine hard minutes when only six are
required. Yeah, that's fair enough, Rich, I mean totally, it's
and it's it's something though, becauseyeah, you look at it, you
know from the athlete perspective, youknow, four weeks is just around the
corner. You know, it's like, Okay, you get back from New

(14:43):
York, probably I don't know,November eighteen or something. Maybe it took
a day or two or three torecover. There was Thanksgiving coming up around.
It's like home, man, theNationals are in two weeks, like
it goes fast. Yeah, itwent by quick, and I was kind
the things you don't have the luxuryof that first week back of like this
week, you know, after USNationals, I can just kind of relax

(15:05):
and take it easy this week andthen get back to the grindstone. But
then it was like, oh,I've got you know, this week,
the next week, and then atsome point I'm gonna have to start my
taper. Like so I really onlygot no time to take a break and
just get right after it. Andthere's pros and concepts. Sometimes I like
that because it forces you to justkeep up with where you're at. And

(15:26):
then also, like your weight,you're already down to weight in just another
four weeks. That's a short periodof time. It's like, let's just
keep my weight where it's at,manage it, train hard, and I'm
ready to go. All right.Well, so in this tournament, you
wrestle in the first round Michael Maley, Pennsylvania. But he was a tough,
tough guy, I thought. AndI also thought it was actually like

(15:50):
a really appropriate first match for someonelike yourself. Yeah, and that that
match went exactly how I wanted itto go. I felt like I was
in control the whole time. Andso he was actually my first match at
the Bill Ferrell too, So thatwas a rematch I or something at the
Bill Ferrell, and I think Iwon. It was like six to one
or something at the Bill Farrell andkind of the exactly but it was almost
the exact same scenario where it waslike I got I got in part tre

(16:12):
scored in part Tare, and thenjust kind of controlled the match from there,
got a couple of push outs andjust dominated position. And so and
I've seen him wrestle before and he'she's dangerous. He hits that he has
like a two on one and hedoes like almost like a fireman's dump,
and I've seen him pin people withit. I think he did it to
Clark this past weekend in the wrestlebacks. So I knew that, like

(16:34):
I had to respect him. Andit was kind of one of those things
where like in the second period whenI'm up for zero, like it's like,
okay, dude, I'm in aposition where I feel like I can
score. Do I go for it? But you know he's dangerous, and
I just kind of thought, Okay, let's just control the positions, move
him around, not get called forPASSI if he not get called for fleeing
the hole, and just win thematch and move on to the next one.
So I felt like that match wentexactly how I wanted it to.

(16:56):
And plus you know who you havein the next round, and you have,
you know, your monster pal RyanEpps. You had a tough guy
just to deal with. Now you'vegot Epps, and obviously you know Epps
quite very well, and then yougo ahead and hit I don't know the

(17:18):
last time I saw that kind ofarm throw at an upper weight in our
country, I mean, let aloneoverall, and it was and it was.
And the referee, by the way, for that match, it's a
good referee, Okay, as LewisBaker, he's actually a good referee,
which is you know, ha haha. That might not be saying much

(17:38):
of the United States, but likeLou Baker knows, Greklor Roman wrestling is
a good ref and like he appropriatelywarred with, I feel bad for EPs
saying all this, I mean,but like Rich, that was one heck
of an arm throw. My goodness, yeah, I mean, and I
was I was down to zero andI know I was gonna have to come

(18:00):
back, and I just I feltlike it was there, and I felt
like I had the step under andI think we were we were right on
the edge. So he started pressuringin and I just I watched it over.
I mean, I timed it rightand I got my feet in the
right spot. You know, Iwas really underneath him and he just came
right over the top. But yeah, it just it felt like it was
there. And also to talk alittle bit too about Epps, you know,

(18:21):
I've wrestled him almost every day inpractice, you know, for the
past however many years that he's beenwith the Storm, and then since I've
been around, I wrestled a lot, and those usually do not work on
him. Like he's very, verystingy and very difficult to you know,
get any sort of hooks or tieson that you feel like you can launch

(18:42):
them from. Like I've I've attempteddozens and dozens of arms throws on him,
and I don't know that I've eversuccessfully gotten one that good on him.
He's usually pretty good at defending him, but he just he kind of
made a mistake, slipped up andwalked into that one. In a match
like that, that's a multi pointscore is almost everything, especially at eighty

(19:03):
seven, because it's a weight classwhere a lot of the points can sometimes
be tough to come by because youguys have to play it a little tight
to the chest. It's a it'sa bruising, brutal weight class a lot
of times. That's why it's whyit tends to fit like your style,
Epsis style really super well. AndI mean it was just quite something.

(19:29):
It was a great look at.You know, obviously we you know,
you want Ryan Epps to be okayand to heal, and he did something
to his body in that match,whether it's a shoulder or his lap muscle,
whatever it might be. But amove is a move is a move
is a move, and a techniqueis a technique and we have to celebrate
good ones when we see him.And that was, like, I mean,

(19:52):
that might have been the most dynamicmove out of all the upper weights
over the weekend. Yeah. Thanks, I appreciating that. Nah, I'll
absolutely take a bow. But you'renot going to take a bow. I
know you quite well. You're notgoing to take a bow. And the
reason why is because of what happenednext match, and so you had the
man of the hours obviously receiving plentyof attention leading up to this tournament.

(20:15):
And that's ma Moud Sebi from originallyfrom Egypt, and he was an Olympian
free Egypt and among other things.And he's he was before he took a
sabbatical from wrestling. He was asolid, solid competitor started or maybe still
is fashioning for himself an MMA career. But he's locked in to this selection
process after having gained eligibility before therule change in two thousand and sixteen seventeen,

(20:44):
when they briefly took part tair away. Prior to that, like Park,
tair was something Sebbi was, youknow, pretty darn proficient with,
and he came over to actually hehe did. He came over for the
Dave Schultz Memorial in winter of seventeen, made it to the finals, but
lost a spieler if I remember,yes, But I mean after that,

(21:07):
I don't even know how many timeshe might have wrestled with I don't know.
I kind of sort of lost trackof him after that. I think
he stepped away and began fighting.But nevertheless, everybody knows that the guy's
good, even if you never sawhim compete before, and you never had
time on target with him. He'sgot a reputation going into this match.

(21:27):
What were you expecting, if anything? Did you have any kind of scouting
report have you ever had Do youever put hands on him previously? I
don't know. Maybe you went tothe OTC and had a couple goes with
him, what it was your dataset? No, So I didn't know
anything about him until the morning ofthe tournament. We were talking amongst ourselves

(21:48):
with my Storm teammates in the morningand mac Zukowski said something about Sebbi and
I was like, who, Andhe goes, oh, you haven't heard
there's an Egyptian in your weight It'sa former Olympia in So that was the
That was the first I had heardof him. But you know, at
the time, I was like,I hadn't even looked at the bracket,
Like and that's kind of my whatI do is I just one match at
a time. I don't really tryand overanalyze things or worry about things that

(22:14):
aren't even a thing yet, youknow, Like I wasn't matched up with
him. There was a chance Icould run into him, but I didn't
know whether or not I was goingto wrestlem or not yet, so I
didn't. I didn't think into ittoo much. But then when I made
the semis and saw, okay,that's when I'm wrestling. During the break,
I went back and watched his matchesand tried to, you know,
understand, and I did see himwrestle against Provisor a little bit, and

(22:37):
then I saw him wrestle a littlebit against Gritz, and I went back
and watched those matches because I wantedto see, you know, what,
what's he going to do? Andso I formulated a game plan going into
it, and I had a goodidea of what I wanted to do to
beat this guy. But but Ididn't have a prior history with him.
And you know, maybe Koukowski saidlike, yeah, you got a former
Olympian, but nobody's in your eargoing okay, these are his tendencies which

(23:00):
you know, if he gets ontop, he's gonna look left, you
know what I mean, Like youdidn't have that. You had to go
and uh kind of discover that.Yeah, and I knew. I knew
from the videos i'd watched and seenwhat he'd done that he wants you to
underhook with your left arm. Onhis right side. He's gonna hit an
arms throw on that side. Hedid that to Fritz, and I'd seen

(23:21):
the lift that he hit. Ithink he lifted Provisor. Is that always
score on him? I can't remember, but I saw that he was gonna
do a straight lift. So goinginto the match, I knew like a
little bit, but I knew thatI didn't know everything about him. I
didn't have like a full scouting report, so I was kind of weary and
holding back a little bit. Whatif anything surprised you about him? Was
there anything that kind of caught youoff guard? I mean, it was

(23:47):
a real different feel, like hereally leans his head far over on that
one side and then he just grabsthe elbow and kind of asks for an
underhook, and it's it's just aninteresting pressure. I can't say I've wrestled
a whole lot of people that feellike that, and I'd say he has
a unique, unique style. AndI was very cautious at first because I
knew he was explosive, and Ialso presumed that he didn't have the best

(24:11):
gas tank. So that was kindof my hope in that match was let's
get it into the late, intothe match and just gut it out.
But unfortunately there was a lot ofstoppages and I didn't really get to test
his gas tank because he just keptgetting time to breathe. I think there
was like at one point, likea three minute break in the middle of
that match. Yeah, but no, I would just say he has a
very unique feel, which makes sensebecause he's originally a foreigner and grew up

(24:37):
learning in a different country and hisstyle developed a lot differently than other people
here in America, so that Iguess that makes sense that he would feel
different. What did you feel whenhe was on top? I felt like
I could defend it. I slippedup, you know, I was defending
it well, I felt like,and then he had one explosive step and
I let my hips hinge and hegot me up. And then also you

(25:00):
got me up. I made themistake of just going for a double arm,
you know, double overhook throw whereI looked back, and I definitely
feel like I could have defended thatdifferently, But no, I think I
felt fine on bottom. Just then. That's the thing about Parterres. One
mistake or one pressure the wrong way, and you're either slipping into a crash
gut and rolling or they've got youup in the air. So that's all

(25:21):
it takes. Well you recovered aswell as you can plausibly recover in a
tournament like this, because in yournext match, which obviously is on the
other side of the bracket here inthe Constellation bracket, as you go against
John Stefanowitz, who you know,Okay, you know Stefanowitz came back last

(25:49):
year after a better part of twoyears away from competing, and you had
success against him in May. Butyou know that was I mean as early
on for him, you know,he was he's just getting back into a

(26:11):
groove, right, and then hecomes back for Military Worlds a few weeks
ago and he beats a pretty darngood guy from Kazakhstan to get moving in
that tournament, and you know,okay, he found himself in the uh
you know, he obviously found himselfin the similar position to you in the
Nationals being in so far as youknow, uh, he took a loss

(26:36):
to Woods, So now you havehim again, and yeah, it might
not be a high pressure situation forfor him necessarily, I guess, because
he had already been qualified. Butin that match, you know, you
don't know, like you got toqualify here? What do you have in
this match? We'll say it wasthe passivity, So there's a passivity point.

(27:00):
There was a leg fall for two, and then the challenge loss which
put me up four zero, andthen the arms throw. Yeah, okay,
that's right. So look, uhgoing into that match, it's an
important one. I mean, that'sour blood round in this tournament for all
intensive purposes, right, And youknow what's your mindset? Because you know

(27:25):
he's gonna you know, he's agoer. You know he's gonna be aggressive,
He's gonna be a hard charger.You I've already wrestled, I'm sure,
but like, what's your mentality?Like, I mean, my my
mentality the hare was I knew hewas gonna be a close match, and
it was you gotta score in inpartre because that's one of those matches that
could end up very well just beingone to one, and whoever got the

(27:48):
second passivity he's gonna win, Soyou gotta you gotta score in uh parterre.
So when he got called first forpassivity, I was kind of like,
all right, like, now's thetime you got a score here.
And then I kept going for mylift and I'd get him up and he'd
defend it and he's he's he's gotpretty good, you know, parterer defense.

(28:08):
And then fortunately that that leg follhappened, and it was blatantly obvious
you look at the film, like, you know, and he didn't he
wasn't trying to defend his legs.It was just unfortunate his leg got stuck
there and he got called for it. And that's, you know, the
way it happens when someone's going getthat. That stuff happened to me,
like in the reverse lifted in Denmark, a guy kept trying to reverse lift
me and I was defending and myarm would get stuck somewhere it shouldn't and

(28:30):
they flag me for it. Soit's kind of part of the game is
you just keep lifting, lifting,lifting, and if if you get the
leg foll, you get the legfall and you get another chance on top.
And so I was very happy withwith how the match was going at
that point. And then so thenit was like a two minute break or
whatever. They they challenged it,and then Stefanowitz said like something along the

(28:51):
lines of, I don't know whythis is such a big deal, we're
both already qualified. And I lookat Stefano Witz and I go, I'm
not qualified, and he kind ofgets this look on his face of like,
what, like, you're not Like, oh, I didn't I didn't
know that. And then, inall honesty to me, like after that,
Stefano Witz, I don't think hetried or wanted to wrestle that match,
and just kind of he said afterwardsthat if he had known you were

(29:14):
qualified, he would have forfeited.Yeah, And I didn't answer him because,
uh, I didn't answer him whenhe said that, if only because
I'm glad he wrestled, so youknow what I mean, Like like I
told you, we need people showingup the next day. So yeah,
Well, and then the other thingto think about, too, is the

(29:37):
situation spans a little bit more outsideof that match alone, because yeah,
Stefano Witz, if he wanted toto beat me and try and block me
from qualifying, but then I'm goingto go and potentially beat his teammate Czelenski
Celetski, and then he doesn't havea spot in the trials, right,
So it was kind of a uniquesituation from his perspective, I guess because

(29:59):
he beat me. I he couldblock me, or he could beat me,
and then I still qualify anyways,and then I beat his you know,
beat his teammate out. So itwas it was kind of it was
a unique situation that being said thoughat the same time, like he didn't
know that until halfway through the match. I'm up to four zero. Is
that why you both were smiling?Yeah, because we were. We were

(30:22):
kind of joking with each other inthe middle of the match, and then
after I threw him, he saidto me when he got it, because
I thought you were gonna let memake it to the second period, and
we've both started laughing. Like so, in all honesty, that's exactly how
that match went, all right,Well yeah, okay, but the factor
remains is that you don't know thisbeforehand, you know, and if you
win this match, you're definitely qualifying. Like it's not like, all right,

(30:45):
well, I have a fail safehere because I you know, I
just I'm just gonna have to facethe loser of this around on the other
side of the bracket in the fifth, sixth match, you know, like
right right, And he didn't knowthat either until I was up for zero,
right, Okay, Well, yeah, I mean we were all standing

(31:06):
there watching. I mean, ifyou look at the video, you can
see a group of us morons againstthe wall. Anyway, Yeah, I'm
sure. I'm sure from people peeringin from the outside, it probably looked
odd that we'd both be kind oflike chuckling with each other. It's hard
to close a tournament stronger than bydefeating the ring world beever in your weight

(31:34):
category, as well as someone towhom you had lost last season. Yeah,
lost from twice. You both youand Tim Young lost to Zach bronegle
twice, which were in my opinion, like two gigantic feathers in his cap
going into Final X. It's theway I kept promoting the material. You

(31:59):
know. Brone is such a beast. He's tough to deal that. He
tries to create a lot of motionand he and he and he does usually.
I watched the match. I don'tthink anybody cares to hear my version
of events walk me through it.Yeah. So that was a matchup that

(32:20):
I really wanted, and I wasglad that I got it because I lost
him twice in the last year,and and both those times I lost him,
like I just did not feel likeI wrestled my best and I didn't.
I didn't feel like it was kindof the same thing like I just
in Colorado. I just remember feelinglike I'm down how many points it was,
I was down like four or fivepoints. It was like, I
don't have that last year that Ineed. And so it's really frustrating when

(32:45):
you lose to someone like that,especially when it's for your potential spot on
the world team that year. Andthen he goes and punches his ticket.
And so I wanted that matchup again, and I wanted to wrestle, you
know, seeing how I can dowhen I feel my best. And so
right away, you know, Iknew he was going to be pressuring in
like he always does, and Iwas anticipating a dog fight. Like I
was like, this is going tobe the hardest match that I've had of

(33:07):
this tournament. It's I'm going tobe way more tired than I was any
other match, whether it was againstsebb like, and that was really the
only other match that pushed me closeto to any limitations that I have is
against Sebby that I had to reallylike empty my gas tank there. And
so I was going to the matchwith that expectation that he's be coming at
me and I'm just gonna have to, you know, embrace the fight and

(33:29):
gut it out and just go formy attacks when they're there. And again
I was like, and I stillhaven't. I haven't gotten to go parteer
on top against him yet, andthat's kind of one of the things I've
been looking for. Yeah, thefirst match, they never gave me a
passivity against him, and nor didthey in the second match I had with
him. Uh, this third one, I guess it's understandable that they didn't.

(33:52):
I was protecting a lead and Iwasn't, you know, being overly
aggressive nor but nor did I thinkI was being too passive. But anyway,
so the match starts off and beforethe match even started, I think
Pat was still up and and Chandlerwas really our only coach there. So
I was like, I'm not gonnahave a coach going into this match.

(34:13):
And so Rudy James was standing there. I was like, hey, Rudy,
and so he hopped in my cornerfor me, and I know,
you know Rudy, Uh, yeah, he's he's great. He's coached me
since I was a kid. Iused to go to the Apple Valley practices
on Wednesdays that he would run,so like Rudy and I go way back,
So it was actually awesome having himin my corner for that match.

(34:36):
But yeah, Ronegal pressured in,and even before I hit that first headlock,
like I kind of felt like itwas there because he was pressuring in
with an overextended arm, and like, I've been hitting headlocks like that since
I was, you know, sevenyears old, so like I just have
a sixth sense for it, likewhen it's there, I can just feel
it, and I already kind ofthought it was maybe there. And he

(34:57):
came pressuring in, reaching that arm, and I hit it and then he
got on top. And at firstI was like, okay, great,
but then he got on top,so now he's up one. And then
he turned me too, so Iwas like, well, way way to
blow a solid lead, and nowit's going to be a tougher fight than
it should have been, you know, getting turned there in parterres, I'm
up four to three, and andto be honest, I don't remember a

(35:17):
whole lot about how the rest ofthat first period went. I think it
was just kind of a pummeling match. Yeah, And and then the second
period was kind of a mirror imageof the first period. Was he this
time pressured in even harder. Healmost caught me on that drag and that
was the exact same thing he hitme with in uh in Colorado. But

(35:37):
I just walked right into it andhe just ran me out of bounds.
I think he even ran me intoa table that time in Colorado, like
it was. It was a reallynice arm drag, like it was.
It just hit me with his armtrack. Is really is It's unique because
of his body type and because it'sit's strange because he's not he's not tall
yet he gets an arm track.He doesn't and he doesn't even necessarily extend

(36:01):
like the arm like all dramatically orsomething. But he I, I guess
it's head position. I was aboutto say it's I think it's his head
and his hips because he the amountof fling he gets on it is it's
it's wild. Yeah, It's likehe gets the angle and then he doesn't.
He's not even trying to take youdown like most people hit an arm
drag like I'm gonna take you down. He's like I'm gonna arm drag you

(36:22):
to get the angle to drive youacross the mat and out of bounds,
Like it doesn't matter if he hitsit in the middle or on the far
side of the mat. He's gonnajust plow through you. Yeah, it's
and then when he gets it,it's it's nice. But like I was,
I was. I knew that hewas going to be going for that,
and and fortunately this time I wasable to defend it off. But
then he just kept charging and weended up in a weird like front head

(36:45):
position where we both had each other'sheads and then I was on the edge
and I got my head up andthen I think I reached for double overs.
He charged in and then hit thathead lock, and that second one
was cleaner than the first one.And that's kind of how I've described it

(37:06):
to people, is like, youknow, you hit a move perfectly when
you feel like you didn't use anymuscles at all. It was just the
technique. They just walked into itand floated through it. Like I felt
like I didn't have to muscle thatthrow at all. He just stepped right
into it. Matt Linlin used toalways say that the techniques to score and
Greco roman come from in back ofyou, you know, And that's just

(37:28):
another way of saying like throws requireyou know, timing and from counter pressure.
Yeah, yeah, exactly. Ifyou use the technique, you shouldn't
have to muscle it at all.There's a gym that I teach wrestling classes
at. It's like a jiu jitsuand the boxing gym, and they've got
a poster on the wall that sayssomething along the lines of that, like

(37:51):
something about timing, and it's like, if you're late, you use muscle,
and if you use muscle, youtire, and if you tire,
you're gonna lose. The whole pointof that jiu jitsu is like you can't
be using your muscles and constantly squeezing. You've got to rely on technique otherwise
you're gonna gas yourself out. Andit's like, when you hit a technique
perfectly, you don't even need toreally use your muscles because you timed it

(38:12):
right. You had like four likebig time techniques in this tournament out of
what do you have five matches?I think, and that speaks well to
I think both you and the waythat this weight division sort of stacks up,
because if there's even though I'm likea big giant fanboy for eighty seven

(38:37):
kilos and kind of have been.If there's anything like eighty seven gets well
eighty seven ninety seven and you know, certainly heavyweight, but definitely the all
three. It's sometimes when it comesto the upperweight classes, the criticism,
especially from non Greco people, islike, ah, you know, there's

(38:58):
not a lot of action. It'sjust you know, pummeling and passivities and
stepouts, you know, for themost part. And for me, that's
fine, that's great, But I'malso hardcore and deeply involved in whatever else.
I'm not like some normal casual.I think it says open when you're
scoring dynamic points. You know,dynamic points are match separators, that's you

(39:24):
know what I mean, And you'renot and look at you've done it before.
You know, this tournament, butthis is it. I mean,
this tournament right here was pretty muchthe Olympic Trials bracket. I mean,
like, this is it. Likethere's it's not a knock on anyone.

(39:45):
Maybe there maybe there's one or twomore athletes who get who get into this
trials at eighty seven who are likeviable to some extent, but like this
was a good Nationals for eighty sevenin so far. Is everyone who needed
to be here was here? Yeah? Yeah, no, absolutely. Danny

(40:05):
Miller to that end, Dan Millerfrom you know obviously the Marines and all
that and two time national champ whenhe was like starting to get hawcoorn to
Greco, he told me that,you know he's being he was being tough
on himself after you know, havinglike a tight match against you know someone,

(40:27):
uh he you know, probably shouldn'thave and he said that Luketas coach
Luketas told him you can have amatch where the score is only two to
nothing and you still be dominant.So there's that slice of it too where

(40:49):
it's like, okay, like wekind of sometimes can get fooled by a
scoreboard where like we'll look at twoto nothing or three to two or three
to one and be like, okay, that was a really really really tight
match. It's like yeah, kindof but not really like the way you
described your match with O'Malley here,it's like it was for nothing, but
like you know, you didn't feellike there was ever a time during that

(41:10):
match in which you didn't have control. Correct, Yeah, yep, exactly.
You're you're one hundred percent right atthat, and unfortunately eighty seven has
been one of the more boring weights. See but Joe Rouse said that in
nineteen. In twenty nineteen, hesaid the same thing on the same show.
He was like talking bad about hisown weight class. But I mean,

(41:31):
it's like, what are you talkingabout? It's like the deepest weight
class. Well but yeah, butno, and that's what I'm saying.
Historically, I think it has beenlike it was maybe twenty I don't know,
twenty eighteen or twenty nineteen when whenit was a provisor and I'm drawn
a blank on his name. MartinezImproviser were the final in two thousand and
eighteen and then they go all threematches and all three matches were like a

(41:54):
past one points pretty much. Yeah, it was right, but I thought
that was the most brutal exactly,But that was like the most brutal,
like hard hitting, physical, freakingseries of that trials. Like you're if
you're a fan of if you're afan of True Greco and like you you
understand it at that level, it'sfun to watch, but to the casual

(42:16):
observer and even a lot of peoplewho wrestle Greco. That's not fun.
They want to see arm throws andheadlocks and body locks and lifts, and
they want to see all the slashystuff. But I will say, I
think you're absolutely right that eighty sevenhas more depth than any other weight category,

(42:37):
and I do think it is themost most exciting weight And I mean,
you know, look at the finalsmatch. I mean that that was
fun to watch watching Spencer and Sebbiin that clash, and just throughout the
tournament, I mean, I thinkeighty seven had a lot of good matches.
There was some that were closer,you know, one ones relying on
the passivities and stepouts for the wins, but I do think they were was

(43:00):
also a lot of exciting matches atthe way category, so I think it
has grown. But I also doappreciate that that style of you know,
it becomes more of a boxing matchor like a chess match, and it's
who can control the position enough tosecure the win by just getting that extra
step out or getting the gut wrenchin quarterer and winning on the past evies

(43:22):
right, Well, that's pretty muchhow it's contested at the World Championships and
Olympics. Olympic trials are just aboutfour months from today. Yes, yes,
as we are as we sit herenow doing this segment, I believe
it is in four months. Whatare you doing as far as January goes?

(43:50):
Is January just going to be trainingtraining, training, or are you
guys looking to get a competition somewhere? You know? I, to be
honest, I've been so focused onthe last two months, meaning the Bill

(44:10):
Ferrell and the US Nationals, thatI really hadn't thought a whole lot about
what I was going to be doingJanuary and February. I mean, I'd
been thinking about it, but notenough to the point where I, I,
you know, put anything in stoneor got any concrete plans to go
compete. I would like to gooverseas and train. If I could compete

(44:31):
while I'm there, they'd be greattoo. But you know, in Denmark
last year, I felt like Ikind of got cheated out of the trip
a little bit because went over thereand competed and then got banged up bad
enough that I couldn't even train whileI was over there. So I went
over all the way overseas and stayedthere for two or three weeks whatever it

(44:52):
was, and didn't get to trainat all because I'm just that being said,
like, I did still think therewas value in just being there president
of Savannah Washing, but it's it'sobviously different getting your hand on a foreigner
and getting the trin with them.So if possible, I would love to
make that happen between now and then. Prior to that, I think about
trying to compete in the Armed ForcesChampionships because I'm in the National Guard.

(45:15):
I'm in the Army, Like,I don't know if that's the possibility,
but I don't know why I couldn'tcompete in it. That being said,
now that I'm already qualified, Idon't I don't know that that's would be
necessary. So that's that's obviously offthe table now. But prior to this
past weekend, that was something Iwas considering, was trying to make that
happen. Well, you have thornMasters towards the what is it the very

(45:44):
Is it the tip end of Februaryor very very very early March? I
think so yes it is. Itis March first and second, and you
figure March first and second, Marchthird, So four, five, six,
seven, eight is the camp thenext week that brings you back to

(46:05):
Minnesota with five weeks it'n til trials. Yeah, that's definitely on the table.
I really enjoyed my time over there, even though I didn't get to
train as much as I would liketo, and everyone that I went with
they thought it was very well ran, and specifically at eighty seven. I
mean that tournament was stacked last year, hopefully at a repeat, Yeah,

(46:28):
and hopefully those training partners stick aroundso you get to grapple with some of
the best guys in the world atthat way. Yeah, well that is
the you see. But that's whyI asked, is if only because I
mean we both know about the nationalteam sort of trip to Zagreb early in
January or midway through January, becausethe ones and twos from Saturday at the

(46:54):
Nationals are going on that trip orat least, barring injury, that's the
plan. But meanwhile, where doesthat leave the other top competitors in our
country. Well, we don't havea Dave Schultz Memorial in between either,
and Armed Forces is not a highlevel event as far as if you are

(47:20):
somebody who's qualified for the Olympic Trial. The only way Armed Forces is a
high level event is if at leastthis year anyway, is if you are
wrestling for Navy or Air Force andyou have to wrestle with somebody from w
CAP, then to you it's highlevel. I guess, you know.
And I don't mean that in amean way that but that's reality. Here's

(47:42):
here's reality. The reality is Armyis full of professional wrestlers. That's reality.
Like I mean, I don't knowwhy we dance around it, like
that's what's what they're there for.And so there you know, you're somebody
from Navy who's been practicing for yeahtwo and a half weeks. Okay,

(48:04):
well you're getting feeds to the alliancehere. I mean, as far as
I'm concerned, you have two options, Rich And if you need me to
talk to coach Dan Chandler, I'dbe happy to because about a week or
so after four Masters is the petrofin Bulgaria, and that is as you
know, or that's a tough tournament, super tough. Yeah. Yeah,

(48:31):
Denmark's camp though, yeah, andI regardless of what ends up happening,
like I know, I intend togo overseas between now and April, just
to get the training and the competing, and then also it's a good way
to test out, you know,for the Olympics, like, uh,
because I've had only a number oftimes where I've gotten to change time zones
and acclimate and compete, and Iwant to practice that because you know,

(48:54):
you punch your ticket at the Olympics. It sucks if that's like one of
your first couple of times going throughthat process and you screw something up and
then miss your chance to meddle atthat level of event. So yeah,
I don't know where I'll be goingor Masters as a possibility, but I
definitely plan to get overseas and atleast trained between now in April before we

(49:17):
put a cap on the bottle here. The one thing that is, I
mean, it's super important obviously goinginto this particular season, and it's something
that I mean not to sound it'syour life is your life. And I
appreciate the fact that you've tried toserve our country and that you do and
whatever, But selfishly, as someonewho has like watched you compete for you

(49:40):
know, quite a while now,I always would have loved it for you
to be able to just invest allyour time and energy into like we're talking
about training and competing, training andcompeting, but this year you're finally getting
an opportunity to do just that,you know, pretty much kind of going
all in here. Describe exactly whatas far as like your work has entailed

(50:05):
stepping away from what you were doingand being able to just focus on this
Olympic here. Yeah. So Iworked for a company called Cardinal Glass Industries
for approximately four years and they werephenomenal. I loved working for them.
They're amazing company, great culture,great leadership. The president of the company

(50:27):
is actually a west Point grad andhe wrestled at west Point, so I
got along with him well, obviouslybeing a military background and then also a
wrestler, and they've done nothing butsupport me in my Olympic journey. But
I made the tough decision earlier thisyear to step away from that job,
and it was it was a reallytough decision because I, you know,

(50:51):
I had a house where I hadto pay the mortgage off and that was
really the big thing that was keepingme working, I guess. But I
decided, you know, I wasgoing to figure out how to make this
work, and I was going toquit my job and just become a full
time wrestler and ended up quitting thatjob in late July. I think it
was my last week, and andthe reason I had to do is because

(51:14):
I was just I mean, obviously, being a full time wrestler is better
than being a part time wrestler ifyour goal is to make the Olympic team.
Not saying I couldn't have done ithaving kept working, but I think
it's it's better to day and atthe end of the day, previously I
really felt like I was just burningthe candle from both ends. I was
waking up at you know, fourpoint thirty in the morning, going to

(51:37):
the gym and getting a lift orsome sort of conditioning workout in, and
then going to work working eight hoursand then going to wrestling practice. And
to be honest to me, Idon't know, like looking back, I
don't know how I did that forso long and didn't sustain more injuries or

(51:58):
just hit a wall and just crashingburn or I don't even know how like
I sustained it just in the senseof like getting good training and because looking
back it just doesn't make sense tome, like I was not getting enough
sleep, and then also even justthe time to like cook proper meals like
my diet Definitely wasn't it like Iwas. I was doing a good job
with the time that I had,But I wasn't, you know, sitting

(52:19):
down and cooking good, nutritious,healthy meals like three times a day like
I should be. So yeah,back back in July with my last week,
and and since then, I've beena full time wrestler, and and
it's it's been amazing to be ableto plan things out just solely around my

(52:39):
wrestling career and that fit things aroundmy training schedule, and that actually have
time now that I can put towardsactive recovery. I started doing yoga and
getting more physical therapy and preventative treatmentto make sure that you know, not
just treating minor aches and injuries thatI have, but also do things to
prevent them. Yeah, it's it'sit's been an absolute game changer for me.

(53:06):
I guess my only regret is notdoing it sooner. But that that
being said, I think I'm ina really good spot right now leading up
to the trials in April. Soeverything that that I did leading up to
this, I think is put mein a good position. And and now
I can really focus. You know, I have been for the last five
six months on just wrestling, andI've got another four months to continue it.

(53:29):
And at the end of the day, that's that's one hundred percent.
What it is is that if ifyou want it bad enough, you will
find a way to make it work. And that's that's true of pretty much
anything in life. But if ifyou want to make the Olympic team and
you want to be a full timewrestler, like, you'll find a way
to make it work. And andit's it's almost impossible to do nothing but

(53:51):
wrestle, like You're gonna have tohave some sort of side income. Like
I'm still in the National Guard.I teach wrestling classes at a couple different
gyms for money. I just pickedup my CrossFit certification so I can teach
fitness classes at gyms as well,So I'm going to start doing that.
So I have like these side hustles, and I'm still willing to put in
time and make some money to supportthis dream. But at the same time,

(54:12):
you also have to be willing todownsize or downgrade your your style of
living. Like previously I was livingin like a nicer house and living a
different lifestyle like I had. Ihad to to, you know, give
up a lot of things, compromiseon a lot of like lifestyle changes in
order to make this work. AndI think that's something that people have to

(54:35):
like realize that if you want likethis and even and that's maybe not even
true, like because you can,you can if you want to find a
job that works with you, likeand there's multiple things you could do,
Like a great example is getting intolike real estate and like flipping houses.
Like Granted, you have to havea certain set of skills to be able

(54:57):
to do that, but if you'renineteen twenty years old, like, you
can start working a labor job,gain some of those skills part time while
being a you know, full timewrestler, and work your way into that.
It's gonna take some time, butit's absolutely possible to chase the dream
of being a full time athlete andwork a little bit to support yourself to

(55:20):
chase your dream one hundred percent.Okay, I'm very pleased to be joined
now by freshly mit to three timenational champion the Alaskan Assassin, Spencer Woods.

(55:45):
All Right, Spencer, let's starthere with a Q and a I
just published with I mean, we'rejust gonna call him the national team head
coach because starting January one, thatis what his job title will be.
That's Herb House reflecting on the NationalTournament this past weekend and the question was

(56:07):
anyone in anyone in particular by whomyou were especially impressed, not just champions
but overall, and Herb House replied, I think everyone. Really everyone surprised
me. They all wrestled great matches. It is hard to say. Colton
Schultz wrestled a very solid match.Alex Sancho had a good match. He

(56:30):
was behind and came back. Peytono'mannia wrestled a good match too. Spencer
Woods, even though it was adifferent type of match. I think Sebbi
brought out the best in him andpushed him to a new level to become
even more like the Spencer Woods whowe know, and the Spencer Woods we
know is a great fighter. Yourthoughts about Coach House's perspectives on, at

(56:57):
the very least your finals performance fromthe Nationals on Saturday. Yeah, the
Greek Colton wrestled great match. Sanchoof Ayton, uh that they were really
fun to watch, Like to thankherb And the only thing I would like

(57:19):
to add to that is, uh, yes, Ar wrestled a good competitor,
but I think it was more sothe training environment in wu Cap is
what brought me to a new leveland continuing to improve my game because it's

(57:45):
a it's a new waight for me. Well, I've been here a couple
of years ago, but you knowrecently new weight going up, and you
know, I I don't think uhI necessarily did anything different in my head

(58:07):
and my mind on competition day thatwasn't something we were already training to Wu
Cap. Uh. You know,been working. You know, I get
to got to s eat more thanlifting, more than spending more time technique

(58:31):
with the team and the coaches andall that. And so that's that's the
only thing I would like to addI think one of my favorite, uh
things the I always think of is, you know, you don't win the

(58:52):
tournament at the tournament, you winit in your training. And yeah,
I think I was winning the tournamentback in October November earlier this month.
That's when I was winning the tournamentand doing what I needed to. I

(59:14):
just had to show up and getmy metal eighty seven kilograms is, in
my opinion, the best weight classin the country. I firmly believe that.
I think it's the most competitive.I think it's the most stacked.
You look at not just the names, but what's attached to those names.

(59:34):
It was truly a bracket to mewhere seeding was totally irrelevant. It did
not matter no matter where anyone wasin the bracket their seed, they were
going to have to get through toughguy after tough guy anyway, so like
it was just gonna shake down likethat. But to that end, you

(59:55):
have to go against Tyler Hannah.Hey, Tyler Hannah might not be quite
ready to break through on your levelyet, but he's you know, he's
not a pushover. He's been doingthis a while for a young guy.
And then obviously you have John stefanoWitz after that, and then you have
the reigning returning World team member inthis weight class in the semi final in

(01:00:21):
Zach Brounegle. And that's before youever get to the SEBBI in the final.
I mean, that's quite the listjust to do that. And it's
funny I'm saying it, like theseed doesn't matter. When I saw that
you were put forth. Now,I don't think you probably cared all that
much. But I was like,how, like, if we're gonna go

(01:00:44):
crazy over seeds in our country andbecome, you know, irrationally obsessed with
them, then how do you putSpencer Woods fourth? Considering he's got two
national titles and has appeared in twoconsecutive worlds. Like, I get that

(01:01:05):
you were at a different weight classand everything, but like, even still,
it's not like you were at seventyseven and moved up to eighty seven.
I just I mean, not thatit matters, It doesn't, but
I'm gonna go ahead, just beforewe move on, I'm gonna go ahead
and guess that your seat was completelylike a non issue for you. Is
that right? Yeah? No,not at all, A told censored before

(01:01:30):
we go. He was he wasasking, but I cared where I was
seated, And he goes, no, I like, I want to I
want to wrestle everyone. I wantit to be no question, no,

(01:01:52):
uh you know this, that orthe other. I want to go wrestle
the skies and I want I wantto beat them. You know, if
you want to be the best,you have to beat the best you know,
and all the competitors. You know, USA Wrestling is a small circle.

(01:02:15):
We're all uh tight knit, knoweveryone, And yeah, no,
there's definitely not issue if but ifI wanted to well before say that,
you know, you know what mysecret is, Go ahead, I wrestle

(01:02:35):
them just one out of time,one match at a time, one match
out of time. You don't haveto to beat the whole bracket. You
don't wrestle them all at once.You beat them one at a time.
And uh, you know, Iwasn't getting ahead of myself. I wasn't

(01:02:58):
you know, I wasn't doing thewhole racketology. If he wins and this
just wins and he should win,and then I'll have him the court.
And I'm just like, no,I'm just like, I don't know who
I'm gonna have to wrestle next.I'm they're gonna have me. Whoever,
whoever's wrestling, they're gonna have me. I'm not gonna have them. They're
gonna have get through me. Right. That is the healthiest perspective I've heard

(01:03:22):
in a long time. Uh.Look, I don't uh you know what
not to go down a complete andtotal rabbit hole here because I don't want
to especially not with the current athlete. But it's like I don't know why.

(01:03:43):
Well, I shouldn't say I don'tknow why. I know why,
at least I have an idea why. But it's beyond me that we focus
in our I don't care if it'sa domestic selection tournament. I don't care
if it's the US Open, Idon't care if it's the Trials Challenge.
To m Man, I don't carewhat it is. We have this obsession

(01:04:04):
with seeds, and to me,we should abolish seating right now. It's
gone. If it were, ifI could be in control and pull the
levers of the Greco Roman Sports Committeeand the Executive Committee and everything else,
I'd be like, yeah, we'redone with seeding here and our Greco Roman
tournments were done with the freestock coulddo what they'd like to do, it
doesn't matter. But for Greco wedon't need it. We're the only country

(01:04:29):
that is like fixated on seeds foreverything we do. And the problem with
that is no other country is likefor none of their tournaments that mean anything.
And granted a lot of those othercountries they select teams by committee anyhow,
or they have many wrestle offs orhowever they do it. But even
still, it's like, if youthink you're going to win the tournament,

(01:04:51):
if your goal is to win thetournament, then why does it matter which
round you face a guy in?Like I just I'll never understand that,
because mathematically, no round of atournament carries a higher weighted value than another.
Like you can't say, oh,well, tim, the finals are

(01:05:14):
much more important than the round ofsixteen, because that's mathematically completely stupid.
It's inaccurate. You don't get tothe final without the round of sixteen.
So what are we doing here?Like, if you think you're going to
win, what doesn't matter? Imean why would it? Like it doesn't.
And that's why most other countries theydon't even think about it. They

(01:05:39):
block jam, random draw their owndomestic events. And here, like we
people got upset a couple of weeksago when it was like, well,
you know, there's not going tobe a coach's meeting to seed and I
was like, what does it matter? You know, like it doesn't matter,
Like we can't keep imagining matchups andthings like. That's how these things

(01:06:00):
are decided. You know, ifyou want to make a big deal out
of the seeds and you win,and you should be you should be an
asterisk next to you're next to thefirst place, Like, yeah, he

(01:06:20):
won, but you know, youmade a really big deal out of season
and you didn't want to be onhis side of the bracket. You want
to be on this side of thebracket. And you know you kind of
avoided you didn't want this matchup inthe round of sixteen. You got this
guy instead, and you know you'rethe one won the bracket that strict It's

(01:06:42):
yeah, exactly, it's I mean, it's just you're your proof of it
here. I mean, there's notone guy here who had just started wrestling
Greco Roman or six months ago andwas just showing up because he's you know,
at some startup RTC somewhere and youknow it's just getting into it because

(01:07:02):
his college career is done. Imean, that's none of the guys you
wrestled in the Nationals fits that description. I mean, Tyler Hannah is obviously
on the younger side and is stilltrying to move forward in his career.
But I mean, my goodness,like you know, you have Stefano WIT's
after that, and you know,like it's what do you what do you

(01:07:25):
want here? I mean, it'sjust an incredible performance, so much so
that I was going to ask youthis being your third title, and obviously
in April to when your second youhad to beat Ben, which that had
become sort of not sort of,I mean that was certainly since twenty twenty

(01:07:46):
one rivalry. If you had torank them, where do you put this
past Saturday's national title? So far? A firm believer in the last one's
your best one? Nice answer,Nice answer, like the president is always

(01:08:10):
the last one. Next one.I'll focus on the next one. A
question I've been wanting to ask youthat that's not a question. It's not
a question I would ask you inseason. At the time, I did
wonder this is why you chose togo eighty two last season? Just thinking

(01:08:34):
of it, where in terms oflike, well Woods is like going to
go eighty seven for the Olympic year, like everyone knows it. If that's
going to be the case, whynot just try to hulk up a little
bit now? It was kind ofmy line of thinking, what was behind
your decision to stick at eighty twofor the twenty twenty two twenty three campaign.

(01:09:01):
It was really it's it's kind oflike my walk around. Wait,
I can just kind of comfortably livetrain close to eighty two. I think
that final X I probably like Iwoke up like a kilo under and like
drank up to eighty two kilos Ohis that right? Okay? All right,

(01:09:25):
Well I think that answers it.Yeah. I like, I don't
want to be up in my faceand have indigestion wrestling every day. So
it wasn't a decision until you know, it's had to be a decision.
Well, Mango told me like atone point that you you don't walk around
heavy, So it's not like thiswas a thing for I didn't know you

(01:09:45):
were walking around that light either.Gosh, that was in the year's past
was probably like or like eighty fourfive. But I mean just this summer,
I was just you know, justdoing so much cardio that I was
just like really light. And Ihave a crazy dog that doesn't get tired,

(01:10:05):
so I'm always always walking him outlike that, and uh, I
was just just light. And thenI felt and I haven't really been a
big weight cutter since you know,twenty nineteen. At the last time I
went down to seventy seven and Iwas like after final Eggs, I was

(01:10:28):
just like, yeah, I needI need to I need to lift,
I need to eat. You know, this is that's also that's part of
the game too, and it's kindof like a little reset button for me.
Oh mind, I mean I needtoo crappy normally, you know,

(01:10:48):
I'm a big steak and potatoes guy. Yeh, that's definitely this you go,
h this tournament. You know,just you know, I just pretty
much just try to eat everything insideand trying not to run. That was
my Pland that's fair enough. It'sit's funny you said that though, because

(01:11:12):
you know, when I first startedgetting to know you some years back and
all that, and like, youknow, we talk about Alaska and you
at Northern Michigan and like getting foodscenting and stuff like that. Now that
you are in uh what is itFort Carson and you're ye know, it's

(01:11:34):
your HQ is Colorado Springs area.What is your diet? Like, do
you still like, I'm not evenI'm looking. I'm not saying this,
Spencer, I'm not saying this'd befunny like ha ha ha ha ha,
but like, do you still likeget like do you eat any game animals
anymore? Or you just like buyingeverything off the shelf. The the i'm

(01:11:59):
you back reminder in you tach eskimoand the Eskimo word for you know,
the native food Eskimo food, it'scalled nick coopback. And uh, every
time my dad comes down, hebrings one cooler, two coolers, uh,
filled up with you know, andthen moose, cariboo whatever hallowed it.

(01:12:24):
So it's not it's not like howI was eating back home, but
you know it's still gets still ahealthy dose, healthy dose of my Alaskan
foods, but my high octane,high octane. Well, it was just
yeah, I mean totally seriously.I mean, because I don't know,
like stick with what your body's adaptedto. I would think after a while,

(01:12:46):
you know, I mean, Iguess you can go completely domestic if
you if you need it to.I mean, you travel enough to where
you got to eat food overseas andstuff. I don't know. I just
I was thinking I was actually legitimatelythinking about it recently, like because I
mean, nobody else really, youknow, has indulged in too much cariboo
in our program. So no,it's a little secret you saught to approved.

(01:13:16):
Yeah, it's a you sat toapprove for now. Uh all right,
Yeah, they'll probably discover some enzymeor something that uh be heartbreaking.
Oh my gosh, it's a joke. You saw it. But anyway,
moving on, were you super disappointednot to compete in the Military Worlds.

(01:13:40):
Uh No, the decision was outof uh above my pay grade. Nice
way to put that. I wasn'tupset about. It would have been cool,
Yeah, it would have been cool. Well, a future opportunities to
do it, I hope. Soso I'm just I'm banking on that right

(01:14:01):
now. A cool like a verycool ceremony, and w CAP did very
well in the tournament, so itwould have been fun to be a part
of all that. Yeah, no, it's not something I'm losing a bunch
of sleepover. Well, the waythat I think of it as this is

(01:14:24):
that I mean, don't get wrong. You know, great for Sancho,
Dawton, Stefan Wits and you know, unfortunately Britain got reinjured at the national
tournament, but that was his comebackevent to Military Worlds. But at the
same time, it's like, mygoodness, it's a lot of stuff too.
You know, it's this is awe're looking at a pretty compressed series

(01:14:48):
of events here, because you justwrapped up the national tournament that was days
ago, so that was December sixteenth, and then on January seven is Zagreb
going over to Croatia. That tournamentRanking series. Tournament is going to be

(01:15:12):
a huge deal. And then there'sobviously the training camp in Porick, and
then you get back towards the endof January. Get half a minute to
breathe out. PanAm prep camp Februaryseven to seventeen. Army guys are not
going to be able to compete inthe PanAm Championships. That I just realized.
But then there's the qualifier anyway,towards the end of February, so

(01:15:38):
not a lot of not a lotof space to hit the pause mount anyway.
Yeah, I don't know. Besidesmy military career and my commitments to
my loved ones and my commitment tomy dog, I really don't have a

(01:16:00):
whole lot of responsibilities here. Myjob to go and press along and compete,
and uh yeah that's no problem withit. And I'm no longer a
student anymore, so I have nomore homework overseas fair enough, Croatia.
Croatia Camp's a big camp. Overthe last two and a half years,

(01:16:25):
Poorick has developed into a destination.It used to be that when it came
to those European training camps, Hungarywas like number one with a bullet.
Everybody wants to always go to Hungry, Hungry, Hungry, And it's still
I mean they take training camps liketo the dome there in Hungry. I
mean they have like a culture builtaround it practically now. But Croatia's really

(01:16:48):
really picked up steam. They havethat giant training room, training center in
Pooric, and there's going to bea whole ton of guys in the camp
up who are probably not even goingto not not just the guys in the
tournament. There's gonna be extras there. Just like thor Masters camp is attractive

(01:17:09):
to people even if they don't wrestle. At door Masters, you've been in
the spot before at these overseas camps, how do you approach them? Huh
yeah, No, You've got toyou gotta know something that you want to
work on. You got to beopen to new things, and you know,

(01:17:30):
he's just a huge learning experience becauseyou're wrestling with other athletes from other
countries, and then you're kind ofbreaking it down, uh with like your
USA teammates and the USA coaches,and then you're trying out other stuff.
So it's like a bunch of likemany many competitions and you can just tweak,

(01:17:58):
tweak, tweak so much. Ithink it's very important, you know.
I think the first time I wentto that four Masters tournament back when
I was nineteen or twenty, Ithink it was nine. I can't remember
who I was, nineteen or twenty. I just remember how eye opening it

(01:18:19):
was and like how how hard theythey wrestle in these camps, and uh,
you know, I I brought thatback and that's when I wrestled in
the first my first US Open finalsin nineteen's right, and it was a
yeah, yeah no. I think, uh, traveling internationally is a huge

(01:18:47):
huge benefit, especially uh you know, when you start considering things like uh
parterre and just matt positioning and justyou know, underhook position, two on
one positions, just a really solidtraining. I love it. I think

(01:19:11):
the trips are a lot of fun. I don't mind being away for that
long. You know. The porchis a beautiful place, you know,
really nice. If there wasn't twohundred military age males. They're trying to
kill you every day. But Ilike it. Yeah, I love it.

(01:19:32):
I love those trips. How doyou balance the training camps in terms
of like learning and competitiveness. Idon't like to presuppose, so just let
me draw the line there. Ifyou want to go and combine them,
I guess you could. But Iimagine that you're gonna go against some guys

(01:19:54):
who it's like, yeah, Okay, you're trying to work on stuff,
you're trying to learn, but like, I don't know, maybe things get
heated and you're just going to turnit up, turn it up, turn
it up, turn it up.And then again you might go with a
guy who, like you, aretrying to absorb stuff from perhaps, like,
how does that balance take place foryou? If there even is one.

(01:20:14):
Maybe there's not one. I mean, you're a maniac, so maybe
there isn't one. Yeah, No, I think there's definitely like a planning
part of the practice of you know, you're thinking what am I going to
do? And then now you justgo out there and try to stick to
your game plan. But you know, I don't always have the best memories,
so you canda forget the game plansometimes and just do something else.

(01:20:39):
And you just got to keep akeep an open mind. And then you
know it's really just a trial,trial and error. I thinking something might
work, but you can't get fixatedon that one thing because then you're missing
these other things that are going onbecause you're just so focused trying to get
you know, an arm dragon,and you know you're missing no a headlock

(01:21:03):
or a dog or something. Soit's just, you know, it's very
fun. It's you know, Ilike to wrestle at that, you know,
against really good athletes that rested ata high level. It's fun to
me because you know, I feellike I'm learning something every go. You

(01:21:26):
know, I go there and I'mjust a sponge and I'm just thinking of,
you know, what do I needto be doing? But how can
I take a page out of thisguy's book? How can I take a
page out of that guy's book?And you know, how can I make
my own books? Just shacking pages? What first? For me? And

(01:21:47):
and it's great because you have threeweeks, two weeks whatever to figure that
out. That's your only job besideseating and sleeping and so it's it's been
nice. Enjoy it. Yah,what kind of dog? Asks Bence.
I have a German short haired pointer. What's the name here? His name's

(01:22:14):
kubat a u u be a q, name of the Alaskan River. It's
actually one of the names of mygrandfather's uh leaders, the sled dogs all
the way in the front. Uhthe name of one of his leaders.
And uh, yeah, it's abouttwo and a half maybe. All right,

(01:22:39):
Well let's look this up here.Because I'm not a veterinarian German short
hair pointer, I'm trying to gethim to become a service I can bring
him overseas. Uh what do youhave to do to qualify for that?

(01:23:10):
I do it for a bunch ofthings. I don't. I don't know
what I necessarily would qualify for ifI would, But you know, find
find a doctor to sign off onsome stuff, and a vet to sign
off on some stuff. I haven'tlooked into it too much, but well
we haven't. We have an opioidepidemic in this country, Spencer, and

(01:23:31):
we have doctors who knowingly prescribe what'sbasically heroin to normal citizens. I don't
see why you getting a service dogis too much of a stretch. Yeah,
sometimes I sneak him in too myschool here and uh, I mean
he's well trained. I've worked withhim a bunch, but he passes as

(01:23:54):
one. And yeah, I justthe airlines they ask for all the paperwork.
I think that definitely makes these trainingcamps so much more fun. You
know, and my dog DIDs theentire sign. That would be perfect.
I would go on these training tripsyear round. Look, you're from the

(01:24:16):
United States in America. There's anythingyou can make happen. I think getting
a dog over there is not toobig of a problem. I mean that's
maybe a conversation with like, youknow, whoever we have as the ambassador
Croatia or something. Yeah, ohno, Coach Mango would not be happy
if I brought my dog. Doyou guys get mag a gift, like

(01:24:36):
a Christmas gift, like y'all chipin and like, you know, I
don't know, get them some Pokemonslippers or something. Who stense yep,
now, but we should. Imean, he goes everywhere, like there's
definitely opportunities. He has to takea pass on some stuff and he goes

(01:24:57):
and so then when you go tolike camp or something, you have your
personal coach there all the time.No matter where you go, guy should
go ghetto something. I mean,you're leaving tomorrow morning, so like,
I don't know Venmo somebody. Yeah, he was telling me we're just like
breaking down like the end of yearcalendar and how it started off with January

(01:25:20):
Camp, then Croatia and Armed Forcesin Washington. Then what was after that?
The Open then Buenos Ares Final X, then Lithuania, then where we
got Rome. No, we wentto Hungary and then then we had Paris

(01:25:43):
and then Worlds and then a monthafter that they had Santiago and then New
York and then then Texas. Yeah, non, he states married that he
does. Uh yeah, it's remarkable. It's remarkable. There's no one like

(01:26:05):
him. There's just I mean,he's the best. I don't know what
else to say, but you guysrealize that he is. You don't take
him for granted. Yeah, definitelynot, definitely not just extremely extremely tough
love. You know what. I'mgonna be honest, I don't care if

(01:26:26):
this is public or not. Yeah, I get a real big kick and
of everyone laughing and making like juststupid jokes that Basick and I went out
to get at dinner together like acouple few times in Texas. Never mind
that b Sick is one of myclosest friends, Like we're just gonna ignore

(01:26:48):
that. But it's like we're here, like how how many people do like
we are so insular of a community? And then I'm getting me fun for
going out to dinner with the sameguy who also happens to, like I
just said, be one of mycloser friends. And it's like, oh,

(01:27:10):
they're dating, like they're going onto date again. And you know
what, the only thing I caneven come up with is that Number one,
it's at the end of the night. It's low hanging fruit. You're
just trying to not you personally,but a couple of your miss grand friends,
including Mango, and you know that'san easy joke to make. And

(01:27:30):
number two, it's just jealousy,you know. I that's the way I
started to think of it as,like, you know what, nobody would
say anything if they didn't care andwant to be in on it. Yeah,
I think what you have to do, I'm kidding. Yeah, No,
I think one of the I think, you know, I think it's
because Andy, you know, oneof the biggest figures in grec go and

(01:27:50):
you who talks about all the biggestfigures in Greca. Relaxed, best looking
maybe, but yeah, that's funny. That's cracking me up. I don't
know why it was so fun Well, because everybody else thought was hilarious.
And like, I'm completely befuddled,but whatever, I gotta be honest with
you. And like my standard forfood is like pretty low. You know,
I'm married, father with two kids. Like I've eaten fruit loops off

(01:28:14):
the living room floor, like asif it were like a gem you find
in the desert. But like thatthat place, that barbecue place, barbecue
I gotta look at. I don'tknow. I didn't get anything special.
Maybe I should. I mean Andygot catfish and his standards as low as
mine is, and he thought itwas like kind of fine. Uh he

(01:28:35):
didn't think he got the all youcan eat one too, and he said
his second batch could have been better. I got some kind of cheeseburger nonsense.
I mean, look, I don'ttake food for granted. It was
fine, Like I I can't dobetter, but it's just like I don't
know. I just figured I don'tknow I was a little oz a little

(01:28:56):
somewhat. Well, I don't thinkI'm gonna go back if I have the
opportunity. Yeah, we went toBuffalo Brothers Friday night. Buffalo Brothers was
I think the best one that Iwent to. Ye, good, Oh
you went there as well? You'vebeen there? Yeah, well I've been
to Fort Worth a couple of times. My family just walked out today.

(01:29:19):
I got the bison berger at BuffaloBrothers. I thought that was I thought
it was awesome. They have bisonin Alaska, Spencer, mm hmmm,
nope, No, we have muscots. You know what those are? Yeah?
In front of the computer. They'rekind of like shaggy bison. That's

(01:29:43):
a funny word combination. Spell itfor me. Uh m you s k
oh ex muscots. Oh my goodness. This looks like it's from like the
movie Ice Age or something. Mightbe a nice age. They can run
up to thirty seven miles per hour. Native to the Arctic. Oh there

(01:30:06):
you go. That's right in yourwheelhouse, isn't that. Yeah. They
also have them in Norway, sothat's just beef though, right, Yeah,
they're red meat. All right.Why don't you tell the people.
How you spend your Christmas break here? Spencer? Oh, well, I'm

(01:30:29):
going to Texas tomorrow and then Saturdayskipping the country, going south of the
border to Belize with my family togo snorpl and fish. So pretty excited
about that. Why so what you'restaying in Belize through Christmas? Yes,

(01:30:54):
blieze until it's spend like a weekthere or so. Yeah. All the
other grandparents I've died in my family, so we don't really have too many
family members we have to go visit. And I'm a single child, and
so it's a instead of getting eachother Christmas gifts, we all just take
a little vacation. Uh you saidsingle child. I don't know why that

(01:31:20):
struck me funny. Uh. Iwas like, you know, you don't
don't need to worry about these siblingsor any Yeah, I know what you
meant. It's only yeah, allright, So okay, I looked it
up for you on a travel advisory. Okay, so well it's only four

(01:31:41):
hours from Jersey, believe it ornot. Let's see you down there.
Uh ship up right? Uh?Level two exercise increased caution, Exercise increased
caution and believe due to crime,some areas have increased risk. Please read
the entire travel advisory. This wasdated November thirteen, twenty twenty three.

(01:32:08):
So apparently there's some underworld activity youneed to be looking out for when you
go snorkeling over there in the CaribbeanOsten. You know, I killed bears
and stuff, right, You thinkI'm worried about someone robbing me? No,
you know what, I definitely don'tthink you'd be worried about that.
I've never gone, I mean not, Look at New Jersey's not Alaska,

(01:32:30):
okay, Like it's obviously not.I mean I've looked it up once,
and I think you can fit NewJersey to Alaska. Like there's a ridiculous
number, like two hundred and fortytimes or something. Is that right?
Oh, it was a huge number, but I can't remember. Okay,
Well that notwithstanding, it doesn't getforty five below here, Like the coldest

(01:32:54):
it's been is, you know,mid twenties or so thus far in the
morning. But that aside, youknow, it's like vacation spots are much
more popular obviously during the winter thanthey are during the summer, at least
when we're talking about like tropical climatesand stuff like that, and I always
like thought, like, man,well, it must be quite the wake

(01:33:15):
up call to go somewhere warm andthen come back. Yes, because it's
older. It's colder in Springs thanit is in New Jersey, I think,
or at least it can be.Sometimes it's been pretty warm here.
My dad he recently retired. Mymom's kind of like semi retired from her

(01:33:39):
job. So they don't spend thismuch time in the winter, that or
not planning to this year, atleast in the years past. You know,
they go down to Texas and theywould just tell people, know,
we're just thrown up for a coupleof weeks before we have to go back.
And I thought that was funny.And it comes all out for a
little bit, you know, that'sthe right. Yeah, but that's the

(01:34:00):
opreate way to put it. Imean, when you think about it,
it's like, especially coming from likean extreme cold climate, you know,
just I don't know. You knowwhat, though, Spencer, you've traveled
the whole Sun more than I have. You've experienced a lot of deviations in
both temperature and time difference. Youknow, you would understand quite well how
to adjust compared to somebody like myself. I mean, just yeah, I

(01:34:24):
just I don't know. I thinkabout it sometimes and I'm like, man,
I must be kind of an adjustment, like I don't know whatever I'm
I'm not, don't getting wrong.I'm sure it's a very nice one to
make when you're going there. I'venever had a problem with the cold.
Every time I did get cold,you know, my dad would just make
up like a you know, there'ssome nonsense task for me to do,
so i'd move. But you haveit says there's like, you know,

(01:34:46):
there's no such thing as being toocold, you're just not wearing enough layers.
I mean, yeah, I guess. I mean, I'm sure I
would be warmer if I had onan eighth jacket, you know. Well,
yeah, but there's something to thatbecause I work outside, and I

(01:35:06):
prefer working in the cold, thenI do the heat, because it's the
same thing. But you can always, like if you just put on layers,
and you can always subtract layers ifyou're like too warm or uncomfortable.
If it's hot, it's just hot, and that's how it is, and
you got to just kind of dealwith it. You just got to sweat

(01:35:28):
and you gotta sweat, and theneven when you go inside the a C.
You're still hoot for two hours orso. And yeah, no,
I'm not so I think I toldyou this. You've just been the summers
in Texas and the winters in Alaska, and you know it's kind of fast
awkwards. But yeah, so I'llget the one hundred plus degrees in the

(01:35:50):
summers and then you know, goingdown to Alaska and it gets to yeah
minus infinity. Yeah. I wasthinking about that when over the weekend,
when I was like walking around onSaturday during like the like the long break
between sessions before the finals, andI'm walking around, like, you know,

(01:36:12):
I don't know what's the name ofthat square where they have the waterfalls
and things like that. What isthat called? Oh it got sun Sun
in it, right, like SunshineSquare or whatever it is. I don't
know whatever it's called. And yeahsomething, Yeah, I don't know.

(01:36:33):
And I remember I remember walking aroundand like I'm like, man, this
is like such a pleasant area,like for a city. It's like a
you know, a nice city.I grew up, you know, obviously
super close to Manhattan and the otherfour boroughs, and like, you know,
they they're their own thing, andlike here I'm in a city kind
of environment, yet like the traffic'snot completely totally obscene, and the people

(01:36:58):
are friendly, and it was justa really pleasant kind of feeling. And
I'm like starting to imagine, likeI wonder what it would feel like to
live here, to be a residentin and around this general area, maybe
not Fort Worth itself, but somewhereon the outskirts. And then I was
like no, no, no,no, no, no, no,
no, no no no, becauseit's sixty degrees right now, and so

(01:37:20):
that tricks your brain. And inthe summertime, it's probably like one oh
five or whatever it is all thelivelong day for fourteen hours. It's like,
nah, I don't need that either. Those human yeah, yeah,
no. It's funny. Whenever I'velost my acclamation, when my parents come

(01:37:41):
down and watch me, it'll belike thirty forty degrees or whatever. I
didn't get that cold there, butin Colorado or wherever I'm at, we'll
be cold and they're walking out inlike flippers and shorts on and T shirts.
I'm wearing like sweater jacket. Butyou know, I was like,
oh man, I've gone soft.You've turned vulnerable. Vulnerable? All right,

(01:38:11):
Spencer, if you could, andI don't mean to put you on
the spot, I've been trying todo this a little bit more often,
considering the demographic of the platform weall share together, which is obviously five
point and the young segment of readers, listeners, whatever you want to call
them. In this case, they'relooking to the men like you who represent

(01:38:36):
our country on the highest level oursport has to offer. Picture adolescents,
high schoolers, wrestlers who would liketo one day perhaps follow in your footsteps,
emulate your career steps. Who's beenthrough high school, who's been to

(01:38:57):
a big time college, who wentto Northern Michigan in university to become a
full time Greco Roman athlete, who'snow won three national titles and still has
way more stuff to do. Whatkind of advice, philosophies, what have
you do you have to share withthe younger wrestlers out there, Greco Roman

(01:39:18):
or not so to Let's say,to anyone who is or anyone who is
parenting coaching someone younger than high school, I would say, the biggest thing,
in my opinion, is keeping thesport fun. You know, you

(01:39:39):
don't want to be. You don'tromanticize weight cutting, don't don't get caught
up and wins and loses instead ofjust you know, working on technique and
you know, just practicing getting better. And then I think in high school
and older, you know, grownenough to start making decisions on what you

(01:40:02):
want to do. And that waswhen I was fourteen. That's when I
decided that some way, somehow,I'm going to be something great in wrestling.
I don't know when, I don'tknow how I'm going to do it,
but I sacrifice a lot. Andif you think you're sacrificing a lot,

(01:40:27):
you need to sacrifice some more.You need to make it to the
top level. Really, you gotto put your whole life and soul into
your every day. You gotta eat, sleep and breathe and wrestling you gotta,
you gotta. Yeah, you gotto be a little crazy, got

(01:40:48):
to be a little crazy, andyou know, got to not be weird
about it. But none go ratherthan people's paces. But you know,
it's just kind of breaks that it'shard to hard to be great at something.
And if you want to be achampion, it's the long, lonely
road that is full of up anddowns, And you know, I've questioned

(01:41:14):
if I wanted to keep wrestling alot in my life, and you know,
I've always want to keep doing it. I miss out on a lot
of things in life, and youknow, drastically, wrestling has drastically changed
the trajectory of my life. Fromwhen I was fourteen versus now, went
way different than how I could everimagine it. But I am so extremely

(01:41:39):
grateful for this life and I cannotimagine not how it is now. And
if I can do it over again, I would do it over ten times
more because I love it. Ilove to compete, I love the communities,
I love my experiences. I've lovedwhat I've learned in my sacrifices,
and I've learned upside downs and talkingto other athletes and coaches from different backgrounds,

(01:42:03):
and you know, it's such anawesome sport. You know, I
owe my life to wrestling, allright. And that was the man known
as the Alaskan Assassin, Spencer Woods, who is a three time national champion.
If you didn't hear that once ortwice already on this episode, or
you don't follow the sport, oryou don't read the five point move over,

(01:42:26):
here, I mean Spencer Woods.He's already he's what four time finalists,
three time champ I think, ormaybe more finals than that, right,
yeah, yeah, Well either way, he's a three time champ,
which it's remarkable. And Spencer Woods, along with I don't know, over
a dozen other United States, Grecand Roman senior athletes will be heading over

(01:42:49):
to Croatia run about January seven toeight, I think, And that is
in advance of the Grand Prix Zagrebopened, which is a United World Wrestling
Ranking Series tournament, and that isimportant to the US program. It's important
to every program. It's important tothe US program in particular because, well,

(01:43:14):
if it's a UWW Ranking Series tournament, what do we know. We
know that it comes with a rankingseries points relative to place winners, and
if you can come out a Zagrebwith some points, that is going to
influence where you reside in the bracketat the Pan American Olympic Qualifier. It
is simply strategic and logical. Youwant to be on the opposite side of

(01:43:36):
the bracket from whomever you deem tobe your biggest challengers, and at the
Pan American Olympic Qualifier and every othercontinental qualifier. For that matter, top
two qualify win in the semi final. That's all. That's it. The
final, they're not even doing them, okay, which I I'm not in

(01:43:57):
love with. I think you wrestlethe final. I not a stipulation I
particularly enjoy. I just think youwrestle them. But I get it.
You know, there's enough forfeits andweirdness that happens, so they're just passing
on it either way. But theZagreb tournament, that's why it kind of

(01:44:17):
sort of matters. It doesn't matterin a competitive sense. Yes it does,
of course it does. They needthese tournaments, they need the overseas.
Looks they're gonna get them, notjust at the tournament but at the
camp in Croatia. And you knowwhat, for that matter, Before I
go and rail on something else,let's go over the schedule, because this

(01:44:39):
is going to come out on fivepoint move anyway, in literary format,
as I like to say. Buthere's the schedule. Okay. I don't
have the exact dates of the PANDAMstuff. I just have like the altogether
dates, meaning all three styles.But here January to twenty seven is the

(01:45:03):
Croatia Ranking Tournament and camp in Croatia. February, they come back, you
know, towards the end of January. Then early February, in case you
didn't read the herb House piece fromlast week, right before Christmas, there's
gonna be like a camp pre PanAmcamp that's customary right in the beginning of

(01:45:28):
February there and then they're going tohead over to Acapulco, Mexico for the
PanAm Championships, which is February twentyone to twenty four. It's not really
February twenty one to twenty four,it's one or two of those dates if
they're splitting them up, but nevertheless, and then February twenty eight to March
one is the Panama Olympic Qualifier.April nineteen market on your calendars in case

(01:45:56):
you haven't, that's the Olympic Trials. May nine to twelve, Last Chance
World Olympic Games Qualifier in Turkey.That's that tournament. That tournament's gonna be
a tough one. That's going tobe the second toughest tournament of the year
internationally. May twenty six to Junefour, Camp in Croatia. This is

(01:46:18):
tentative, tentative, and it's forOlympic athletes only guys on the Olympic team
June five to nine Ranking Series tournamentin Budapest, which means Hungarian Grand Prix
camp in Budapest from June ten totwenty one. July seven to seventeen,
that is your Olympic team camp atthe Olympic Training Center in Colorado Springs.

(01:46:40):
July twenty two, depart for Paris. July twenty sixth my wife's birthday opening
ceremonies for the Paris Olympic Games.And July twenty seven to August two it's
your Olympic training camp on site.And then August five is when GRECO begins
at the two and twenty four Olympics. So yeah, I mean, we're

(01:47:02):
gonna throw that all out in anarticle format, but you're hearing it first.
Also just published. As I said, this is December twenty seventh when
we are recording here and Athlete ofthe Year stuff has gone out. Athlete
of the Year Impact for LAH,Impact Performer and outstanding individual performance. I

(01:47:27):
will do you the honors of readingthis out to you. Go to the
website first off and vote. Okay, vote and the reason why you should
vote aside from participating in the processis because this is one way we acknowledge

(01:47:49):
the athletes in our country. Correct, this is one way we acknowledge the
athletes. So vote, participate,read about them, please, and to
that end, I will rattle offsome of the information you need because by

(01:48:12):
the time you hear this, you'reprobably only going to have a day or
two to vote, because voting endsDecember thirty. It's a short voting window
this year, all right, SoAthlete of the Year candidates, the eligibility
for this year is pretty easy becausethere was not a U twenty or U
twenty three world medalist, so it'slimited to those seniors who either were on

(01:48:36):
the world team, won the USOpen, or both. Very easy,
and you should know all this already, but if you don't, I will
take a second and read the names. And by the way, the non
Olympic weight classes are included. Sofor instance, Brady Koontz, who is

(01:48:58):
the world team member of fifty fivekilogram last year, and Dalton Duffield who
was a runner up, they're bothsolicia fifty five. We haven't condensed it
to the Olympic weights or something likethat, So fifty five kilograms Brady Coons
and Dalton Duffield sixty kilograms, sayit with me Il Dar haffees Off,
Dalton Roberts sixty three, Xavier Johnson, Hayden Tuma sixty seven, Robert Perez,

(01:49:28):
Alex Sancho, with Alex Sancho havingbeen the world team member seventy two,
Patrick Smith, Justice Scott seventy seven, Camal Bay, Alexander Keikanoff eighty
two, Spencer Woods, Ryan Eppseighty seven, Zach Bronegel, Alan Vera
ninety seven, Joe Row, ChristianDoulaney one thirty, Colton Schultz, Adam

(01:49:51):
Kuhn. And so that's how youget eligible at least scorings of this year's
voting procedures and then based on thefan vote, the top five vote getters
are then given off to the esteemedand prestigious five Point Move voting Committee,

(01:50:12):
who will then select the actual Athleteof the Year. Impact Performer candidates Impact
performers very easy. Impact performer isbased on performance. Right, I used
that word a lot. It seemslike performance. So an athlete had to
have earned gold from at least oneinternational event and placed in a minimum of

(01:50:38):
two and senior events only those areyour qualifying factors, your impact Performer.
Candidates for twenty twenty three are Ildarhalf is Off for PanAm Games Gold and
Grand Prix of Germany Silver, DaltonRoberts PanAm Championships Gold, Military World Bronze,
Justice Scott PanAm Championships Gold, BillMemorial Silver, Camal Bay PanAm Championships

(01:51:02):
Gold, PanAm Games Gold, HungarianGrand Prix Silver, and Courtney Freeman with
Grand Prix of Spain Gold, BillFarrell Memorial Silver. You can vote on
those five guys same date as Athleteof the Year, that's December thirty.
Outstanding Individual Performance, which is Ilove this award personally, I really do

(01:51:29):
qualifying factors. This is subjective.I guess highlighted performance represented a breakthrough,
a milestone achievement for the athlete,or a signature when over a foreign or
domestic opponent was included, or athleteovercame perceived odds or adversity. Athlete had
to have place that set event andsenior events only, and each OIP candidate

(01:51:54):
on the website has a description forwhy they are nominated. So Brady Koontz
is nominated for having made the Worldteam at Final X Nork and it gives
a description of what that three roundseries with Dawton Duffield entailed and why it
was important. Just with regards toKoontz's season and his career at large.

(01:52:20):
Robert Perez he's nominated for winning theNationals US Open. David st'panion is nominated
for having taken fourth at the justwrapped Nationals Slash Olympic Trials qualifier. And
there's a reason for it because d'paniondealt with an injury shortly before the tournament.
He wrestled his fricking heart out andtaking fourth, and he wrestled in

(01:52:45):
an exciting match with Peyton o'mania.He had beaten Pat Smith in that tournament.
It's an incredible, incredible showing,just as Scott US Open. To
give you an example, Justice Scott, what's what's the first sentence here?
Comprehension of the complete context and circumstancesshould not be necessary because the achievement certainly

(01:53:11):
speaks for itself. But here's arefresher for the uninitiated. Although Scott was
a U twenty World team member twoyears ago, the twenty three US Open
was his first senior level tournament.Any one. It's nuts camal Bay seventy
seven kilogram's Army w CAP Hungarian GrandPrix silver. That was a It's a

(01:53:33):
world level tournament, practically. Dannybraun Agle from the US National Olympics O
Lipatros's qualifier took third. How hedid it? Super impressive. Ryan Epps
US World Team Trial Challenge Challenge tournamentfirst place. Guy had the you know,

(01:53:56):
the toughest road available to him,and he came out on top of
He had Tommy Brackett berry Essen proviser. How does I don't even know how
it gets tougher in our country anyway? It doesn't. Courtney Freeman, US
National Olympic Team Trials qualifier third.And by the way, those who are
nominated for OIP it's not because theOlympic Trials qualifier from two weeks ago.

(01:54:17):
It is like fresh on everybody's mind. So that's how they made the cut
to be nominated for this. It'sif you look at the sum of all
parts. These were exemplary performances andthey were big to the athletes in questions.
So I mean that fits the descriptionand I hope everybody looks this sober

(01:54:38):
and votes for whomever they deem tobe worthy. But that's almost half the
point. The other half of thepoint is to just support the athletes by
reading about them, looking them up, watching them. This is just another
avenue to make that happen, allright, social media concerns, Social media

(01:55:00):
concerns. Okay, we're just goingon Instagram, I think, is that
right? Yeah? Even neither ofthese athletes are releasing any other platforms.
And I don't do Snapchat advertisement onhere for some reason. So to follow
rich Carlson, you can do soon Instagram at the Greco Bro. That's
one word, the Greco Bro,which is you know what, that's fantastic.

(01:55:23):
I forgot that he had that.And I follow Spencer Woods pretty easy.
Alaskan Underscore Assassin underscore. I'll sayit again, Alaskan Underscore Assassin underscore.
Dennis Hall. You know what Icould give you Twitter? That was

(01:55:45):
has been a running joke for along time on here. As you know,
it's a waste of time, hahaha. That's at Dennis Hall WGW on
Twitter, World Gold Wrestling on Instagram, World Gold Wrestling and for USA Greken
Roman news and athlete perspectives, pleasego to five point move dot com and

(01:56:09):
follow along on Twitter at five thenumber five PT move. That's it for
episode fifty six. Everybody, thanksfor listening and we will see you soon.

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