5PM67: Navy Wrestling Club's Zac Braunagel

2023 World Team member Zac Braunagel joins the show for a rare two-segment episode. In the first segment, Braunagel discusses the circumstances surrounding his decision to leave Illinois for the Navy WC. He also recounts his title from the Bill Farrell Memorial and then looks ahead to what was then an upcoming trip to Sweden. 
 
In the second segment, Braunagel follows-up on what his experience at the Haparanda Cup was like, as well his time training with Team Norway, and concludes with a snapshot of what his plans might entail come the winter and leading up to World Team selection in April.  

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Episode Transcript

Speaker 1 (00:00):
I'll look for im AF, stop worrying about stupid procedures
and to full up.

Speaker 2 (00:05):
The sporting of balls. Inking self with Craig why we
had it. This podcast the one to call the five
point Move.

Speaker 1 (00:13):
I'm frustrated with the way our Greco guy for United
States are true and because you have good athletes, you
have good human beings, but brown and win. We gotta
help we get that.

Speaker 2 (00:25):
See what I want? People know me from all of
our results where everything comes from Five point Move.

Speaker 1 (00:31):
Hello and welcome to episode sixty seven of the Five
Point Move podcast. I'm Sam Hans, founder and senior editor
from five point move dot com and for this the
sixty seventh episode. As you saw when you either clicked
on or downloaded this episode, one guest and that is
twenty twenty three World Team members Zach Bronagel, a gentleman

(00:55):
with whom pretty much all Greco Roman fans in the
United States should be well familiar. Zach, in addition to
making the twenty twenty three World team and also his
performance that entire spring, when you think about it in retrospect,
just really coming up the college season and everything like
that just really remarkable. But yeah, Zach he was a

(01:19):
junior World Team member in Illinois, wrestled for the University
of Illinois. His career in college just wrapped up. I
guess what you'd say about eight months nine months ago,
and it was an outstanding college career, of course, And
now he's on two different things, right, a little bit different, Okay.
I had and we talk about this in his segment here.

(01:42):
I just figured he'd be an Illinois boy as far
as his career went through its entirety. But over the
summer he received and accepted an opportunity to go down
to the Navy Wrestling Club at the US and Naval Academy, obviously,
and so it's a little bit of a different deal.

(02:04):
And also this episode's a little different, so it's actually
a two parter and one shot here. So the first
segment was recorded just the day before Zach left for
Sweden right at the tip end of November to go
to the Haparanda Cup and train and then he was

(02:25):
going to Oslo after that. So in the first segment,
you're gonna get to hear Zach talk about, you know,
his win in the New York Bill Farrel Memorial earlier
in November. You're gonna hear him talk about the decision
making process and what happened insofar as him going from

(02:45):
Illinois to the Navy Wrestling Club, and then there's a
little bit of a look ahead to Haparanda and what
was coming after that, and then what happened was I
just figured in the interest of keeping things current, we
did another segment just for him to talk about his

(03:07):
experience in Sweden and then subsequently in Oslo. So we
will get to all of this and let you know
what's going on. So let's go to the first segment
with one mister Zach Braunegel. Are you at all up
on this news regarding Zurabi da TUNISHPIELI.

Speaker 2 (03:29):
I am not no what happened?

Speaker 1 (03:32):
Well, so all of his results from twenty twenty one
to twenty three have been extinguished on the heels of
a doping violation. So that means his Olympic bronze, his
world titles, they're gone. Everybody's moving up. That was was

(04:00):
behind him, everyone who's behind him. You didn't hear about this?

Speaker 2 (04:07):
I probably did. I'm not the greatest with names, especially
foreign names, so if I saw a picture of them,
I'd probably recognize it. And I've seen it. What country
does he wrestle for? So that is actually interesting.

Speaker 1 (04:21):
So he used to he's from Georgia, like, okay, it's
from Georgia.

Speaker 2 (04:28):
And in.

Speaker 1 (04:30):
Boy, I don't know, I want to say, nineteen or so,
he defected lack of a better term, to Serbia. He
was having problems with the Georgian Federation. He wasn't getting
along with the federation president and things run a little
bit differently over there, and so he you know, went
over to Serbia, started representing Serbia. His first tournament as

(04:53):
a Serbian national team sort of guy was the Covid Zagreb,
which was like I don't know, I want to say
it was like October a twenty or something like that.
Joe wrestled and it rowded. And then his second tournament
I think was the Individual World Cup, which was like

(05:16):
sort of supposed to replace the World Championships in a
way in twenty twenty. And then he was off to
the races. I mean, he Olympic bronze in Tokyo and
then I don't know whatever, I know.

Speaker 2 (05:34):
What you're talking about now. It's a big guy.

Speaker 1 (05:36):
The details are a little murky. He apparently used a
substitute urine sample and got snagged for that, okay, and
that would have been in twenty three, I suppose, or
around there whatever anyway, and then I didn't see it,
but he apparently made a video and fraudulently time stamped

(06:03):
or something or what like because he missed an out
of competition test. So I guess it was sort of
like he missed the test, but then he, like I guess,
made some video to pretend that he was, you know,
where he was supposed to be on a different date
or I don't know. It was just really strange, but

(06:24):
either way, like that's it. He's all this awesome stuff
is gone. And it's really strange because when he wrestled
for Georgia, he was you know, he won the European
Championships twice. He was fifth in the world. He was,

(06:44):
I mean, he was super top guy sort of guy,
you know what I'm saying, And like, I don't know,
when he went over to Serbia and all of a sudden,
he's I mean, it's not like he came out of nowhere,
but it was like a career resurgence at twenty nine
years old or whatever it was. And so, uh, yeah, anyway,

(07:09):
it's not good.

Speaker 2 (07:09):
Dude, No, it's not. He's good.

Speaker 1 (07:14):
Yeah, he's good. Yeah, skilled good. It's not like Okay,
let me ask you this. I mean, uh, okay, so
you let's say you got hands on him. I mean,
did he feel like other worldly powerful?

Speaker 2 (07:28):
I mean, he's the way above me. So like all
those guys, they feel really strong already, but like he didn't,
Like he definitely looks stronger, but he uh, I mean,
he didn't feel any stronger than like Joe.

Speaker 1 (07:41):
Row Well, he was eighty seven, Zach, he.

Speaker 2 (07:45):
Was eighty seven. Oh, I'm thinking of the ninety seven guy.

Speaker 1 (07:49):
He's y'all you Zach, there's no way you don't know
who this is. There's no plu. You're definitely I'm gonna
text you right now while we're doing this. There's no
way you don't know. I'm telling you, like, it would
be insane if you didn't. You got it.

Speaker 2 (08:09):
Yeah, it's loading right now. Yeah, I did see something
about this, because I recognize I just saw something about it.
But to be honest with you, yeah, I don't know.
I don't know. I feel like I'm kind of ignorant
to some of this stuff. To mix it like like
I don't keep up with it all a whole lot.

(08:30):
You know. I watched some videos and stuff like that
to learn different techniques. Uh, you know, but I don't
really keep up with a whole lot of everybody, like
everyone's placements and everything like that. So yeah, I mean
I've probably trained around him. I probably met him before,

(08:50):
but I didn't know who he was at the time.

Speaker 1 (08:53):
Oh yeah, you've definitely shared I mean, you definitely have
to share space with him on the same matt and
environment at some point when you've a couple of years
ago when you traveled. Well, there's two things. So obviously
those who placed beneath him at these tournaments, they all

(09:15):
move up. So like Ivan Huklik from Croatia, he's now
Olympic bronze medalist. And then there's Kiroln Meskovich from Belarus,
he's now twenty twenty one world champion. Turple dieseltan Off
now becomes twenty twenty two world champion, And you know,
here we go, we play the merry go round game

(09:37):
with that, the reallocation of medals and everybody. Yeah, it's
a lot, man, and it's it just feels like this
is epidemic at this point, you know, like it's like
every other month we're getting this, I mean Robbie.

Speaker 2 (09:54):
Yeah, as say, I just saw Robbie got what an
Olympic bronze.

Speaker 1 (09:58):
Now World bronze two thousand and fifth.

Speaker 2 (10:01):
Okay, world bronze because someone tests a positive from back
in twenty fifteen. I don't even know how any of
that works. I don't know how you can go back
and test from twenty fifteen. I don't understand any of it,
to be honest with you, And I don't, like I said,
I don't keep up with it all too much. It's
a headache for me, you know, paying attention to like

(10:23):
everyone moving up. You know. I'm happy for Robbie, that's awesome,
congrats to him. But yeah, I don't. I don't keep
up with it all too much. I see it and
it's like, like you said, it happened a month ago,
and now there's another one. It's like it's happens pretty
regularly at this point. It, you know, Chris, crazy as
it sounds. So I just stay out of it all.

(10:43):
Just a big like worry about what I can control. Guys,
So you know, if something's happening, it's like you know, okay, cool,
and you know, something else happened. It has nothing to
do with me, nothing to do with where I'm at
right now, and it kind of just like withers away.
I don't really pay attention to it. But it's awesome
for Robbie. I love Robbie. He's awesome, So congrats to him.
That's sick. Why is Robbie's different.

Speaker 1 (11:07):
Well, I don't know how well or not you know
the match, but when he wrestled Mockoff and the bronze
medal match in twenty fifteen, you know, there were points
that he should have been awarded that he was not
in the another time in the match he had Mockoff

(11:29):
appsolutely flatten pinned and that wasn't called. And look at
it was. These things were actually egregious. This wasn't the
kind of thing where, you know, it's different when you're
at whatever tournament, even if a world tournament. I mean,
sometimes calls aren't just going to go your way and

(11:50):
that's just part of life. But these were like legitimately,
like this is bananas, like are you serious? And so
Robbie's I don't look at as though like, well he
got a like some kind of precious gift. It's not
like he got he got TechEd by mockoff. I mean
he first off, it was exciting close match, and secondly,

(12:12):
like there were points that were clearly his and he
and plus he hadn't pinned, and so in my own opinion,
he was practically the bronze medalist anyway. I mean, he
was certainly right there. It's not like, uh, it was
well he needed that guy to test positive. Where is
there are some cases in which athletes have you know,

(12:32):
through metal reallocation, have like jumped up a spot. I'm
not saying that they don't deserve it or something. It's
just it's different when we're talking about a metal match
where one guy destroyed the other and then eventually the
guy who got destroyed gets the metal. You know, that's
different optic, but I don't know it's uh. Stefano Witz

(12:54):
actually ties into this and a little and a little
bit insofar as he had wrestle that Tuner Svili in
Hungary in twenty seventeen, and it was a really awesome
match and he had kind of like high dived with
time running out and which if it were a four pointer,

(13:17):
you know he would have won. But they instead scored
it too, but it was super exciting. And the other
way he ties into it is because well there's two
other ways he had beaten Rajbek b sultan Off I
think in Rome. I want to say two thousand and

(13:38):
eight nineteen one of those. And now be Siltanoff moves
up because of dat Soner Spieli, his little brother Turple.
And then it's also not to keep bringing up Stefano Witz.
But he had the same exact attitude as you did.
He wouldn't know who these people are. Like when he
beat Bi sultan Off, the older one, he had no

(13:59):
idea like that should have like that was a meaningful
win like he had he didn't even know. And I
was like, okay, well that kind of was so nevertheless,
and it's like I remember Zach when you wrestled husaying
Off a couple of years.

Speaker 2 (14:13):
Yeah, I didn't know who he was until after the match.
After the match, people kept coming up to me, You're like, oh, dude,
you wrestled. That was a good match, wrestled good. I'm like,
y I lost, Like what what are you talking about?
And then they told me and it's like it's cool
that you know the guy's really good. At the same time,
like I still feel like I should have or I
could have won that match. You know, I had him

(14:33):
really close to push out two times, I think yeph
and didn't realize on those and so you know, it's
one of those it's like, you know, it's nice to
know that you're you know, close, but at the same time,
you got to convert those points when you have the opportunity.
So yeah, but yeah, I didn't know who he was
when I wrestled him. To me, it's it's almost I

(14:54):
don't I woantn't say useless information, but like what does
that do for me if I do know him? You know,
It's like it's, you know, these guys are pretty good.
But at the same time, like I mean, I don't
even look at my brackets when I go out and wrestle.
I just had my coach tell me when and where
I'm up, you know what color am I, So I
never really know who I'm wrestling when I go out
for a match because to me, like it doesn't matter, like,

(15:16):
you know, there's obviously you know, some guys you got
to prepare for some thing. So like when I wrestled Ysanov,
you know, the only thing my coach told me when
I was, you know, wrestling for coach Medlind He we
worked on some reverse lift defense the week leading up
to the match, and then you know, I get put down,
he obviously goes for the reverse lift. I do a

(15:39):
folk style stand up to get out of it. You know.
So it's like sometimes sometimes it's like good to know
some of that information, but other times, you know, it
can get in my head a little bit of like
I need to worry about my wrestling and my own
match rather than worrying about what the other, like my
opponent's going to do, because my game point doesn't change

(16:01):
a whole lot or Russell very similar in a lot
of my matches. You know, sometimes you have to change
something up and rustle your positions. But uh, yeah, for me,
it's it's almost useless information to know what this guy's
done or who he is, because anybody can be beat
on any day. So uh, that's just kind of how

(16:22):
I look at it. So it doesn't to me, none
of it really matters.

Speaker 1 (16:27):
But if I were to give you, let's say baseline intel, Okay,
let's say I'm with you for some reason, I'm with
you at a tournament We're in Hungary or wherever it is,
and I have brief little scouting reports on you know,
at least three quarters of your bracket, and I say, okay, Zach,

(16:47):
this guy he's arm drag right side, arm drag right side,
arm drag right side, that's go to on the feet
and top quartier. He just he lifts left, lifts left,
lifts left. That's that's what you need.

Speaker 2 (17:02):
The kind of stuff that like I do yet like
like most of the time, like I've been blessed with
great coaches who who do that. So you know, when
I was wrestling for Coach Medline, he would always I mean,
he knows everybody, it seems like so, and he's a
wrestling wizard, you know, he he knows everybody, knows how

(17:23):
to combat a he's really good at game plans. And
now I'm wrestling for Coach j who is very similar
in that aspect. So like whenever I go up and
wrestle somebody, especially if they know him, it's like, hey,
you know, I call it tie right side or maybe
it's like switch a college tie from the right side
to the left side, because he's got a really good

(17:43):
right arm spin or right arm throw, it's like, okay, cool,
you know. Or it's don't dig a deep underhook on
the left side because he's gonna try to armspin you.
It's like, okay, cool, I'll get my underhook, but I'll
keep it shallow. It's stuff like that. Or the guys
can be really like bent over so you can fro
head lock the guy really easy. Okay, cool, fro I

(18:05):
had lock him a bunch, you know. But it's like
all of it like plays into my wrestling. You know.
If he's gonna arm spin me on the right side, okay,
I'll wrestle my position on the left side. Because whenever
I train stuff, I try to train it both ways. Uh.
And I've always been that way, whether it's folk style
a freestyle too. You know, if I got good at
a high crotch on the right side, you know what

(18:25):
happens if the guy's are left late lead, well, then
I get good on a high crotch on the left side.
So stuff like that, And there's obviously little twists and
stuff in there, but it all goes back to the
same principle. You wrestle your match, your style. You know.
I believe anything can work on anybody and so and

(18:49):
then it's a little bit of don't play into his
game when you don't need to, you know, so I try.
I'm a very positional wrestler, so I get to my position,
I feel pretty frequently. And if I can get to
my position and keep this guy from feeling like it's
his position, then I'm winning. So yeah, that's kind of

(19:10):
how we scout of like if he's got you know,
if he's got a good right side dragged, then I'm
gonna go to his uh what it would be, I'll
go to his right wrist, you know, so then he
can't drag with that hand because I have it. So yeah,
it's stuff like that, and it all plays into my
wrestling and I try to train that way as much

(19:31):
as possible. So yeah, that that that would be how
my my scouting reports go. And and those usually come
whenever I start warming up for the match, you know,
so it's not like I'm worrying about it, you know,
the day before. Uh, unless it's like, you know, work
on some reverse lift defense. Okay, you know, I'll work

(19:52):
on that, you know, this week, stuff like that. But
if we're in a tournament, it's like you know, we'll
do situational stuff at practice, and then when I'm getting
ready for the match, it'd be like, okay, go to
the left side, all right, got it. You know, I'm
pretty big on simplifying everything and not worrying about it.
So that's how I've always been.

Speaker 1 (20:13):
You want to keep it simple.

Speaker 2 (20:15):
I mean, the more simple the better, because I mean everybody,
everybody likes to overthink everything, and it's you know, it's
another wrestling match. You go out there and wrestle, You
get to your positions, and you know the better wrestler
is going to win. You know, obviously you don't want
to go and do anything stupid. So that's why we say.
You know, that's why we'd get those little scotting reports.
I don't want to dig a deep right underhook just

(20:37):
you know, to play right into his game because he's
looking for that arm spin. But you know that doesn't
mean I'm not going to get an underhook on that side.
It means I'm going to keep it a little bit
more shallow and move them around with it a little
bit more, and then when it feels like my position,
then I attack it. You know, because you don't want
to get baited into anything. But like I said, those
scouting reports come ten fifteen minutes before the match.

Speaker 1 (21:00):
In an era in which we are surrounded by digital media,
which has its advantages for athletes, I'm I'm sure because
you can, if you'd like, look up YouTube most names.
Most guys get a sense of what they look like,

(21:22):
and there are some who that they do like to
do that for sure. That said, you know what does
that has a phrase goal analysis paralysis? Yeah, I mean
like it's just that there's probably comes a point when
it's too much like.

Speaker 2 (21:43):
Well, yeah, I used to be used to be that guy,
and that's when I stopped. Like I used to know
everybody I wrestled all the time. I used to look
at the brackets and then I get ahead of myself
worrying about matches down the line, or it used to
be so like, worried about all this guy's got a
really good single like that. It almost like I almost
I almost inevitably, inevitably made it happen where I would

(22:05):
be so worried about this guy's lefty single or something
that he would get the lefty single anytime he wanted
because I was trying to stop it. The whole time.
That almost made it happen, you know. Or if you
worry about somebody's you know and greco, if you worry
about somebody's arms spin too much, then it'll hit you
with something else. Like these guys are all good. They

(22:26):
have weapons everywhere, uh, and they can you know, they're
they're here for a reason. So if I try to
block only one thing and I'm worried about his arm
spin the whole time, well, now I'm not looking for
my offense, I'm not looking for my attacks, and I'm
just trying to block off that arm spin that I'm
leaving other things open. So just being aware of it
is good, just so you know, you don't get caught

(22:47):
off guard. But at the same time, you still got
to go out there and wrestle. Yeah, I used to.
I used to be a freak about it, and then
I and then I just I just decided to stop
worrying about it, you know, and then uh, wrestling became
a lot more simple.

Speaker 1 (23:02):
Than Familiarity is also I think runs on both spectrums,
because domestically you get familiar with, you know, a good
brunt of your opposition. Of course, internationally, at least at
senior you haven't yet amassed you know, so many tournaments

(23:24):
to where you're wrestling guys multiple times. But here I
don't know. I think I defer to you. I mean,
you're the subject here. I go two ways on it,
because I, for one, would like to see a lot
more opportunities competitively on our own soil, because we only

(23:46):
have one tournament and that's New York. Okay, at least
with the current selection procedures, there's only one tournament, it's
New York. After that's going to be the trials. It's
not open trials. Uh, you know, challenge tournament and then final. Right,
So it's like, well, we need more stuff here because
we have a younger program. Most of the guys in

(24:09):
our program are fairly young. We're developing, and not everyone
is going to be going overseas. I mean, you're going
to happen, Randa. There's you and two other guys and
they're young. I mean, like, but even still, I want
to see more domestic stuff be just for the simple

(24:31):
fact that we need competition period, even if it's domestic,
we need it. But there's you know you hear well,
guys aren't going to want to have to wrestle each
other that much more. They're already seeing each other at
the open and blah blah blah blah blah and whatever.
And on the flip side to that is, yeah, well

(24:53):
we got to create depth. And when I say depth,
I don't mean quantity, I mean quality. You know, depth
isn't just how many athletes are in a given bracket,
you know what I mean? People say like, oh, this
is a deep now eighty seven kilograms at the Olympic Trials.
That was a deep bracket. Okay, that was an authentically
deep bracket, not just because there was there were a

(25:16):
lot of guys, but because it was like, oh my gosh,
this is a shark tank this bracket. Depth is that.
That's what depth is to me, is how many guys here,
if they come out of this tournament, if they come
out of let's say the World Team Trials or Olympic Trials,
how many of them, if they were to win, would
you honestly look at as a possible contender for a medal.

(25:36):
That's depth. It's not just oh, yeah, this bracket had
twenty four guys in a big deal if it had
twenty four guys in it, But like you can't imagine
or reason for any of them to like have a
shot at a medal, Then that's not depth. That's just quantity,
you know what I'm saying. And I think that we
need to build depth. And I actually I happen to

(25:58):
think that demes we can build depth because especially in
your weight class and a couple of others, it's like, yeah, okay,
maybe maybe you don't want to wrestle or the same
two or three top other eighty seven's on a you know,
bi monthly basis, maybe you don't. At the same time,

(26:19):
the more you guys wrestle each other and the more
you guys gets, you know, augment that with you know,
an appropriate amount of looks overseas, you're all getting better
at the same time. So when we do have a
team selection tournament, now it's everything's neck and neck and
like you can feel more solid about who comes out
of it, you know what I'm saying.

Speaker 2 (26:38):
Yeah, Well, I've always been a big believer in competition,
you know, I mean even in my own household, like
me and Danny, my bunchwin brother, we grew up wrestling
each other all the time. And I attribute that to
to why we got good at wrestling, it's because we
both were competing with each other every day. So you
know the fact, like we do, I do believe that
we need more competition, and I do think we would

(27:00):
get better from that. But if we got you know,
we got camp coming up in January, we can you know,
we can do matches there. We can get competition there.
You know, if we had a couple more tournaments internationally,
we ended up getting some you know, even if it's
just countries on this side of the this side of
the world, whether whether it's Cuba or you know, whoever
come to these tournaments. I mean, I'd be all for that.

(27:22):
That's great, But personally, I I just I don't really
worry about it. I just got like I said, I'm
gonna control what you can control. Guys, I don't control
any of that. So if I got to go over
to Europe for a tournament to get some you know,
different different looks and more experience than then, you know,
I'm gonna I'm gonna try to do that. So it
would definitely be cool to see some tournaments over on

(27:42):
the you know, over here in the States, uh, and
get some more countries to come to it, you know,
I don't think there was too many foreigners at Bill
Ferrell a couple of weeks ago. But you know, yeah,
like I said, I don't control that. So the only
thing I control is, you know, me going out there
wrestling my style and and how I get ready for

(28:03):
a match. So yeah, that's all I try to worry about.
So it would be it would be cool. It would
definitely be cool to get some more tournaments over here.

Speaker 1 (28:14):
Uh yeah, I think we need it. I totally do.
But we'll see. Uh So let's uh, let's hit up
the Navy Wrestling Club here. What sparked your departure from
Illinois where I mean, I I don't know. I just

(28:35):
as soon as figured you would be there until you
were I don't know, ninety five years old or something.
I figured you'd stay there all the time. I figured
you'd have your whole career in Illinois, and then you
probably go into coaching in Illinois or that's I don't know,
maybe that's just how we think in this sport. So

(28:57):
now you're in Annapolis. Ho had this all happen?

Speaker 2 (28:59):
I thought I was gonna stay Illinois too. For a
long time. I never really entertained leaving. I never really
had to. I was close to home, my brothers were there,
you know, kind of built a family there, so you know,
it was all good. And then we hadn't really talked
too much about what it looked like after college because

(29:22):
they wanted me to focus on the college season, and
you know, I don't really want to get into too
much of that. It's kind of like, I don't know,
I feel like this a little personal stuff, but it's
gonna started from there. We didn't really talk too much
about it while I was in season. So then season
ended last year after Nationals, and I grew up with
Josh Koderhunt, the All American last year for the Naval Academy.

(29:46):
I think he got fifth or sixth last year, not
one hundred percent sure. But I've known his family forever.
We were kids club teammates who grew up together. His
dad was one of my wrestling coaches alongside my dad
with coaching Josh, you know, so I've known Carder Hunts forever.
So I was hanging out with them after the national

(30:08):
tournament and we were just talking, you know, congratulations, congratulating
his family, congratulating him, and then we were kind of
just catching up hanging out one of our other old
teammates and Josh is really good my good friend too.
We were all there and then Coach Carrie Colat came
up and started talking to us, and then we kind

(30:28):
of just started talking about future plans. And at that time,
since I didn't know what was going on, I just
kind of opened the door of like he asked what
my plans were, was like, I don't really have any
right now. I'm kind of open. He asked if I'd
be interested in the Naval Academy, and at first that
was kind of I really wasn't that interested, but at

(30:52):
the same time I wanted to open it up. You know,
we have some options on the table if I needed them.
So we talked about it. You know, Coach Carrey, he's
a he's a very straightforward guy, like what you see
is what you get. You'll know where you stand with him.
Uh and he he won't really beat around the bush
on anything. So uh, we we talked. He was pretty

(31:14):
direct about it. Within like a week or two, he
sent me like the information on what it would look
like and it all sounded pretty good. And then he
asked me when can he he get me out there?
For like a visit to to go check the place out.
And I told him I wanted to wait till after
the Worlton Trials in Vegas and then and then I'll

(31:36):
figure this out. You know. I didn't want to switch
my training place immediately because I was training for the
Worlton Trials at that time. So uh uh, this is
probably a week or two after College Nationals, and so
we kept talking a little bit. He we we kept
up to date, We kept up with each other, and
I went out to check the place out I think

(31:58):
a week after uh the World Team Trials in Vegas,
and I loved it. It was awesome everybody out there.
I I messed with the coaches really well, and you know,
it all went great, you know, about as good as
a physic could go to check a place out, you know.
So it was cool. Uh. I enjoyed it. I had.

(32:20):
I knew I was gonna get a good coach, a
good partner. I got a good couple of partners that
I can train with through the RTC. So it all
felt good. And then just kind of thinking about it
and where I wanted to be. It was one of
those like do I wanna do I want to stay here,
and you know, kind of I don't know if be

(32:43):
safe is the right word, and you know, continue to
do what I've always done or do I kind of
want to branch out a little bit, see what else
is out there. You know, maybe it'll go great for me.
There's always a chance it goes bad. Who knows, but
I think it's going great for me now. But it
was more of like I kind of wanted to branch out,
expand my horizons a little bit. You know, I've never

(33:06):
done anything for myself, like by myself, if that makes sense.
I'm a twin so everything I've done, you know, I
went everything I've done was with my twin brothers, so
you know, I went to college with them, and then
my little brother followed us there. It was still pretty
close to home, so I kind of had that safety
net there. But yeah, moving out here, I wanted to

(33:28):
kind of expand that. And I don't grow a little
bit more, not even just in wrestling, but just in life.
I wanted to figure some stuff out for myself. I
wanted to, you know, see different opportunities, see what life
is like somewhere else. And it all kind of just
worked out so I think that was kind of big
parts of it. You know, it wasn't like a bad

(33:51):
thing between me and Illinois or anything like, Oh I
needed to get out of there. I love those guys,
I love the team, I love the atmosphere. I loved
everything about it. But you know, I had been praying
to God for a long time about not I didn't
like I wanted to change. I didn't know what that
looked like. But I felt pretty stagnant in where I

(34:12):
was and what I was doing. You know, I loved
everybody there. It was great, it felt like home, but yeah,
I just kind of wanted to change. I didn't know
what that looked like. And then you know, a door opened,
and you know, I didn't I didn't want to let
a good opportunity like this kind of pass without at
least trying it first. So talk to a lot of

(34:33):
people about it, prayed about it, ended up making a
decision to come out here. And it's been nothing but
a blessing since I've been here. Everybody welcomed me really quick.
I get along with the coaching staff at the Naval
Academy very well. We're all pretty good friends. You know.
We just had a couple of friends givings together at

(34:53):
different houses, you know it. I was actually just talking
to one of the guys yesterday about it. When we
were coming back from a friends giving. I went over
to Quinn's friends giving or Quinn's family Thanksgiving, because he
lives pretty close. It's only like two hour drive, and

(35:13):
me and Ben went up there for it because we
didn't we just stayed here for Thanksgiving. And we were
talking about how like it was almost like a like
a like a very easy transition. There was no like,
I don't know, grace period, there's no adjustment period. You know.
I moved out here and everything clicked quick. So I

(35:37):
feel like that's a one of those things to sign like,
you know, like I made the right choice, not like
not in a way of I needed to get out
of Illinois, but in a way of there there's other
things out there, and as a person, I'm gonna grow
from this and finding something new, changing a lot of change.

(35:58):
And yeah, I feel like I made a good choice
for myself. And you know, like I said, I love
it out here. So everything's going good so far. So
I guess that's the story behind it.

Speaker 1 (36:14):
Oh no, Well, the only question I have is when
this was announced, I guess in the summer.

Speaker 2 (36:22):
Mm hmm.

Speaker 1 (36:24):
Now my understanding was like that you have a coaching
role with the wrestling club, right.

Speaker 2 (36:32):
With the Navy Wrestling Club. Yeah, I'm an athlete coach.

Speaker 1 (36:38):
Like a player coach.

Speaker 2 (36:41):
Yeah kind of. We we have, like the Navy Wrestling Club,
we do like club practices out of season, and so
i'd be I'd be a coach for that. I run
a couple of those practices for the wrestling club.

Speaker 1 (36:56):
So how does it work?

Speaker 2 (36:58):
Like?

Speaker 1 (36:59):
Okay, but it has a work. Let's say now in
season for the NCAA team, Like do you have like
do you have separate practices or do you practice with
the midshipment.

Speaker 2 (37:13):
I have my own like separate practices. So as an
artc athlete, I can't be in on there.

Speaker 1 (37:19):
Oh gosh, that's right, Like these stepical rules are so
ridiculous with college Ye, my gosh, what choke.

Speaker 2 (37:28):
So I have my separate practices where I go in
and I practice with Peyton Walsh he's in the wrestling
club as well, and then coach Jay goes in there
and he he'll coach us and put us through a
bunch of workouts. And then a lot of it I
kind of do I can do. I have the freedom
and do a lot of stuff on my own, So
I go in there and I get lifts in on
my own, or whether it's like conditioning, go in there

(37:50):
and do some conditioning on my own and stuff like that.
So that's kind of my role. I help out with
the coaching staff a little bit. I do like some
media stuff for them. I help them there. But other
than that, Uh yeah.

Speaker 1 (38:07):
Do you live directly on campus?

Speaker 2 (38:10):
No, they're only the mids live on campus. I live.
I live about ten minutes away. All right.

Speaker 1 (38:16):
I'm very curious about this question. So do you you
don't have to I've heard a lot about the Naval Academy.
I'm not saying all of it's true, but I know
it's certainly for the what are they called there? If
you go to school there, cadets? What are they called?

Speaker 2 (38:37):
They're just mids Freshmen are called plea freshmen or please
like the general name from are just mids for midshipmen.

Speaker 1 (38:45):
Okay, so you, since you're not in the navy pipeline,
you don't have to abide by the stuff the students do.
Do you, as in I don't know, like who you
don't have to report to a you know, commanding officer,
You don't have to be at this place by this
time a wrestling correct.

Speaker 2 (39:08):
Yeah, I'm just there to wrestle. I don't I don't
have to focus on Yeah that that's that's all them,
you know. They they they have their own companies and
they got to report and do a bunch of stuff
for the through their companies at the academy. But honestly,
a lot of them, like because they're they're on the

(39:28):
wrestling team, their companies are doing stuff all the time.
But since they're on the wrestling team and they have
other obligations, they get out of a lot of that
so they can go to practice and do the workouts
they need to do, uh and stuff like that. So uh,
it's not as it's obviously a military academy, but they
have a lot of freedoms to to train and get

(39:49):
their workouts in. Like they don't miss out on any
training because because of the military I thought it would be.
I thought I thought it would be very different, as
in they they train at different times or we won't
get some of the guys in there because they have
to go you know, go to formation. Yeah, yeah, they
have other obligations, but uh, the academy is very good

(40:13):
allowing the mids to do what they need to do
for their sport and then go do their military stuff
when they have time like afterward. So it's a it's
actually a really nice setup for them.

Speaker 1 (40:27):
How's Walsh doing?

Speaker 2 (40:28):
That's he's awesome. That's my guy.

Speaker 1 (40:33):
Very Is he in very good like condition as a partner.

Speaker 2 (40:38):
Yeah, yeah, he has to be. It has to be.
He's worked on it too. He's awesome. He's a very
selfless guy. Whatever I need, even if he's beat up,
he'll he'll do it. Yeah. He helps me out. He
helps me out a lot, So yeah, he's good. Evening.
He got into a little bit better shape when I
got out here because I'm a like, I'm a conditioned wrestler,

(40:59):
So he worked on his shape a little bit to
to give me a better feel, which is awesome.

Speaker 1 (41:03):
What's he walking around at.

Speaker 2 (41:06):
Uh, he's probably one.

Speaker 1 (41:09):
Okay, Yeah, I mean I was.

Speaker 2 (41:13):
I was what I think, barely over two d two
hundred to day, so we're right about the same weight.
So he's a great partner for me.

Speaker 1 (41:22):
Let me tell you. I mean obviously you get to,
you know, wrestle with him on a daily basis a
ubiquitous amount. If anything, people really should go back and
just like do a quick snapshot of Peyton Walsh's career
because people, I think don't understand how hard our sport is.
That's number one. And if you look at what Walsh

(41:46):
did now. Granted at the time he certainly had in
my opinion, I put I have Medlin at number one
now as the best coach in the country. But even
Brian and I thought that Luktas was the best coach
in the country when Luketas was running the All Marine team.

(42:07):
And it's like even still doesn't matter. Walsh, within a
not even a full quad went from having no meaningful,
discernible Greco Roman experience of which to speak to being
in the Olympic trial finals and it took an egregious

(42:27):
error to keep him off of well we'll call it
the Olympic team. Even if you know that weight wasn't qualified,
you know, like it's remarkable within his like for I
think in twenty eighteen he made his first US Open final.
Was that I'm not that might have been this first
full year for all if I remember seventeen eighteen, Like

(42:49):
it's crazy, especially considering the weight class he did it in.
He did it at seventy five, seventy seven, seventy seven
kilos man, like within like three year span or and
some change at most, Like it's it's unbelievable what he did.

Speaker 2 (43:06):
Yeah, I mean that. I mean that just goes to
like to kind of talk about him and how he is.
He's a worker. He is, He's awesome. Man. I can't
say enough good things about it. I mean, he's a worker.
He he's really like dedicated to it, to getting me better,
to getting himself better. He mean, he trains every day
with me, so you know he's still got it. He

(43:28):
beats me up sometimes. So yeah, he's really good and
he just he just loves wrestling. He just goes out
like when we train. I love training with him because
a lot of Greco guys they try to just block
off and whole position and don't not do anything. He's
one of those guys where he'll just go at you
and he'll try to he'll throw you know, he'll throw
the kitchen sink at you, and if he gets scored on,

(43:49):
it doesn't matter, he'll get pop back up and he'll
try to score again. So yeah, he's he's a really
good partner partner for me, and I think we trained
really well together. But yeah, he he's an amazing wrestling
He's really good.

Speaker 1 (44:02):
Just tremendous, just tremendously like gifted, I thought.

Speaker 2 (44:06):
I mean, I.

Speaker 1 (44:06):
Mean he did stuff, Zach, like I told you. I
think the last time I talked to you right before
New York and I was telling you on the phone.
I think I have the video clip on my Google
drive somewhere when he's wrestling was a Kemi Jasavich from
Uh Croatia and he does a stand up and he
did it so beautifully and he was like I mean

(44:27):
he had to dig at the hands and all this stuff.
But that was his first international event ever. It might
have been his first like Greco tor like relevant Greco
tournament ever if I'm not mistaken. I mean it was
one or the other, doesn't matter. And then like how
quickly like he just I mean, he became formidable. It
was just something. It was just something else. And he's

(44:48):
only what like thirty three.

Speaker 2 (44:49):
Right, uh, thirty two or thirty three? Yeah, yeah, he's
still a young guy. We got we got out a
window here. Yeah, I mean, can we kind of joke
about him coming back and do getting back into Greco,
you know, dusting off the shoes, you know, I don't.
I don't know if he's gonna do it or not.
He just had a newborn, uh in August, I believe. Okay,

(45:12):
so it's not gonna happen for a little bit. But
he talked to him a little bit about it. Yeah,
I've talked to him a little bit about it. Whatever
it is, I'm happy he's in my corner because he
is good and he's an awesome person. Yeah.

Speaker 1 (45:26):
He is a solid guy, slid guy, and tremendous wrestler.
I mean absolutely, Uh, Zach, I loved watching your matches
from New York.

Speaker 2 (45:37):
Uh.

Speaker 1 (45:37):
You know, it was really nice to I thought that
tournament overall was actually pretty darn entertaining and totality. But
you know, you, you know, put up a lot of
points in that tournament, Zach. You kind of imagine these
things you project when you're someone on the outside like me,
Like when I'm watching someone like you. You know, I'm

(45:58):
not in your head, so I don't exactly know, but
seemed like you missed it that you were like kind
of really hungry, and I know the way you wrestle,
so it's not like you have different speeds. But at
the same time, I don't know. And you had some
willing dance partners too, you know, which was nice. How
did you assess your gold medal performance there in New York?

Speaker 2 (46:22):
It felt good. I felt like I could have opened
up a little bit more with some of the guys.
But at the same time, what I was doing was working,
you know, and if it's not broke, don't fix it.
So I was getting a lot of push outs. I
was pulling guys and for I had lack a bunch
and that goes into like, you know, wrestling my positions.

(46:42):
So you know, it all felt pretty good. I felt
like I wrestled well. I felt like I could have
done better in some places of maybe I gave up position.
One of the guys that wrestled he armed dragged me
a couple of times. You know, I did a good
job of wrestling out of it. But you know, I
need to I need to keep my elbows in not
give up those arm drags. Initially, I need to score

(47:02):
them on top. We've been focusing a lot on top
out of here, and I kind of fell into the
trap of kind of just catching my breath and letting
them back up, whether you know, and just scoring again
on my feet. But I need to I need to
capitalize from the top position more because I know i'll

(47:23):
need that down the line in these tougher matches. I'll
need to get a score, whether it's late or whether
I get the guy put down, I'll need to get
those scores because those come up huge later, So I
need to work on that. I didn't go down at
all at the tournament, so I don't have anything to
say on I mean, we do a par er a
bunch here, so I've been working on that quite a
bit now. I mean I feel overall it was a

(47:44):
good tournament, very minimal mistakes, very positional wrestling, getting to
my scores. Like you said, I was putting up points,
so I don't really look at I don't like holding
leads because as soon as you hold leads, it's like
you flip that switch off. And then as soon as
you flip that switch off, it's almost impossible to turn
it back on in the middle of a match. So
I try I try to keep the you know, keep

(48:06):
the points going. If I can get a point score,
then I'm gonna do it, and so that that's kind
of my game plan. So yes, I did. I did
put up a lot of points just because you know,
like I said, I don't like holding the leads. So
my mindset's more of just, uh, next score the next point.
It doesn't matter if it's seven oh, or you know,
if I'm up seven to zero or I'm down seven

(48:26):
to zero. It's always just score the next point. So
I felt like I did good with that throughout the tournament,
of just getting the next point, getting the next point,
whether it's a push out, whether it's a takedown, whatever
it is. I felt like I did a good job
at making guys wrestle through every position. I feel like
a few guys thought they may have may have had
me on like a we got into a weird scramble,
but then you know, you kind of you come, you

(48:47):
come out of the scramble, you keep wrestling through it,
and you know, I ended up on top. I think
that comes from, you know, years of folks style wrestling,
a lot of scrambling, so you know, it all felt good.
There's definitely areas I need to need to sharpen up
need to do better with but I was happy with it.
It was it was cool. It was it was cool

(49:09):
to go there and get a goal.

Speaker 1 (49:11):
How long ago did you decide to go to Haparanda?
Was that like before New York?

Speaker 2 (49:19):
Yeah, that was before New York. I think one of
my first my first week out here, I was talking
with coach Jay and he loves that trip and I
think he met his wife on one of these trips
years ago, and so he was kind of happy to

(49:40):
have someone out here so he can go on that
trip again and go through the tours and stuff like that.
I've never been to this tournament. I've heard about it
a couple of times, but then Jay brought it up
and I was like, yeah, let's do it. So there
wasn't really too much of a talk about it. He
was like, you want to go to this? I was like, yeah,
let's do it, and we set it up. So that
was probably my first we got here.

Speaker 1 (50:01):
Well, uh yeah, well this weekend, I mean we're recording
right now. It's November twenty eight, so this coming weekend
and this is how it. I mean, it used to
be opposite. It would be Havisto Cup I mean'd be
Haparanda first and then Havisto's second to close out the year.

(50:22):
But it's a you know, they don't know whatever, it
doesn't matter. But nevertheless, these are always so typically anyway,
the last two tournaments of the year, last two like
opened international tournaments. Haparanda's has is usually better like as
far as uh population, whereas Havisto tends to be smaller

(50:44):
depending and Havisto is this weekend, and I, okay, you
know what, I'm not going to do it. I mean
because I I'm I'm gonna for five point move purposes.
I guess I'll this will come out next week. I'm
not going to do it to you now, though, I'll
have you at all looked at the entries for eighty
seven kilos at Haparanda.

Speaker 2 (51:06):
Nope, Okay, well then I'll just.

Speaker 1 (51:10):
Yeah, I know, yeah, I get it.

Speaker 2 (51:12):
I don't look at any of it. And I've talked
to the coaches.

Speaker 1 (51:15):
You are a giant scoop of vanilla ice cream, is
what you are, zach Ronicel.

Speaker 2 (51:22):
I don't know. I feel like I'm one of those
guys too, like what you see is what you get.
I'm gonna, I mean, I'm a pretty open book. But
uh yeah, I mean I gotn't. I don't. I don't
read too much into it. I've talked to the coaches
and like they had to learn how to coach me,
and I had to learn how to wrestle for them.
Like like any.

Speaker 1 (51:40):
Nobody ever says stuff like that. Nobody ever says stuff, wow,
that's a great me. Well, nobody ever says that you
have to learn how to be coached from someone. You know,
people just talk about being coached by somebody.

Speaker 2 (51:54):
Well, no, I mean there's there's obviously a learning period
through it. Like me, me and coach Antonelli we sat
down and you know, and and it's happened a couple
of times through practices and leading up to the Bill
Ferrell of like, you know, how do you want your
warm up to be? What do you like to know
before you wrestle? What do you like to eat before

(52:14):
you wrestle? How early do you want to get up
before your match? Like all that comes from obviously, like
communication from you and your coach, but also it comes
from like just time, you know, learning how you like
to be a good coach. You got to learn what
your your wrestler needs, and to be a good wrestler,
you got to learn how to work with your coach

(52:35):
and you got to communicate your needs to your coach.
So yeah, we've talked about it quite a bit, so
we knew kind of where we stand because he didn't
want to do something that I didn't need or and
I didn't want to like get mad at him because
he didn't know about something, you know, So like when
I first got out here, we communicated a lot about
about that kind of stuff of what do you need

(52:57):
as an athlete? What are you looking for? And that
even goes into like, uh like practice, like setting up practices,
practice structure, you know, whether we do drilling for a
little bit, live goes and conditioning, you know, because I'm
a big condition wrestler, so I need to do a
lot of conditioning stuff. And I don't know if that
was new to him or not, but I brought it

(53:18):
up because I don't want that to change. But I
also want to learn a lot from you too, So
then it was I need condition conditioning after you know,
a lot of my workouts as well. And then he
and then he, you know, thought up a couple of
drills and and and they're great. They suck, but they work.
But yeah, stuff like that, Like I got to learn
how to wrestle for coach Antonella, and you know, and

(53:39):
he was very open ears, you know, to learn how
to coach me as well. I think that's just like
a communication, but also just like knowledge of the sport. No.

Speaker 1 (53:51):
I found it interesting just to hear you say that
nobody talks about it that way. It's obviously true. It's
just nobody talks about it that way. Let me ask
you this, is it just is it just you for
Navy Greco or do you have anybody else?

Speaker 2 (54:07):
It's just me. I'm the only I'm the only athlete
in the Navy Wrestling Club that's still competing. We have
a couple of athletes here the train, but yeah, right
now I'm the only one competing. We're trying to I've
talked to them. We're trying to get some guys out
of here. That'd be really cool. But we'll see see
how that works out.

Speaker 1 (54:27):
Okay, Well, I guess we'll close out with this. Is
you have this trip, which will I guess take you
till I don't know what's today? Sday twenty eight, Tomorrow's
twenty nine, So what like December eighth or ninth.

Speaker 2 (54:41):
I guess I'll be I'll be back.

Speaker 1 (54:45):
Oh that's right, because you're going to Oslo afterwards.

Speaker 2 (54:47):
Yeah, I'll be back in the States December eleventh, so
the day the morning after the Operona Cup, I'm flying
over to Oslow. I don't know if I'm flying taking
a train. I really don't know, actually, but I'll be
over there for probably like four days training with XO.

Speaker 1 (55:09):
Last thing I have for you is are you going
to do anything else competitively anyway? Unfortunately, and obviously this
means travel, but are you going over back over to
Europe at all? Before the trials?

Speaker 2 (55:24):
I just I think it kind of. It came up
a couple of days ago. I talked to coach Peyton
and coach Jay about possibly going to Croatia. I know
my brother's going over there. I think he's doing freestyle though,
but he brought it up when we were at the fair.
I think when we're no, actually, I think is my

(55:44):
brother's well, now fiance brought it up because she's going
over there with him. And then I didn't know about
the tournament. I hadn't even thought about it, and we
brought it up and we're we're looking into it. I
want to wrestle over in Croatia for the ranking series,

(56:05):
then we're gonna look into it and see. I don't
think I'll be able to stay over there for the camp,
but if I can get over there and at least
go to the tournament, that would be pretty sweet.

Speaker 1 (56:18):
Okay, that was segment one. Now we're moving to segment two,
and for context, just so we're all on the same page,
Zach went one in two at the Haperanda Cuff, which
was held on December sixth. He won his first round
about against Jasper Harkanden from Finland. I mean that was
he just steamrolled him. It was eight nothing, but it
wasn't even it was a brutal eight nothing because Zach

(56:40):
just wore him out and just it's like death by
a thousand cuts sort of thing. Second round match was
a loss to Lucas Algren from Sweden six to one.
For anybody who reads five point movies should really kind
of be familiar with Algrin because he's written about kind of,
you know, semi consistently, and he's been around for a
hot minute. Here it was a lot closer than six

(57:02):
to one. Not that six to one is a blowout,
but it was really there were caution points in a
weird sequence in the second period, and then Zach lost
his third match of the day. He lost to andre
A ton is Off from Bulgaria five to five criteria, obviously,
and Zach talks about all this, and then it's more
about what's coming up next as far as his plans

(57:26):
leading up through the winter and so forth. So let's
jump to segment two here, all right, Zach, So the
tournament was I guess a week ago, I want to
say one week ago. So we're following up because we
talked the day before you were leaving for Sweden, and

(57:47):
now you've been back from that trip for a couple
of days, and I figured it was a good idea
to sort of do a little PostScript post segment on it.
So the tournament, it's the training itself, the training in between,
the training before the tournament. Was it at in Haparanda,
the same location as the event itself?

Speaker 2 (58:07):
Yeah, yeah, it was the same location as the tournament. Was.

Speaker 1 (58:12):
Okay, Well, it's what been a couple of years since
you've been overseas for a training camp. How did how
did this one feel for you?

Speaker 2 (58:21):
It was good. There was the Bulgarian team was there,
the Swedish team was there. Finland brought a couple of guys,
and then there was a couple other Like there was
a couple other countries there just with a couple of
guys for the training camp at least, and then for
the tournament there was there was quite a bit more

(58:43):
like different countries that showed up. So it was cool.
Training was good. You got to work with some good
guys whole week, so uh yeah, it was nice. You know,
it was lighter because we had the tournament that weekend,
Lighter than I'm used to, but it was definitely good.
Learned a lot, figured out some positional stuff, figured out

(59:05):
what I was doing wrong, improved on a couple areas.
So it was good.

Speaker 1 (59:12):
Before the tournament, before you left, when we were talking,
I'm like, did you look at the entry list? Did
you see anything? And you were like, no, you know,
I don't care, I don't look at that and that
whole thing. Oh I was saying it because obviously you
had an Olympic champion. Yeah, in the bracket you had
one of the guys who I previewed in your bracket.

(59:33):
You out wound up wrestling which was Aldrin in the camp.
Did you get to touch Novakov at all?

Speaker 2 (59:43):
N Bulgaria didn't do a whole lot of the training
with us because they had did the tournament in Finland
the week before, so they didn't do like that. I
think they went to one or two practices with us,
and then they kind of did a lot of their
I wouldn't say their own training. They kind of just
their own thing with They would go in and play
like games of basketball, a lot of just kind of

(01:00:04):
weight management and uh, you know, they they didn't they didn't.
They kind of they kind of chilled a little bit
with it because they did a tournament the week before,
so they didn't want to overtrain before this tournament as well.
So uh didn't get to train with him because he
went with Cassidie believe is his last name, yep, who

(01:00:29):
was there, and then cass This didn't wrestle. He's I
think he sprained his ankle at camp, so he ended
up not wrestling in the tournament. But No, I trained
with Algrin a little bit through the camp, and then
a couple other guys that were there just working on stuff.
So it was good. It was good.

Speaker 1 (01:00:52):
What did you think of the tournament? I know that, uh,
you know, the results wise, I guess that probably didn't
go exactly how you on it. But at the same time,
you got three matches in. Uh so what's your give
me your assessment here?

Speaker 2 (01:01:10):
Uh, I didn't do as good as I wanted, but
you know, I don't think it's anything to like hang
hang my head on. I won my first match Agins Finland.

Speaker 1 (01:01:18):
You really wore that dude out pretty hardcore.

Speaker 2 (01:01:21):
And then my next match was Algrin And throughout the camp,
he he just does a couple of things that was
that was getting to me and we were working on
it and stuff. I had him show me like what
I was doing wrong in this position, like why he
was getting to it so easily, and I made those
adjustments for the match. So the match went better than

(01:01:41):
it did during camp because I was kind of putting,
you know, a couple of things together. It was like
one weird situation in the match. I got put down
second period. Yeah, he went to lift me and I
turned in and went double overs and I tried to
throw him and he and he hooked my leg. So
then I had Coach Antonelli throw the brick to challenge it,

(01:02:05):
and when they came back from the challenge, they gave
Algrin a like foul points. So we asked him afterward
and they said he did leg foul me. He hooked
my leg when I went to throw him, but before
I went to throw them, I like fouled him, and
I me and coach talked about it, like, we don't

(01:02:27):
really know how I like fouled them. Uh, we we
haven't been able to watch the match, but the way
they said leg foul them, I'm not saying it didn't happen.
I mean it probably happened, but I just don't understand
how or how are aware I would have liked filed
him in that situation. So we were a little bit

(01:02:48):
confused by that kind of kind of put the match away.
So you know, it just you need to work on
the part care a little bit more and shouldn't have
been lifted. Kind of a weird I wan't a weird situation,

(01:03:08):
but I tried to jump my way forward and as
I did that, he popped up at the same time,
so I kind of just floated up a little bit.
So I turned in just tried to wrestle through it.
I need to I need to get heavier on the lock,
and you know, I didn't make those adjustments. But yeah,
so that match got away from me. And then my

(01:03:29):
next match against one of the Bulgarian guys. He uh,
I was up five two, I believe, and yeah, I
ended up being put down. I thought I was gonna
get him put down on a gig cause I was
kind of pushing him around the mac pretty good. But yeah,
they ended up pushing pushing me down. Then I relaxed
on bottom and got gutted. So he kind of played

(01:03:52):
possible with me a little bit. Ref was going to
blow the whistle and then he crashed gut it and
got it, and then I was it was five five
and I need to capitalize on when I have guys
in the zone. I had him in the zone quite
a bit and didn't capitalize on those points. So yeah,
I mean, not not the results I wanted, but definitely

(01:04:15):
there's there's there were some improvements from previously wrestling and
uh in situations that that that I was getting to there,
So you know, there was some upside to the tournament.
I wish I would have came out, you know, with
a better result, but you know, we continue to work.

Speaker 1 (01:04:36):
Yeah. Well the match with Algrin, Well, first off, i'll
give you if if you should so desire. I got
the I have the log a log in to watch
the tournament stream the tournament because it wasn't you know,
for free on YouTube or something like that. So yeah,
I can just give you my log in information and

(01:04:56):
you can pull up the stream. Uh that makes because
on the stream it's a little bit difficult. It was
a little bit difficult the match with Augrin because you know,
it's a matt side camera and they do it on
an angle. It's not like straight up. And I could

(01:05:18):
not quite tell. Uh, I couldn't quite tell when the
action was stopped, and then the challenge came in. I
couldn't really tell what the you know, schism was about.
I mean because both of used gestured like Augrin gesture too,
like hey, like he he pointed briefly if I remember anyway,

(01:05:40):
like he pointed like that he was fouled. And then
you challenged, and I thought you were challenging. See I
thought at the time that you were challenging the being
called for a leg does that make sense, Like I

(01:06:02):
thought that was the original and I didn't even get
that put together. Honestly, it's tough with the string and
the resolution on it wasn't fantastic. That's not the point anyway.
I don't know. I liked your matches a lot, be
honest with you, like as far as the stuff I
would want to see out of you there, Like I

(01:06:26):
don't know, I'm not trying to listen. It's easy for
me to say, Zach because it's your pornament, you know
what I mean. But like you know, it's also it's
not a minimization thing, but it's like practice, you know,
and it's like you want to make sure guys look good,
you know, Like I don't know, I thought you looked

(01:06:48):
pretty good. I don't know, I thought it was solid,
so whatever.

Speaker 2 (01:06:55):
Yeah, yeah, I thought I wrestled okay. But then you know,
I still think I could have done better. Should have
want that that third match would have put me in
one of the metal matches and then would have wrestled
another Bulgarian guy, And uh yeah, I mean that's just
kind of kind of how it goes. So uh definitely

(01:07:17):
got to improve. But you know, like I said, we
continue to work.

Speaker 1 (01:07:22):
It's really impressed. I know he had a couple of
young opponents and stuff like that, but Hayes wrinkles. Dude
at who went sixty closer?

Speaker 2 (01:07:31):
Uh Yeah, Chase wrestled really good. He was he was solid,
he was scoring a lot of points. He was good
on part taer. He wrestled through all the positions like
no one really kind of no one really. I think
one match was pretty close against a tough guy I
think from Bulgaria. But yeah, first everyone else, Yeah, everyone else,
they didn't really have you know, they weren't really in

(01:07:52):
the match with them. They were. Yeah, he wrestled really well.
So he'll he'll be exciting to watch getting into the
grecos scene in the US. He'll he'll be he's gonna
be tough.

Speaker 1 (01:08:04):
Yeah, one hundred percent. Uh So, look after the tournament,
you were supposed to go to Oslo and work with
mccouba over there. Yep, that exactly what transpired.

Speaker 2 (01:08:18):
I went over the train for a couple of days,
I think four days. I was there, a couple of
prizes a day. Mccoubu didn't wrestle much. He's currently battling
like a small injury so I wrestled with his training partners,
and then I wrestled with Felix a one day. He
was there. Norway's ninety seven. I believe he's bumping up

(01:08:40):
the heavyweight now. And then uh Guchu I think is
his last name from Moldova. There're seventy seven. Yeah, yeah,
he was there, so I wrestled him a little bit too.
He's a strong little guy. He's tough, and you could
tell that guy just joy's wrestling, we're going there. Like

(01:09:02):
when I wrestled with him, we didn't like we would
we would drill and stuff and the drilling would just
turn into like sparring. And he was having so much
he was he was having a lot of fun, just
kind of you're messing around working under positions. But it
was good to train with. It was definitely like a
different kind of training with him. So he was That

(01:09:22):
was cool, That was good. I liked it. But yeah,
I got I got some good work in there. Figured
out a couple positions, Learned a couple of new things
positionally that I that I need to fix and that
I was doing. Learn a couple of things from uh
top and Part twer my part tire defense got a

(01:09:44):
lot better because my rib was a little messed up
during camp, so that kind of forces you to move
a little bit more. And then you know, then that
realization hits of like why don't I just do this
all the time? So my my partier got a little
bit better there, and then you know, kind of found
a few more attacks that I'm pretty good at. So no,

(01:10:04):
all in all those it was good. It was good.
It was quick, kind of in and out, but definitely beneficial.

Speaker 1 (01:10:12):
Was that your first time in Norway?

Speaker 2 (01:10:15):
Yeah? My first time in Norway? Yeah?

Speaker 1 (01:10:18):
All right, So two questions, just two more questions, yep. First,
which even which camp did you like better? Hoparanda or Norway?
I mean, if you want to call Norway a.

Speaker 2 (01:10:33):
Camp, yeah, uh, I would say training wise, like they
both definitely had like their perch and their benefits to them.
Like the Hoparanda camp it was more geared toward getting
ready for the tournament that weekend, and the Norway camp
was more geared toward like technique and learning and sparring,

(01:10:58):
So there was differences there. You know, I would say
I like Norway better because I wasn't getting my weight down,
so I felt better The whole time. But I mean
they both they both had their they're different perchs and everything,
so it was nice. I don't know which one I
liked better, but it definitely definitely got a lot out

(01:11:22):
of both of them. So I'm definitely gonna try to
go back. Uh they invited me back to go out
to Norway when when Mapubu is keeled up, So I
may take him up on that, or I'm gonna try
to get him to come out here because he has
family in Washington, d C. And I'm about a half
hour from there. Someone try to get him to come

(01:11:42):
over here a couple of times and train with me.
So I just got to figure that out.

Speaker 1 (01:11:51):
Out of the places you've traveled internationally, Yeah, you had
been to Finland. Didn't you go to Finland in nineteen
for like a.

Speaker 2 (01:12:02):
Camp with a Yeah, we're over there. We were over
there for about two weeks for a training camp in
twenty nineteen before Worlds.

Speaker 1 (01:12:08):
Yeah, that's right, that's when. Wasn't Ragason like messing with
the Germans or something over there.

Speaker 2 (01:12:14):
Messing with the Germans? I don't. I don't remember a
whole lot maybe right either.

Speaker 1 (01:12:20):
I remember Angle texting me that like Ragason was taunting
the Germans about winning us winning World War two or something.
I don't know whatever.

Speaker 2 (01:12:30):
I mean, we were the Germans, was there. I remember
us like we we you know, we hung out with
them quite a bit. We were just messing with each
other back and forth. So yeah, probably we were probably
you know, teasing them a little bit about it, but
it was all in good spirit.

Speaker 1 (01:12:46):
Uh I yeah, yeah, I just asked this. This was
the second question I want to ask. Out of the
places you have visited thus far as in you know,
World Caliber International Wrestler, where do you rank your visit
to Ozla.

Speaker 2 (01:13:09):
That's hard, that's hard to say, just because it wasn't
like it was just me there. You know, it was
just me. We went to the city a little bit
to kind of explore, but we were training twice a day.
We didn't have any days off, so I couldn't like
go out and explore too much. Like I said, it

(01:13:31):
was kind of an in and out visit. So it's
tough tough to rank it based on that, because all
the other camps you know there were there for a
couple of weeks. You know, we get days off or
we can go explore and and and see different stuff
around town, around the area. Uh, and you're traveling with
with a big team, so there's a bunch of guys
there where you can hang out with and go do stuff.

(01:13:53):
So it's tough to rank it. It was definitely it
was just different. But I don't know, Oslo was cool.
I went to the city one time to hang out,
you know, and you saw a little bit there, so
sort of like Winterland Festival going on. So I went
to that training wise, you know, there's a couple guys.

(01:14:15):
There's probably like ten of us there training, so it
wasn't a whole, like big selection of who to go with.
I kind of went with the same couple guys every day.
So it was definitely it was just different. I can't
really rank it. It was it was different than previous camps,
so it wouldn't be fair to like rank it based

(01:14:35):
on that. I would definitely go back, you know, But
it was cool.

Speaker 1 (01:14:44):
Very diplomatic that answer, Zach.

Speaker 2 (01:14:48):
Well, I mean, it's like it just it was a
different kind of camp. It wasn't you know, usually I
have a whole team, like USA brings a whole team
to a big camp. We go out there, we train
as a team. You have your buddies with you, then
you go explore for a little bit and that makes
the camps soul that much more enjoyable. This one, it
was just it was just me. Then I had a

(01:15:08):
roommate from Ukraine that was there. He just moved to Norway,
and so it was just it was just different. Didn't
feel like as it didn't feel like a camp as
much as just like a couple of days of training.

Speaker 1 (01:15:22):
Fair enough, Okay, So we're now smack dab in the
mid middle of December. So where we left off Wash,
you were looking into going on the Zagreb trip. Has
there been any change or movement on that over the
past two weeks since right before you left for Haparanda.

Speaker 2 (01:15:45):
No, there hasn't been any change yet. We still got
to talk about it and figure out what we want
to do if we're going to that. There's another tournament
coach Jay brought up that we might go to. I
don't remember what it's called or even where it's at.
He just brought it up randomly. No, there's no, there's
no there's been no progress in figuring that out yet.

(01:16:06):
We're gonna talk about it this week. Yeah, I've only
been back like two days so and yesterday was the
Army Navy football game, so it was kind of all
We've just kind of focusing on that and going to
that having a good time. So yeah, we have, we have.
We got to talk about it this week and figure
it out.

Speaker 1 (01:16:26):
All right. So then I'm gonna take a shot here
as far as your more immediate concerns. Are you returning
to Illinois before going to January Camp?

Speaker 2 (01:16:38):
Yeah, I go to I go home. We have a
duel here on the twentieth against Morgan State, so after
the day after that, so I'll go home on the
twenty first, and I'll be home until January tenth, when
I fly to Colorado. And then on the twentieth after
that camp is when I fly back out here. So
I'll be gone from Maryland for a while for about

(01:17:01):
a month.

Speaker 1 (01:17:02):
And then if you do go to Zagreb, you're basically
going to be flying back to Maryland and then in
a pretty quick turnaround going to Croatia.

Speaker 2 (01:17:15):
Correct. Yeah, all right.

Speaker 1 (01:17:21):
I think this is a first in five point week
podcast history insofar as having an athlete as a guest
to discuss an upcoming event and then including a follow
up segment in the same episode about said event slash trip.

(01:17:42):
So there's Zach Braunigle once again breaking new ground here.
And I'll tell you what if five point Move had
the resources I would hire. I would hire a writer
I've said before, I would hire a writer to focus

(01:18:04):
solely on eighty seven kilograms in the United States. I
would like if we had, if we had, I don't
know flow wrestling level of let's say it's just say resources, resources,
but if I could, that's what I would do. I

(01:18:25):
would hire someone to just deal with eighty seven. It
is consistently, year in, year out, with few exceptions over
the last couple of quads, the most interesting and dense
weight class in the United States.

Speaker 2 (01:18:43):
It is.

Speaker 1 (01:18:44):
And it's like, you look for twenty six, It's like, okay,
we all know that. Right now. Peyton Jacobson stands atop
the ladder here, okay, and Spencer Woods right beneath him, okay,
according to last year's Trials results. And then then there's
Bronagle who finished third, right national team member, And what's

(01:19:08):
going to happen with Becca Melolashvili Okay, that hasn't been
confirmed whether or not, But there's certainly some steam to
talk that he might very well just go ahead and
go eighty seven in April. Maybe not, maybe he still

(01:19:30):
stays at eighty two. I know that that cut is awfully,
awfully difficult for him. I don't think that's a state
secret here. It's just I mean, look at the guy.
He's built like a cyborg. He has no body fat
on him, just whatever anyhow. But yeah, so eighty seven
kilograms to me is just it's the most interesting weight class. Still,

(01:19:58):
it's not a diss to any other weight class. I
guess you can make an argument for certain others. Maybe
sixty seven a little bit sixty This year is going
to be interesting again, especially if, particularly if Jace Kohlzer
you know what, I hope I'm pronouncing that right. But

(01:20:19):
Hayeswinkle's kid, who uh, we have Hayeswinkles kid. He's obviously
Jace was a fantastic college wrestler, a Greco Roman wrestler
in his age group career. But nevertheless, from here on out,
we're gonna be referring to him as Hayeswinkles kid. Anyway

(01:20:39):
he might be, he might listen, he might be like
sort of a sleeper dog here. He could be at
sixty and sixty with you know, Dalton Roberts, who had
a very difficult exit from the April Tournament last year.

(01:21:02):
There's no way that went down like a teaspoon of sugar.
And Dalton Roberts is I mean until he, you know,
walks away from the sport and does whatever which, whatever
he does, he's gonna be successful. Don Roberts is the
hardest worker I think of his generation. I do, I

(01:21:22):
really think so. I don't think there's really maybe Jacobson's
in that. I mean Jacobson I guess for sure, But
Dalton Roberts, I don't know. He's a monster, and there's
is there a point to prove? I don't know if
Dalton Roberts at this stage has a point to prove,

(01:21:43):
But then again he might. So sixty kilo Graham, It's okay,
I'll grant you sixty kilos, but still eighty seven. Just
I don't know. There's just something about that way category
just to me, and no, I mean it's objectively just
it's an awesome way for us. And so there's broun

(01:22:05):
agele in the mix of that. And you look at
Zach Bronegele and his style is not too dissimilar from
Jacobsen's insofar as both are pressure, both are into creating
a lot of motion. Jacobson has a lot more of

(01:22:28):
a I think a classical sort of expression. But I
don't know, I just love this way class and I
don't know, I get pumped up. So what else do
we got? Do we have anything of any note of
which to speak? Big Giant deal was the contingent of

(01:22:48):
seniors who went over to Georgia for training. And if
you've been looking at Instagram and all that stuff, I
guess you probably have seen some photos and things like that,
and we'll be dealing with some of the aftermath of
that Georgian training camp coming up here. It's December. It's

(01:23:11):
mid December at this point, so we all understand what
that means. And that means there's gonna be end of
your material coming up in so far as Athlete of
the Year, Impact Performer, outstanding individual performance, and so the
top ten matches if you're so inclined. So that stuff

(01:23:31):
coming up and everything it's just it's just all goes
in a whirlwind, and then there's gonna be January camp,
right then there's gonna be January camp, and then after
January camp is gonna be the Ranking Series trip to Zagreb,
and then there's gonna be I mean, pick your spots,
but you are going to blink your eyes, and then

(01:23:54):
it is going to be April and the trials. So
we have a short season, short domestic season here, and
we need to talk about we need to talk about
lengthening that a bit, I think, but nevertheless, another topic
for another day. Social media concerns. Social media concerns. Okay,

(01:24:16):
So to follow Zach Bronagle, it's just super easy, by
the way, to follow Zach Bronagel on x if you
want to call it, you would do so at Brounagle.
That's b r a u n a g e l
zach zac. Okay, so it's his name reversed last name, first,

(01:24:38):
first name, last Yes, that's how you'd say that. And
on Instagram it's at Bronagle. That's it at Bronegle, which
is I guess for branding purpose. Is really awesome that
he just was able to snare his last name there,
Dennis al We're just going to do this for the

(01:24:59):
sake of doing it. If if you want to follow
Dennis Hall on Instagram, you can do so at Dennis
Hall Underscore UD and on Twitter. For old time sake,
that is at Dennis Hall WGW and for USA, GREC
and Roman news and athlete perspectives, please go to five

(01:25:21):
point food dot com and as always, follow along on
X at five the number five PT move. That's it
for episode sixty seven. Everybody, thanks for listening and we'll
see you soon