Its funny that you say that about kids man.
My oldest brother (my wrestling coach brother lol) has a 16 month old son, and he's been at my mothers with HIS mom for the past 4 days. I was screwing with em yesterday and had a hold of his wrist. The lil ****** laughed and broke my hold by turning his wrist and shoving his arm down torwards his knees....like a friggin pro. I couldnt believe it, I was stunned! Granted, I didnt have a tight hold or anything, but I was still shocked!
My brother will have him wrestling before we know it. I cant wait. Us two assholes are gonna be by the side of the mat yelling our fool heads off.
My nephew makes a lot of mistakes, but I think he's learning by trial and error. I gotta teach him to bridge. But if one thing doesn't work, he quickly tries another thing. That's how I was.
I didn't wrestle until 10th grade, so I didn't know half of what everyone else knew. And at 5'6, I couldn't do a lot of the leggy moves anyways, so I just wrestled like a greco roman style upper body wrestler. Or a sumo. Or clinch and snap them down to a frontheadlock and then spin around them real quick for the takedown. Or lift and trip. Or I'd tie up and lung backward and down, grab the back of their back foot if they stepped in too far and then I'd just let go and they'd go falling backward. If done right they have no choice. But for sure my strength made up for what I didn't know. But some guys were just better wrestlers and could overcome the strength thing. Long skinny guys seemed to give me trouble.
That's why I was curious when you said you dared anyone to get you in a front headlock. That was usually what I went for.
I think the best match I was ever in, I lost. It was that guy I beat to place at state. He was #3 the year before in the state tourny. Huge black guy. All muscle. But I was thicker muscle. But he was a better wrestler. How I beat him I'll never know. But the best match was the one in regionals when he beat me. I went at him with everything I had. Head butts, throws. He beat me on points but we got a standing ovation and he was exhausted. I think that match played into why I later beat him at states. He told someone "yea, i have to wrestle that crazy white boy again". LOL. That's what he thought of me. WOW! When I heard that, I gained a lot of confidence and believed. In the years since, I have run into guys I wrestled with and I can't believe how people remember me? I have a long greek last name and that probably helps, but I was entertaining to watch for sure. I was also a powerlifter. Not big numbers in todays standards of steriods and creotene, but at 155 I benched 350, squat 400 and deadlifted 500. AT 155! I was a freak. I started lifting again recently. Still got a gut but that took 20 years to grow. The guns are still there though.
And on the tapes from states, my brother, boss and other close friends are going BONKERS!!! We worked at a small gym so they all had jackets with logos, like a gang.
Oh yea, one more story. We stole a booster moms orange soda, and the next tourny the kid has the balls to walk up to me and say, "how's my moms pop"? I say, "huh?" He says, "you stole my moms pop last week". And I said, "Oh yea," So he says, "how did it taste"? And I said, "almost as good as her *****".
It cleared the stands. Huge brawl.
