Wrestling has been around for millennia, with its earliest traces coming from the Sumerians in southern Mesopotamia 5,000 years ago. The sport has evolved throughout the generations and has grown to be one of the biggest competitions in the world.
In the modern era, wrestling isn’t on top of the mountain anymore. It has been surpassed by football, basketball, soccer and others sports.
Wrestling hit rock bottom in February 2013 when the International Olympic Committee voted to remove it from the games starting in 2020. That decision was reversed in September 2013 but the initial announcement was a wake up call to many around the sport, including ASU head coach Zeke Jones.
Jones saw the sport needed to change in order to keep up with other popular games.
“The global community spoke, and it said wrestling is important to mankind,” Jones said. “The world said 'Hey, you need to make the sport more pleasing, you need to modernize it, you need to make it more global in terms of a spectator sport.' So I think that those things have come to the forefront. I think wrestling has answered the call and is changing some of those things to make it better.”
Jones has been involved in wrestling since he was five and has loved it since. It’s something he has an extreme passion for and knows how the sport has molded him into what he is now.
For Jones, wrestling brings humanity back to its kill-or-be-killed roots and the pure instinct of the sport brings out the best or the worst in its participants.
That may be why the sport's popularity has been on the decline. It is arguably the most physically demanding sport there is and the amount of work needed to be a successful wrestler is enough to test a person's limits.
Senior Blake Stauffer wasn't prepared for that level of work when he first started. Stauffer started wrestling at a young age when it was less about competition and more about fun but as he has progressed in the sport those priorities have reversed.
"At that point, the work gets harder," he said. "I definitely didn’t realize what I was getting into but I think that it's not easy, I definitely (won't) say it is but I think (you've) got to learn to like the toughness of it and the whole sport, you learn to love it.”
The sport grinds the mind and body of the wrestlers and it’s tough on them to keep pushing through the season but Jones knows how to get it out of them.
“It’s a grueling sport,” Jones said. “You either throw someone on their head or they're throwing you on your head. It’s pretty simple. … You motivate them with the prize. The prize is to be the best in the country, best in the world.”
Wrestlers train just as hard but doesn't have a professional league that's as popular or as financially rewarding as other sports like football and basketball. The only comparable pro league is the World Wresting Entertainment (WWE), which emphasizes entertainment over athletics.
Athletes do have the Olympics as an option but other than that, most people don’t think that much of the sport. It’s usually overlooked and underrated. Stauffer said he knows that and accepts it.
"It’s a pretty (demanding) sport on you mentally and physically, but overall I don’t know if it gets as much respect as it should but us guys (who) are wrestling don’t really look at it like that," he said. "We obviously respect it, everyone in the wrestling world respects it a lot for what it is.”
Thanks to the rise of Mixed Martial Arts and UFC, wrestlers have another way to make money off of their athletic careers.
Dante Patrick, former wrestler for University of Illinois and current MMA fighter, said he felt wrestling was the best thing for his career over other forms of martial arts like judo and jiu jitsu.
Patrick decided to go into a career of MMA after he finished his time at Illinois and used that background to build an arsenal of attacks he can use for his fights. This seems to be a trend for wrestlers as there are a couple of ASU wrestlers who went to MMA, including Ryan Bader, Dan Henderson, Cain Velasquez and more.
Wrestling may not be as strong as it once was, but thanks to the rise of MMA, the IOC changing its mind on wrestling being dropped and how the sport can connect to it’s competitors, wrestling still has a strong future ahead of it and we will always have it in our future.
Related Links:
ASU wrestling splits dual meet in Illinois
ASU wrestling hires alumnus Zeke Jones as new head coach
Reach the reporter at osoussi@asu.edu or follow @omarksoussi on Twitter.
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