Campaign to promote Wrestling as a Martial Art

**Holy Moment** · Posted On: 2/16/2013 7:46pm

I was just mulling over how people can do their part to promote wrestling in the wake of its exclusion from 2020 games. It dawned on me that most people probably consider wrestling just another arbitrary sport rather than a bona-fide fighting style. MMA has greatly increased the awareness of the combat applicability of wrestling (And is almost certainly responsible to some degree for the recent increase in scholastic wrestling participation) but I still don't believe most people realize wrestling is a fighting style in and of itself. Tank Abbott said it himself: "Wrestling is a prerequisite to fighting."

Perhaps we can do our part in the fight against Wushu by starting up a Facebook campaign to promote wrestling as a martial art. We have some strong arguments on our side:

(^135 lbs wrestler vs. 200 lbs basketball player)

**Holy Moment** · Posted On: 2/16/2013 7:47pm

***Tranquil Suit*** · Posted On: 2/16/2013 7:49pm

I think we what you really need is to cough up 5 billion $$ to the IOC. Someone will do it, probably the Russians.

Also this: https://www.change.org/petitions/the...ympicwrestling

Awesome thread, as always.

**OZZ** · Posted On: 2/16/2013 10:29pm

Related article. If wrestling gets cut from the olympics it will be a travesty and a disgrace.
http://ca.sports.yahoo.com/news/repo...7156--oly.html

**catfishaggie** · Posted On: 2/17/2013 12:19am

I say we go further and try to convince people to boycott the Olympics. If they are claiming it is ticket sales and tv ratings, we work now to convince as many people as we can to boycott watching or going to all but the combat sports in the games.

I still do not underhand their decision, while they were struggling to get people to watch swimming, every time I watched wrestling, judo or fencing the arena was packed even during the qualifiers.

**OZZ** · Posted On: 2/18/2013 10:02am

If all its going to take is a 'donation' to the IOC to make this go away, then one of the nations that routinely takes home medals in wrestling would do well to step up.
Tranquil Suit mentioned Russia, and I'm sure the USA has a vested interest in keeping wrestling included in the games. Collegiate wrestling is huge in the USA ( not like I need to to tell you guys that..)
People who are petitioning for the inclusion of MMA in the Olympics might want to ask themselves which they would rather see - wrestling or MMA. Because chances are the IOC will not want to have both.
I would rather see wrestling.
This is a sport that has been included in the Olympics since ancient times and to pull it now would be tantamount to nothing less than stomping on its history.