I'm only mostly familiar with Mack and Bart. I believe Mack now does some Minnesota-related podcasting and he also does a great job of commentating for Gopher duals.

Man, those names bring me back. My favorite memory of Moza Fay is him wrestling a 49-year-old Randy Lewis at Northern Plains. Shit is on youtube and it's hilarious.

Yeah Mack does some podcasts on IAWrestle as well. Hates Iowa with a passion. ROFL He was snubbed by them on the recruiting trail.

Moza and my bro’s rivalry was intense. Sophomore year, Justin won 8-0 at a tourney, no match at state. The following year, Moza stunned Justin 8-2 at that same tourney. They met in the quarters at state and Justin won 4-3. Justin went on to win state. The year after that, Justin won 9-5 at the tourney. Caught him. Met in the quarters again and Moza won 9-7. Justin had never been on the backside of a tourney and just seemed to give up in the consolations....he wasn’t himself. Justin will always be known as the guy who placed 2nd, 2nd, 1st and 7th as a Senior. He also had the distinguishment of being the only guy to beat both 4 timers in his grade...multiple times. Moza ended up winning it twice. People argued like crazy leading up to those state matches.

That was awesome when he wrestled Lewis. Moza is a cool cat.

So things have been pretty sweet lately for our family in wrestling.

To start, the Iowa HS State Wrestling tournament took place last weekend. I did the rankings and wrote a lot of articles for the state of Iowa's oldest wrestling publication... and I did the rankings for Class 3A...so that was interesting. I was on the floor covering state the entire weekend and it was pretty sweet. I took some heat on Twitter, for accidentally sending a tweet that I meant to send as a pm...I caught it in 30 seconds and it was still noticed by someone and screen-shot and sent to our competitor called IAwrestle...where they blasted me on Twitter...as they should have, really. The pm gone wrong was to a kid that we've known through my brothers and other Mepo kids for years who had just won state and for whatever freaking reason...I wrote to him, "hey, CONGRATS on winning state! Also, was wondering if we can get an interview with you when those IAWrestle tards aren't around." The problem here, of course is that I referred to these guys as "tards" and even though I do not have discriminatory feelings towards people with developmental disabilities, it's still in bad taste and unprofessional....the publication I work for prides itself in being professional, so this was pretty bad. The owner of IAwrestle, the morning after state posted that screen shot (I swear I caught it in 30 seconds) and @'d me on Twitter with the caption, "haters gonna hate." I took a TON of hate for that. I've been receiving hate mail all week from people who are offended and basically demanding that I be fired....whoops. However, the funny thing is 50% of my pm's are from people who thought it was funny and were elated that someone finally said something like that about them publicly...which don't get me wrong, it was terrible judgment for me to write that, but it's funny who and what comes out of the woodwork in situations like these. Some people are soooooooooo pissed because I used the word, "tards." Kind of difficult to defend myself on that one.

Anyways...

What has been AWESOME is that my youngest brother is a true Freshman who wrestles for Graceland University in IA... My brother who is 21 wrestles there also. Anyways, my youngest bro, Brennan started out the year with mono and up a weight (174 when his current weight is 165) because he couldn't cut weight... so he started out slow. However, ever since the Missouri Valley Invite, which is a tourney where there are 64 man brackets with a ton of NAIA schools, he has been on a roll. He was JUST starting to get over the mono at that point and beat the #1 and #2 seeded guys in the bracket who are returning AA's. He beat a ton of good kids to place 5th in a jam-packed 165 lb. bracket. That was about a month ago and was just the beginning. Since then, he has been on an absolute tear. He hasn't lost. He has stepped it up to a level that we always knew he was capable of and has been performing so well as a TRUE FRESHMAN. He won the Sioux City Invite where he defeated a 3 time Florida state champ, HS national AA and collegiate national qualifier. He is a candidate to win it at the JUCO level and hadn't lost for over a year at least. He continued to win every dual... then came the Heart of America Conference this past weekend, which is the national qualifier tournament for Graceland. In his bracket were the #5, #19, #11, and #1 ranked guys in the nation at his weight. Brennan had worked his way up to #9 after his strong showing at the Missouri Valley Invite. So he dominated the first two guys, defeated his teammate in the semis who is a returning National Qualifier himself and was paired up against the #1 ranked guy from Grand View who was a state champ from Boston and successful at the collegiate level in HS. He also placed 3rd in the nation last year. He has several wins over top D1 competition this year (and the previous 2 years), for example...he defeated Shane Griffith from Stanford, 3-1. Griffith has only lost twice this year... once to this #1 ranked NAIA kid, Ryan Niven, and once to a guy named Vincenzo Joseph from Penn State...Joseph is a Junior who is on pace to being a 4 time D1 National Champion...he won it as a Freshman and Sophomore. He only beat Griffith 6-5...just to give you an idea how good this Niven kid is.


So I am covering the event for The Predicament and have to film the finals matches...I couldn't shut up during Brennan's finals match because he is my brother and he ended up BEATING THE #1 RANKED GUY IN THE NATION AT HIS WEIGHT TO WIN THE HEART OF AMERICA CONFERENCE. He was then awarded the OUTSTANDING WRESTLER award!!! And this week he is the Heart of America Athlete of the Week. He wrestles in nationals in a couple weeks and I am assuming he will be seeded in the top 3 as a TRUE FRESHMAN!!!


Here is the video of the match and an interview with him afterwards, right before he was given the OW award... CHECK IT OUT!!! MY BROTHER IS A TOTAL BAD ASS!!!!!!!!!

Don't make fun of me too bad...LMAO At the end I'm all like, "GOOD JOB BROTHER!!!" I probably better let someone else film him from now on for I am supposed to remain neutral, for I represent a respected wrestling media outlet... lol.... Also, you can tell when things get pretty tense, for my hands begin shaking at the end of the video!!!

Brennan is in the blue.

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Here is the interview after the match... I was still shaking at this point. Handsome whipper-snapper, that Brennan!

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I AM ONE PROUD OLDER BROTHER RIGHT NOW!!!! ON TO NATIONALS!!!!

I was going to go up to Wells Fargo last Friday to watch some matches but my nephew decided he didn't want to go and the whole reason I was going was to give him a ride.

Ever been to state? It’s cool, man.

I've seen ricos brothers wrestle a couple of times this year.

I had tickets to finals but got distracted and didn't end up getting there, which annoyed me.
My fall has been busy with youth wrestling, kid state and one more tournament we will call it a season....for a couple of weeks and then I think we will do some freestyle if my kid is still motivated. Been a pretty good year so far.

Oh yeah, I've been there several times. Just not this year. My older nephew used to wrestle for PCM.

Nice...they had a great team this year. I know a ton of people from PCM wrestling. My brother Shea’s rival his Junior year was a dude named Tristan Clark. There was this Oldham kid that my best friend from high school used to have battles with.

Going to AAU this weekend? My daughter is wrestling in the girls division Sunday.

I probably will. 2 of the boys I've been helping made it.
I didn't expect my kid to make it through, his district was a buzz saw at his weight and he was young side of bracket. That said, we are still hitting tournaments and he is 10-3 since the week before districts with 2 wins over kids that had beaten him this year. He loves rematches vs kids that have beaten him and I like that he likes that. Enjoying the grind but we will be done for the season after next weekend.

Short story about one of the reasons wrestling is good for kids.
As mentioned, my boy keeps a mental list of the kids that have beaten him and wants to find rematches. We look at tournament schedules and sometimes decide based on the chances that one or another will be there. One boy has beaten him twice this year, pinning him the second time. My kid was pretty upset about that and brooding about it. He had mentioned both weeks we saw him that this boy was nice, and had said if they went to the same school they would probably be friends. He does seem like a nice kid. Anyway we were going to take the weekend off 3 weeks ago because I thought he was getting burned out. He starts lobbying the night before to go to xyz because that is this boys town and he'd be there. I decided to go and we took a handful of boys over last minute...in a snow storm hour and a half trip. The boy is there, in my kids bracket....they do bullpen style where age group is called and paired up and sat in bleachers before their round. I look over and my kid is chumming and chatting and laughing with this kid bforst two rounds. I take him asside and say "look, it's great you like the kid, it's ok to be friends, but you came over here to kick his butt...get your mind right and tell him you can talk after the match is over...... great, hard fought match...my kid wins 5-3. Other kid is devestated. My kid consoles him.... the kid needs 10 minutes to regroup, they get medals and then he and my boy are back to chatting and he even sat with him on the edge of the mat to cheer a couple of our kids who were still going. That's the stuff that makes kids wrestling fun.a


When you're 40, very few people care if you were a national champ, state champ or .500. It's the lessons you learn and embracing the grind that pay off long term.

So my bro became an AA as a true Freshman at 165 lbs this weekend! I am proud as hell...

https://pbs.twimg.com/media/D005yp5W0AAZZi9.jpg

I had a ton of experiences like that growing up in wrestling. Some of my best friends to this day are guys I competed against and became friends with off the mat.

I was never really the guy who hunted people who had beaten me...we just kind of wrestled wherever... but I had a TON that hunted me after I had beaten them. They would write on their entry form, "my boy would like to wrestle rico." Haha, it always used to stress me out because I didn't want to lose to a person I had beaten before who obviously prioritized beating me... didn't want to show any potential regression... I don't think I ever lost one of those, but they always stressed me out.

Congrats to your brother...he looked really good the two times we saw him in person.

I think it's always hard to beat someone multiple times. They maybe are more motivated....and especially with kids, I think they overlook a kid they have beaten.

It doesn't always work out. Last week was our last tournament for the hear(unless he wants to do a little freestyle). There aren't many tournaments left and there were some really good kids at a tourn that has been pretty much a locals type. My kid had a boy that had hip tossed and pinned him in Jan. He was excited for the rematch. Took the boy down with a high c change double he had struggled with lately...kid escapes, my boy hits him with a double...the boy stands up, faces him puts in and over under and hits him with a lateral drop and pinned him. My kid was upset, but I explained that he learned more in that match than beating in some fish. Next year will go better with him being on the top end of the age group....and summer wrestling.

I'm always shocked at how many matches some of these 3-4th grade boys have had in a season....several in the 90+ matches...my kid has around 30 and I thought that was a lot.

I've enjoyed this season. Several of the boys I've helped coach are making big improvement and finished off the year beating some really good club kids. I enjoyed that a lot.

Short break and then back at it.

Thanks man! We are pretty happy for him!

You gonna try out the freestyle scene? It may be compatible for your son in terms of the age groups for they (USA Wretling) go by year of birth opposed to grade... so you won’t have to deal with the “hold back” stuff.

I inquired with Clay about making a highlight vid for my bro’s Postseason and the dude seriously knocked it out of the park. Seriously... the dude (Clay) creates one of the most unique wrestling highlight vids I have ever seen in my life. I’m gonna propose to him a Pokémon-Perfect Strangers themed Austin Desanto and Spencer Lee (his intro song is the Pokémon song) to him and I guarantee the thing will get a TON of views... for there is a rabid fan base in wrestling, but not a ton of competition in terms of producing this stuff...

Seriously, check this out:

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Brought exactly what I had in mind to life.

RICO, you are still alive! I haven't seen anything from you since the big Mahomes era started!