DT - Brooks
- Thread starter Jackhawk87
- Start date
Last Olympic cycle to replicate Yaz's underhook. (Least that is what I remember)
One of the stud recruits that are training there instead of in highschool or one of their college hammers that is in redshirt or just out of folkstyle season I'm sure. Pick your poison with the talent they have amassed.
Thank you, I saw something about them practicing together but I was sure your timeline was probably correct.
im guessing that distinction doesn't matter much in the room
i doubt many of the psu alums are saying "no fair...i went to school here and HE DIDN'T!"
Flo briefly commented on this and their theory is: DT modeled his game after Cael and Cael was AB's main coach/ training partner the past couple of years.
DT was training almost exclusively with Dake.
Unfortunately for DT, Cael was the one guy in the world that could prep Brooks for this match and he did.
So there was a shit ton of familiarity, just not in the formal sense.
who coached Taylor in college and through his last olympics
He was between Mesenbrink and burroughs after the match. Im pretty sure he said "Come on Mitch this might become fun."
I picked the full 6 man squad before the event perfectly including Spencer, Zain and Brooks.
"My opinion entirely" and it may be interpreted in some sense derogatory towards DT, and lacking some of the accolades that Aaron rightly deserves, it is not meant to be either.
DT was a victim of both his own success and complacency IMO, and Aaron the benefactor of being in peak form, and at yet another level since they last met.
David had too much prior success with his extremely light competitive schedule. As arguably the world's top P4P and most dominant wrestler of the past couple of years, and I am sorry but I believe he thought he could just mail it in to some extent, especially considering whomever he faced would have to run through the gauntlet and then take 2 of 3. He simply knew'that ain't gonna happen'.
He has a new young family, he is a little older, he has a farm he has to manage as well as several business ventures. IMO he looked different and wrestled differently than in the past. I called it because of all of these 'distractions' added up to what I saw as a predictable result. On top if that Aaron is right there with him, definitely world medalist capable.
All things considered equal, a fully and properly trained DT likely beats the current version of AB 2 out of 3. Another year from now, probably not.
I haven't seen any David interviews post match but expect it will come out eventually that he took the process for granted and wasn't quite where he needed to be, but was still capable of getting to the point where he could have won.
He was training with Dake nearly daily so I think a change of scenery wasn't needed. It wasn't aNLWC failure. He needed a change of mindset.
As for Spencer. He is firing on all cylinders and as much as I may have wanted another NLWC representative, it was pretty clear to me that Gillman can't challenge him with that weight cut, even at his best. Spencer should absolutely medal if his knees hold up.
Don't hold your breath waiting for him to admit that in an interview.
He did look off. But Brooks also has another year under his belt and was a full feed 86kg after wrestling at 197 this year vs 184 last year.
I was thinking the same thing watching the matches. I don't want to take anything away from Brooks, but I just didn't see remotely the amount of movement and level changes you normally see out of Taylor. I get that Brooks has great positioning and he does a wonderful job dictating handfighting. That is especially true for how he taps and controls the head and distance, from different angles constantly. Hell, he may be even better at it than Burroughs(he was the best I had seen, even if some of it bordered on illegal).
With that said, Taylor's length, style and conditioning had him working through Yaz, who does a pretty great job at those things as well. Maybe it was a combination of age and so many responsibilities limiting his training. That in combination with how tough Brooks is, may have been all it took. But, I just can't wrap my head around how much time DT spent reacting instead of attacking. Regardless of how good Brooks defense is, Dake's is absolutely better and DT still spent a hell of a lot more time on offense against Dake...
