Matt Brown's "Championship"

[maddog50]

As the OP I was interested in how this thread would play here. This had nothing to do with Iowa at all and this board should have no bias with respect to the outcome of the match. Stalling is a topic best discussed outside of rabid fan bases. Locked hands as a way to decide the match in the last 3 secs of a championship combined with stalling called 9 secs earlier was ref interference in my opinion. They swallow their whistle for entire matches and then make two subjective and controversial calls in the last 12 secs.

I take it that most of you like the calls and think the ref had no choice but to make the calls he did, I disagree. Good discussion, I think I learned something. I wonder how the conversation would have gone if it was a tOSU and a Hawkeye involved in a Championship deciding match.

 

[maddog50]

The point made about dropping to the legs in the last three secs for a completely safe and legal tactic makes me think that locked hands was not even considered by Wilps. Watching in slowmo is strange. Does anyone have an answer to my question about locked hands, does touching or overlapping hands count?

 

[sloehawk]

Originally posted by maddog50:
As the OP I was interested in how this thread would play here. This had nothing to do with Iowa at all and this board should have no bias with respect to the outcome of the match. Stalling is a topic best discussed outside of rabid fan bases. Locked hands as a way to decide the match in the last 3 secs of a championship combined with stalling called 9 secs earlier was ref interference in my opinion. They swallow their whistle for entire matches and then make two subjective and controversial calls in the last 12 secs.

I take it that most of you like the calls and think the ref had no choice but to make the calls he did, I disagree. Good discussion, I think I learned something. I wonder how the conversation would have gone if it was a tOSU and a Hawkeye involved in a Championship deciding match.

I don't know that you'd get a whole lot of Hawk fans to disagree anytime a stall call is made, no matter who it is made on, Hawks included. We're waiting and hoping for it to be called when warranted, and unfortunately for Wilps, he was the poster child for it, when in reality it probably could have and should have been called another couple hundred times throughout the tournament.

I will say this, if this were Mike Evans instead of Matt Brown, I would guess the wrestling "world" outside of Iowa would be beside itself on how a referee could have made two of the worst calls in the history of the sport. Those "clear" views would have become awful fuzzy real fast. Personal opinion.

And for the record, I too think Matt Brown is a fine young man, and a deserving Champion to boot (though I would pick Kokesh if I had to pick one guy on any given day!). Congrats to him.

 

[Kwoodhawk]

Originally posted by maddog50:
The point made about dropping to the legs in the last three secs for a completely safe and legal tactic makes me think that locked hands was not even considered by Wilps. Watching in slowmo is strange. Does anyone have an answer to my question about locked hands, does touching or overlapping hands count?

One of the announcers on ESPN during the match, not sure who it was, said that "touching" is considered locked.

 

[PapaBearSLIM]

If the locked hands call was made live then I'm ok with it sticking. It was not called live and on the video review hamds were locked while Brown was on his feet and off the mat. The clock was already at :01 before the knee was down which means there was less than a second left on the clock. No way to really determine how much less and in my opinion not enough to change the non call to beyond reaction time on the locked hands. It looks to be beyond reaction time because he's still holding on to it 3 seconds later after the clock hit zero but the time after zero is irrelevant. If the replay instantly cut off when the clock hit zero I think many that think he held it beyond reaction time would not be as sure.

Need conclusive evidence to make changes on review. It was there on a a few occasions in the tournament where the refs refused to overturn their own calls. It wasn't there on the locked hands. Bad call on review. Ok with it if made live.

Wilps should have dropped to an ankle and this thread does not exist.

 

[BHF23]

Another option for Wilps: The five count was audible on TV; Wilps had to hear it. When it gets to three/four, Wilps knows that, hang on or let go, he's giving up a point either way. At that point, wouldn't it have been a better idea to concede the escape? No one in the house, outside of Brown maybe, probably considered the locked hands possibility...but aside from that, it's tougher to get a takedown in three seconds than an escape. Why give Brown that chance? Letting go of the leg almost certainly sends the match to OT.

SR/BHF

 

[artradley]

Originally posted by PapaBearSLIM:
If the locked hands call was made live then I'm ok with it sticking. It was not called live and on the video review hamds were locked while Brown was on his feet and off the mat. The clock was already at :01 before the knee was down which means there was less than a second left on the clock. No way to really determine how much less and in my opinion not enough to change the non call to beyond reaction time on the locked hands. [/B]It looks to be beyond reaction time because he's still holding on to it 3 seconds later after the clock hit zero but the time after zero is irrelevant. If the replay instantly cut off when the clock hit zero I think many that think he held it beyond reaction time would not be as sure.

Need conclusive evidence to make changes on review. It was there on a a few occasions in the tournament where the refs refused to overturn their own calls. It wasn't there on the locked hands. Bad call on review. Ok with it if made live.

Wilps should have dropped to an ankle and this thread does not exist.

On further review, PaperBear is correct. You can see from this shot the clock is already down to 1 second and Brown has not quite yet hit the mat. It's hard to argue that less than a second is beyond reaction time. This is especially true because Brown dropped to the mat intentionally -- and you're not allowed to drop to a knee in order to try to get a clasp call. Combine the two and it should have been a no-call.

 

[Topshot]

Isn't dropping to a knee while on bottom in order to make your opponent lock hands considered unsportsmanlike(1 point)?

 

[artradley]

Originally posted by formerlywestwrestling:

Isn't dropping to a knee while on bottom in order to make your opponent lock hands considered unsportsmanlike(1 point)?

Not unsportsmanlike, it's called "inappropriate" and just means the official doesn't call interlocked hands if he thinks the defensive wrestler is just doing it to break the locked hands.

 

[maddog50]

Thanks everyone for the locked hands info and video review that shows less than 1sec left on the clock and Brown not on the ground.
It would seem that the call isn't so clear as some would have you believe.

 

[BDB57]

There are some who have posted here and on other forms that they are not totally on board with the "5 second" stall call and I join with them. My grip is that it may be limiting their willingness to call stalling otherwise. As many have expressed, stalling should not be limited to 5 second counts and fleeing the mat, it should be called when they see it regardless of point of the match.

 

[wrstlrev]

Locked hands when the knee touched down is clear. The thing that made it more difficult for the official to call was that Brown continued to hold the left hand in a locked position at the point where it became visible for the official, and then motioned to the official begging for the penalty call.

Dropping to a knee is a legitimate strategy. Some purist might think it less than "honorable," but it is certainly more fair than calling a stalling penalty in a situation when the offensive wrestler is trapped and can't possibly move up from a leg. I have also seen both Tom and Terry drop to a knee as a strategy to cause hands to be broken dozens of times.

 

[rustynailhawk]

Brown wrestled hard. I liked watching him wrestle over the years. Maybe we should look at him for a strength coach. That sum bitch is jacked!
Posted from Rivals Mobile

 

[LutherAce]

he's also 25 yrs old...

 

[Jar-hawk]

The right guy won. But the ref reversed a no-call. Are we going to review every return to the mat now. In hopes that a split second will reveal locked hands when we have a review left. Bad precedent.

 

[Nipigu]

"Spilt second" clasped hands is not a technical violation so there's no precedence being set.