BROADCASTS.com

1999 \u2013 First Year Was working at a KFC in the Grafton section of Yorktown, Va. Got a call from Mike Newbern. \u201cTwink, Gary Alcon (ref) can't make it, do you want to go to Fargo?\u201d That right there changed it all. Everything. Stayed in Reed Johnson Hall. Virginian Christian Smith made the Cadet Freestyle finals at 83.5 pounds. He ended up being a 3x state champion and NCAA qualifier for Duke and Liberty (He took down Nickerson in 2007 to open up the tournament). There was no Buffalo Wild Wings. There was a Bison Turf, there was a mug and I may or may not have been from Alabama. Or named Kevin. Shared a dial-up line with Sara Koenig from NCMat.com (you know her now as one of the tournament directors for the Super 32. Rob Sherrill vouched for me for a media credential. Thankfully, I'd met him in Virginia at the Virginia Duals when I was in high school. Don't remember much about the competition since I was still pretty new to the national scene. We had the Dream Team Classic in VA that year, so I paid attention to guys like Foley Dowd, Jason Powell, Clark Forward \u2014 and two of those Team USA guys met in the finals, Damion Hahn beat Jason Potter. 2000 \u2013 Year 2 Buffalo Wild Wings Opened. Taco Bell re-opened, it was closed the year before for renovations. Harry Lester vs. Mark Jayne, Junior Greco. Jayne was returning JR. Champ, Lester won cadets the year before. 3-5-3 (BOOM). 132 pounds. Virginia had two cadet champs \u2013 Christian Staylor and Albert Childress (almost bookends) Kid named Tyler Safratowich of Minnesota won at 83.5 pounds, did a backflip, then he started eating. Mary Kelly going 2-2 in Cadet Freestyle and Micah Amrozowicz, now the head coach at the Newport News Apprentice School, having to come from behind to beat her 8-7. 2001 \u2013 Year 3 Started doing freelance work for TheMat.com and wrote features on the Dibbern triplets, Mary Kelly wrestling against the boys in the Juniors. Cerebral Palsy kid J.C. McMaster \u2013 his e-mail address was pimp_limpin@ something another dot com. Jeff Courtney, a deaf All-American from West Virginia ? and TRAVIS EFFING LEE. Lee \u201cleis' greco gold. Beat Nick Simmons. Stopping Simmons from becoming just the second guy to win 4 JR FS titles. As of right now, it\u2019s only Alan Fried. 2002 \u2013 Year 4 \u2013 Drove from ODU. FIRST YEAR OF FEDERATION WEIGHTS. WENT FROM 96 AAS TO 120 IN JUNIORS 104-136 Started bringing my radio equipment and doing the webcast for USAW with Rob and the late Jon Ponwani. Cleveland \u2013 NO Chicago \u2013 Driving down Addison, game over Milwaukee \u2013 Karaoke at a Friday's in Brookfield, WIS Minneapolis \u2013 Twins vs. Angels, Milton vs. Washburn, preview of ALCS First year of Junior Women \u2014 Malinda Ripley beat Mary Kelly in the finals. Who the hell is Malinda Ripley? Natasha Umemoto was 3rd. She got the first pin of the tournament ever. Poeta beat Metcalf in Cadet FS. Only finals loss in Metcalf's Fargo career. Stepovers, if I recall correctly for exposure. Decent year from VA, Anthony Burke from my club was 5th in a bracket with Coleman Scott, Mike Rowe, Garrett Scott, Mike Rodrigues, Jake Kreigbaum and Eric Albright. I think I had a team PA jacket on when I gave Burke a high five after beating Albright for 5th. Patrick Bond won Cadet FS. Todd Meneely was the OW, beating Teyon Ware. Some guy with an Afro won Junior FS at 171. Herbert was 3rd. Afro guy recently lost a fight. VANS WARPED TOUR WAS OUTSIDE. 2003 \u2013 Year 5 \u2013 Drove from ODU on short notice Got up, went to Jiffy Lube and boom. Drove to Milwaukee \u2013 was using an old atlas, so I didn't know about the cut through via Rockford and kept adding 90 more minutes to my ride. Went to the same Fridays to sing karaoke again. Sat on top of my truck after a session and listened to a Willie Nelson concert at Newman Outdoor Stadium. Years later, Doc Jim Porter would crap all over my Nelson story and say he went and ended up hanging out with him. All-Southern Cadet final as Nick Marable of Tennessee beat Ben Fiacco of Georgia at 145 Cormier vs. Morrison wrestle-off. I slept through the first one. Not a great moment, but indicative of my 20s. 2004 \u2013 Year 6 Rode the bus with team Virginia, wrote a blog as we went all week for the old Mat Talk. Won the Connect 4 championship on the bus, beat Josh Wine 51 consecutive times in Connect 4. Finished up my last college class two weeks after getting home. Finishing up 7 years in college. Henry Cejudo beat Spenser Mango in the Greco finals, was up 9-0 or something and thought he'd gotten the tech, then Mango bombed him for 3 (should have been 5) before Cejudo finished it 13-3. 2005- Year 7 \u2013 Hired at InterMat. Pretty sure I flew. Stayed at either the Econo Lodge or the Best Western near Bucks. I still hear the bullhorn go off whenever I hear Mony Mony. Florida had a monster year, although I got into an \u201cargument\u201d with Rob Sherrill about who Franklin Gomez counted for \u2014 Florida or Puerto Rico. I say PR, because that's who he was representing. Robby Smith beat Cody Gardner in Freestyle, which stunned us from VA. Justin Wren won in Greco, but when Luke Ashmore won, they all climbed over the railing to celebrate, then trying to go back, Wren got into an argument with a security guard and got thrown out. Couple of Wyoming kids met in the Greco finals, but one had moved to Ohio. Tyler Cox pinned David Taylor in Cadet Greco. Taylor beat BJ Futrell to win cadet FS at 91 ? pounds. 2006 \u2013 Year 8 First year of the garbage rules. Hit a rainstorm coming through O'Hare and spent the night there. Connor McDonald took my spot on the last plane to Fargo from O'Hare. Then he wins the tournament. The little shit. ODU had two signees in the Fargo finals \u2014 James Nicholson at 119 and Adam Koballa at 130. Eric Grajales bombed Donte Butler and during my interview, Butler cut through it talking some trash. Grajales goes \u201cI just fived you!\u201d in response. Butler has the unique distinction of being the ONLY five-time finalist to never win a title. Eli and Michaela Hutchison become first brother-sister combo to win Junior titles in the same year. 2007 \u2013 Year 9 Oregon's Norman Richmond with the breakout performance splitting finals with Jason Chamberlain Helen Maroulis wins a chicken, Nicole Woody goes nuts and ruins my interview. Hayden Zillmer and Jade Rauser at the same weight \u2014 84 pounds \u2014 Zillmer doubled at 84 pounds. Alton brothers, Josh Kindig from PA. Nasty. 2008 \u2013 Year 10 \u2013 Last year at InterMat Drove straight through from PA to Minnesota. Stopped in St. Cloud for about 2 hours, missed the first session. 2009 \u2013 Year 11 \u2013 Wrestling 411/USAW \u201cThat just happened\u201d \u2013 This was the finals where Mark Grey was about to start giving an interview, then he was brought back to the mat to re-wrestle the last few seconds of a second period, only to have Ben Whitford score, force a third and then win the title with a third-period win. Man, those rules sucked. 2010 \u2013 Year 12 \u2013 USA Wrestling F-Rod's Triple Crown Ringer over Ness Grant LaMont makes Greco finals at Juniors as a first-year Cadet. He doesn\u2019t wrestle on Sundays and Cadet Greco kicked off on a Sunday. Well, let\u2019s move up. 2011 \u2013 Year 13 \u2013 USA Wrestling Parker VonEgidy makes finals with TWO losses. Ended up with 3. Situation \u2013 Abounader, VonEgidy, O'Donnell- won by Ricky Robertson. I think I\u2019ve rehashed this on every single show I\u2019ve had Dom Abounader on. Pat Downey with limited FS experience wins over Jordan Rogers at 171. This looks a lot better now than it did then. 2012 \u2013 Year 14 \u2013 USA Wrestling Zain vs. Zane at 132. Retherford would win cadet WC that year. Cox/Snyder \u2013 J'Den wins Freestyle, Kyle wins Greco. Brett Haas wrestles them both. Willie crashed on my couch and squatted all week during his TOM era. 2013 \u2013 Year 15 \u2013 AWN/TOM Did the interviews on short notice. Elijah Oliver's gross cauliflower ear Stephanie Hampton making fun of my clothing choices. Jake Marnin was a JV kid and won the cadet triple crown 2014 \u2013 Year 16 \u2013 Mat Talk Coltan Williams from Texas, OMG that throw in Cadet FS vs. Wilson Smith of NC Johnny Blankenship and Trey Meyer going through my table, and through me \u2014 no STWP tonight folks. 2015 \u2013 Year 17 \u2013 Mat Talk How good those cadet champs were. Gable Steveson, Schwartz, RBY, Raimo, Warner. Wittlake's shoes. Interviewed the Mayor of Fargo for Short Time. He lied about there not being any construction around town. 2016 \u2013 Year 18 \u2013 Mat Talk Turf burned down. Nothing else matters. 2017- Year 19 \u2013 Mat Talk Alabama\u2019s Sam Latona won the state\u2019s first Junior freestyle championship. The soon-to-be Virginia Tech signee claimed gold at 106 pounds. Two months before they would win Cadet World Championships, Will Lewan and Aaron Brooks won Fargo titles. No Turf, so Herd & Horns was the replacement venue for mugs. There weren\u2019t nearly as many shenanigans there, simply because it was cleaner, neater and had better food. 2018 \u2013 Year 20 \u2013 Mat Talk The Turf re-opened. There was again cornhole to be played. Willie, Spey and myself championed the first ever Wrestling Trivia night. Spey dropped some quality knowledge, all the while Willie answered ONE question, then paraded around the restaurant like he was the freaking MVP. Entries here were 4,999, just one below the elusive 5,000. Carson Manville represented Pennsylvania, however that works, and won double Cadet titles. Jakason Burks was mighty impressive, winning Nebraska\u2019s first Cadet freestyle title since Thomas Gilman represented the state in 2010. Super beastly crop of champions on the Junior freestyle side of things too with pretty much everyone being a hammer. Introduced Earl Smith to Fargo. Ashley Sword showed me that I could get free nachos with the Buffalo Wild Wings app. I was also interviewed by Wayne Fish. Zach Elam generally thought I was mad at him. Discovered Labby\u2019s has Castle Cream Ale on draft \u2013 the last night we were there. 2019- Year 21 \u2013 Mat Talk The mug turns 21. The bartenders at The Turf are tired of hearing that story. Things I can't remember the year, but are of note. \u2014 The year the first session wa