I came here from Ireland and learned the Iowa way of wrestling and the culture surrounding it. I joined in and busted my arse. Iowa wrestling is a way of life.

Cael Sanderson is THE MAN! Pure and seamless technical perfection - look at Cael's eyes during the match, he's in his Zen space, totally in control. Love the use of the ankle pick and the cradle too - something the Iowa Hawkeye wrestlers seem to not use at all. I watched this whole documentary and I felt that the wrestler who didn't make the starting line-up, Josh Budke, would have benefited much more from going to a wrestling program that emphasized technique, holds and leverage - like Iowa State. Instead, the Iowa Hawkeyes all train in the Dan Gable style - endless conditioning, strength training and stamina work, but less emphasis on pure wrestling techniques. The most successful Iowa Hawkeye wrestlers tend to be squat, stocky, muscular wrestlers who use their strength and stamina to bully and wear out their opponents - which was NOT the right style for a wrestler who is lanky and lean and less physically strong, like Josh Budke. In the beginning of the documentary, I didn't care for Steve Mocco - who sounded like a bullying jerk. But, when it's revealed that he lost almost all his matches as a young kid, yet stuck with it and built himself into a wrestling monster - my respect for him grew enormously. I liked Mike Zaddick, but his dad seems kind of nuts - the stereotypical "sports-father".

Cannot thank you enough for posting the entire documentary.

Lol every time they showed Tom brands it looked like he hated Zalesky and was just waiting for his time to come.

Thanks for posting these up man. Appreciate it

This is like an animal documentary.

man i wish dan gable was still coach because i heard his drills are deadly

iowa st head coach is a good man

look how the iowa state coach smiles. you don't see that shit in the iowa room lol

When you commit to wrestling, you sacrifice a bunch and you work your butt off all season. It is really hard to not take something like that seriously.

Anyone ever notice the similarity in looks between Cael Sanderson and Channing Tatum?

watching this and doing pushups and situps getting ready for next season, yeah buddy

Many thanks. This has been fantastic to watch.

when cael sanderson came out i got chills it was like as if god had entered the room

Cael executing that crazy cradle was brutal! Whoa!

Best quote: "Give yourself the BEST CHANCE to win!"

Holstice with the “short straw” lmaooo

Such a good documentary

Even today, Cael haunts Iowa. Penn State just wrapped up another national title with Cael at the helm, Iowa took third.

Zadick will always be a champ in my book.

I love all the old shoes

For people that never wrestled, typical practices at high school level start off with a 3 mile or longer run (depending on where you live, you could end up doing it in the snow), you drill and live wrestle for about 2 more hours, and then you have 30 minutes or more of abusive conditioning. You then check your weight (after about 4 hours of exercise with no hydration if you are cutting weight) and see how much more misery you have to inflict on yourself to make weight later on. The entire season is a constant battle just to make onto the mat. I wonder why I did it when I could have enjoyed snowboarding, hunting, and other fun during the winters.

cael waxed that guy hahhahah lmao

the two dislikes are probablly iowa state fans

Settle down, I was being facetious. I know the history between Iowa and Iowa State. Only soft spot I had between either of the two is former ISU coach Bobby Douglas, especially after Cael took the coaching job and then bolted to Penn State after 3 years. Douglas is and will always be a class act. Having said that, if Iowa will ever get "back up there", they'll have to figure out how to have a deeper lineup than PSU, with Taylor / Ruth / Wright all returning next year. Who knows, we'll see.

Cary Kolat 137-0. Took 3rd at the Midlands as a sophomore in high school.

iowa state head coach: "you deserve to win" iowa head coach: "you deserve nothing! win or die, earn your way!"

mocco was in the best shape there

216-1... Thats fuckin amazing.

@Kahuna10 Tom Brands is an amazing person and coach. he just comes off as that because of how intense he is. Off the mat he is nice and respectful of everyone

commit and train 24-7 push past things u never imagined u could do

i love that ceals doing what gable did at iowa at penn state keep that pa hs talent in state

@Daski69 If that camera was not in that back hallway you wouldn't have seen that. He shook the opponents hand, didn't flip the crowd off or anything, ran off into a back hallway where no one could see him and vented. There just happened to be a camera taping a documentary. I think if there was a camera showing every athlete after every event it might cause you to rethink your dogma which is nice but not the way it really is. Are you sure your not just looking for any excuse to fault Iowa?

isnt this the year minnesota won the national title?

This makes me strive to wrestle harder to get to the point so I can be an hawkeye it's been my dream since I was a little kid

Yo! 216 wins and 1 lost in high school? that's crazy

he had a front headlock then got a near side cradle from that. and then instead of just pushing him over, he rolled him over.

wrestling is a mental sport

AGHHH i met both Zalesky and Cael Sanderson today pretty good day

what is that cradle at 11:03?

@Daski69 I assume your talking about what happened after the IA St match,nothing was broken, the mess was cleaned up, how is it bad sportsmanship when you let out some emotion away from the public. I don't think that you have ever cared about something enough where you feel like your guts have been ripped out because you put so much into it and didn't get the result you want. That's what it feels like. No one is asking you to justify anything, just think about it from someone elses perspective.

2 years.

we prefer the term "band of brothers"

brands and zadik are still great coaches

could someone with knowledge in the subject tell me which physical aspect is the most important in wrestling, speed, power or endurance? I know that you should not have zero in any of them but which is the most important? Some wrestlers I've seen have been extremely ripped whereas some of them have excessive fat on their bodies. Is it maybe detrimental for a 185 pounder to have fat but not for a heavyweight? How can you go seven minutes if you have a high fat percentage?

What couldnt stick it out for the whole 4?

@Daski69 in wrestling you combine all of them to just be a powerhouse,and have endurance but also most important technique and you can go seven minutes in a match with high fat because you can train your body like a madman and your body can get use to it and have the endurance to go seven minutes without stopping either that or pin your opponent early :)

its all about technique- moves win matches

preach brotha

so what do u do?

@Daski69 Did you think that they just don't like to lose?

how much did cael weigh

@kirkferentzrocks ummm he was an olympic champion. pretty sure thats something.

I wrestled in high school bro

what for 2 weeks?

yeah but crying about it wont help. i agree with coach,he had all that energy he should have used it on the mat lol

that dude would not have done that to gable

School couldnt keep the wrestling program.

@kyleanthonyowens yeah, but who the hell beat him?

This is Free wrestling and not grec roman right?

Wrestling Sanderson has to suck.

so explain me this if you supposedly wrestled for a whole 2 years how did you not take it seirous at any point.. and the only ones that say that are the ones that were never any good, so they come up with stuff like aww it sucks because it way to serious for me so i quit, and really thier just trying to hide the fact that they hated getting that ass kicked all the time

I admire your ambition,but im sure there are way better ways of making money than wrestling. But hey i wish you the best,and do what makes you happy.

@THEincredibleLLAMA It is a something of a dogma in sports not to get out of character when losing. To contain oneself is admirable, always, not least in sports where social engineering has determined that remaining calm after a loss is the right thing to do.

look to all you haters that think wrestling is easy trust me it's not you have to be 100 percent commited

Tom Brands has championships, you have a keyboard.

brands created metcalf. cant argue with that

@dsettleascii cael not chael

3:27

Technique takes a back seat to brutality????

its cael fucking sandersonnnn

@THEincredibleLLAMA I didn't realise that the behaviour wasn't meant to be displayed to the world, I apologise. Of course what counts is that he shook his opponents hand. I'm not American so frankly, I don't give two fucks whether an American is from Iowa, Oregon or Nevada. : )

I did wrestle...

You cry a few times after a few loses,it’s out your system. You need to chased down into the parking lot by a search party, it’s time to pack it up.

cael sanderson status at 11 min mj of wrestling sik roll threw

@wrestler204 my bad

@TheGridironOrtega Les Gutches got caels number

The Iowa style is garbage in this era. The best Iowa style wrestler of our time is Brent Metcalf and look what scrawny toothpick Darrion Caldwell did to him. There is no substitute for technique.

@THEincredibleLLAMA no one likes to lose... that doesn't justify such childish behaviour. I'm not one of those who think it's just a sport, one shouldn't care, yet one should manage to show some sportmanship.

theres no shame in loosing to chael

@colby9595 haha i was just doing the same thing

folkstyle

@HaroMr69 believe what you like... I wouldn't pull a hair for Iowa nor any other state of the US since I'm not American.

@Daski69 Its great to see you've studied some of our geography, maybe you should study some of the athletic culture before commenting. I don't know if you've ever participated in an athletic competition before and if you have I'm sure you were perfect and have never felt defeat. If kicking a garbage can is a sore loser, consider us all then. I don't know where your from but you've clearly missed the point of the documentary if all you have are obscenities and "sore losers" for comments.

@trapblaster1 If they're crybabies what does that make you? Cause I bet any one of them is tougher than you'll ever be

yeah peple take sports waaay too fucking seriously,especailly wrestlers...

@wrcarlson1 Wow really? No need to throw the military in. People like you live in the wrong decade, go back tothe 70s and protest.

Lol you must not wrestle and if you do you dont want to be a good one.... you have to be selfish, it's you or the other guy

12;20 what a cry baby