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The Mount(s) Rushmore of NCAA Wrestling

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Wrestleknownothing

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Oct 30, 2021
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Joejitsu said:
i mean he was unbeatable in his time.... got to be top 3 or 4 HBU
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HBU?

As for unbeatable, yes. But he is only fifth on the list of most wins without a loss.

159 - Sanderson
70 - Simons
58 - Uetake
46 - Hodge
36 - Koll
29 - Rex Peery
25 - McCready
23 - Arndt
22 - van Bebber
19 - Caldwell

Do not take this as a knock on Koll, because it absolutely is not.

Who would you displace among the eight I mentioned? McCready, Peery, Gable, Hodge, Simons, Smith, Sanderson, Dake?
 
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Wrestleknownothing

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PennState1985 said:
I honestly never thought four titles at four weights was some Superman pinnacle. It was just Dake’s path. No different than any other path imho. Weight is meaningless, and no, I do not subscribe to the theory that Dake had it tougher. He knew he had DT’s number so the risk was minimal.
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My sense from my days on Intermat is that PSU fans find it less impressive than non-PSU fans.
 
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Joejitsu

Joejitsu

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DT, Ed Ruth, Zain, Nolf, Bo, Carter, and Aaron Brooks can all lay claims to being on MT RUSHMORE
1. Zain
2. Aaron
3. Carter
4. Nolf
5. Bo
6. DT
7. Easy Ed

in that order for me.... 2 through 5 though we could swap anywhere, just depend what you value....
Mitch is about to claim a top spot there also !
 
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Joejitsu

Joejitsu

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Wrestleknownothing said:
HBU?

As for unbeatable, yes. But he is only fifth on the list of most wins without a loss.

159 - Sanderson
70 - Simons
58 - Uetake
46 - Hodge
36 - Koll
29 - Rex Peery
25 - McCready
23 - Arndt
22 - van Bebber
19 - Caldwell

Do not take this as a knock on Koll, because it absolutely is not.

Who would you displace among the eight I mentioned? McCready, Peery, Gable, Hodge, Simons, Smith, Sanderson, Dake?
Click to expand...
Legit... IDK if i could displace any....
I would have Hodge bc he was soooo dominant but with only 46 matches..... I can make an argument against.
Dan Gable really has to be a top 8 guy right?

What about Wade Schalles 153-5-1 but he won 4 NCAA titles (albiet 2 were D2 and 2 were D1)
But he pinned nearly 705 of his opponents. This was domination at its finest
 
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Wrestleknownothing

All-American
Oct 30, 2021
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Joejitsu said:
Legit... IDK if i could displace any....
I would have Hodge bc he was soooo dominant but with only 46 matches..... I can make an argument against.
Dan Gable really has to be a top 8 guy right?

What about Wade Schalles 153-5-1 but he won 4 NCAA titles (albiet 2 were D2 and 2 were D1)
But he pinned nearly 705 of his opponents. This was domination at its finest
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I am thinking I need to do a Bill Simmons-esque tiers.
 
a_mshaffer

a_mshaffer

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Dec 8, 2014
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Joejitsu said:
DT, Ed Ruth, Zain, Nolf, Bo, Carter, and Aaron Brooks can all lay claims to being on MT RUSHMORE
1. Zain
2. Aaron
3. Carter
4. Nolf
5. Bo
6. DT
7. Easy Ed

in that order for me.... 2 through 5 though we could swap anywhere, just depend what you value....
Mitch is about to claim a top spot there also !
Click to expand...
keep the chisel out as MM finishes up...
 
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BriantheLion

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Wrestleknownothing said:
ahhhh, COVID. Didn't think to check for that.

It raises the metaphysical question, is it possible to qualify for something that does not exist?
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In this case, yes… the qualification IIRC play out… the season AND the conference championships definitely happened, and IIRC they had seeded, so presumably had the 33/weight class, the tournament, and then awarded AA status to the top eight seeds.
 
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mcpat

mcpat

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CowbellMan said:
That looks like a ton of work done and a great read. Thank you.

I have only one comment and that is the one liner about “real debate” of whether 159-0 is better than 4 championships at 4 different weights. One is absurd (159-0) and the other did something every champion wrestler has done their entire career: win at increasingly higher weights. You know what’s more impressive than Dake’s weight gain? Pat Smith didn’t grow at all!!

This not to minimize Dake’s career and everything else mentioned in the article. Dude was and still is a monster with a brutal defense. If he had won 4 but over 3 weight classes, would that make his greatness less?? It would not.

Weight changes are fun but really unrelated data. 🤷🏻‍♂️
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I wasn’t that impressed with 4 at 4 different weights at the time, but I’m become much more impressed with it since he when went up 26 pounds at 35 years of age and beat the reigning world champion. It’s getting insane at this point. He won his first title at 141 lbs and now made the world team beating the world champ at 189.
 
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Wrestleknownothing

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As for GPT - dammit this is pretty close:

So, if you're asking "How many different people have wrestled in the NCAA men's wrestling tournament?" the best estimate is about 13,000 unique athletes, with a plausible range of 12,000–15,000.

And for the record, Google's Gemini crapped the bed again:

"Given that 80 wrestlers go winless every single year, over the course of decades, thousands of athletes have finished their tournament runs without a hand raised. While many of those 80 are repeat qualifiers who may have won matches in previous or subsequent years, a massive portion of them are one-time qualifiers who finished their college careers with a 0-2 lifetime NCAA tournament record."

And Claude was equally crappy:

"you could ballpark somewhere in the thousands to low tens of thousands over the tournament's ~95-year history — but that would be a loose extrapolation, not a sourced figure."
 
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OldMatCoach

OldMatCoach

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Freshmen were not eligible in Hodge's day and schools simply did not wrestle as many matches and they were almost all duals. I am 75 (younger than Danny RIP) and it was like that back in the day. Never taken down, over 80 percent pin rate, cover of SI ... it ain't called the Hodge Trophy for nothing! He has got to be on there.
 
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Wrestleknownothing

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OldMatCoach said:
Freshmen were not eligible in Hodge's day and schools simply did not wrestle as many matches and they were almost all duals. I am 75 (younger than Danny RIP) and it was like that back in the day. Never taken down, over 80 percent pin rate, cover of SI ... it ain't called the Hodge Trophy for nothing! He has got to be on there.
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And he is. I had him ahead of Gable, but the creator of the Hodge, and his close friend, convinced me otherwise.
 
H

HwtsRgr8

Freshman
Nov 24, 2025
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NCAA wrestling is the only criteria that matters, right? Coaching accolades mean squat, International records mean squat.

I've said for years, Gable doesn't coach and he is just another 2xer

Look at all the 3xers that have been forgotten by history

Tough decisions
 
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BriantheLion

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HwtsRgr8 said:
NCAA wrestling is the only criteria that matters, right? Coaching accolades mean squat, International records mean squat.

I've said for years, Gable doesn't coach and he is just another 2xer

Look at all the 3xers that have been forgotten by history

Tough decisions
Click to expand...
Dan Gable got A LOT of hype from ABC… and in fact won…in the ‘72 Olympics… when I was going into high school… that’s how I knew about him, and would be plen fo me to remember him.

I wasn’t following when he was coaching.

Nowadays TV cameras keep showing him in the crowd at duals and tournaments, and he’s hamming it up in commercials.
 
H

HwtsRgr8

Freshman
Nov 24, 2025
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BriantheLion said:
Dan Gable got A LOT of hype from ABC… and in fact won…in the ‘72 Olympics… when I was going into high school… that’s how I knew about him, and would be plen fo me to remember hIm
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hype and NCAA wrestling cred are not the same

Plenty of 3 timers that did not lose their last match
 
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BriantheLion

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HwtsRgr8 said:
hype and NCAA wrestling cred are not the same

Plenty of 3 timers that did not lose their last match
Click to expand...
I’m not advocating for him, just saying that he became well known to anyone watching that Olympics… and stood out to an impressionable young wrestler, more than anyone I remember… I think by the time Cael came to the Olympics, whichever network carried it was already on its way to marginalizing wrestling, weightlifting, perhaps other traditional sports.
 
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mh-larch

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Nov 20, 2019
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In the very early days of the NCAA Wrestling Tournament not all teams competed. I recall reading somewhere on this board that there were some seasons when the championsips were on the west coast Penn State did not send a team (even with individuals qualified). I don't know what year that started to change, but it takes some of the luster off the teams and individuals who won championships. I get that they wresteed who showed up, but it still should be taken into account with some of the older wrestlers on some of these lists. Gable would have wrestled at fully attended championships.
 
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Joejitsu

Joejitsu

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if Mitch wins 3 / with one career loss / in the finals and on criteria
with his sky high bonus rate
probably a 2x Hodge winner

Does that move him top 5?
top 3?
 
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Joejitsu

Joejitsu

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Wrestleknownothing said:
HBU?

As for unbeatable, yes. But he is only fifth on the list of most wins without a loss.

159 - Sanderson
70 - Simons
58 - Uetake
46 - Hodge
36 - Koll
29 - Rex Peery
25 - McCready
23 - Arndt
22 - van Bebber
19 - Caldwell

Do not take this as a knock on Koll, because it absolutely is not.

Who would you displace among the eight I mentioned? McCready, Peery, Gable, Hodge, Simons, Smith, Sanderson, Dake?
Click to expand...
Some of these guys though have under 30 matches in 3 years. this makes it difficult to put them up there...

1. Cael Sanderson 159-0, 4x, 3 time Hodge , Olympic gold
2. Yajiro Uetake 58-0, 3x champ , 2 x Olympic gold
3. Bill Koll 72-0, 3x champ, OW 2x
4. Dan Hodge 46 -0, 3x champ / 36 pins / never gave up a single takedown
5. Kyle Dake 137-4, 4x champs at 4 different weight classes. / Won a hodge
6. Dan Gable 117-1 2x champ / 3x finalist / Olympic gold / he dominated in his time / 100 match win streak / only Cael beats that (i think)
7. Yiannio Diakomihalis- 115-2, 4x NCAA champ
8. Carter Starocci 104-4, 5NCAA TITLES
9. Logan Steiber 119-3, 4 NCAA titles, Hodge

i know that guys like Peery, McCready, VanBebber and more were undefeated but with under 30 matches... hard for me to put them ahead of some of these guys with a couple of loses on their record/ but hard to argue with never lost!
 
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hooraybeer

Sophomore
Dec 6, 2013
58
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Streetcar is one hell of a wrestler, but being 21 at your 1st NCAA championships puts you way down the list. Lee Kemp. Jason Nolf, Bo, Snyder, Zain. How old Levi at his last NCAA?
 
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