Recruiting….

SpacemanSpifff said:

They’re not called “commies” anymore, they’re called “democratic socialists.”

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MSU158 said:

Our resident socialist with the quick deflection!

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WS_Cop said:

you sure you wanna open this can of worms with me?

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WS_Cop said:

Part 1:
The main thing is that what people have to realize is, in 97 NATO began to expand. ‘91 the Soviet Union collapses, the Warsaw Pact comes apart, all these nations become independent nations that were historically part of the Russian Empire. So in Central Asia and Eastern Europe, the thing about Russia is that they're so big that their foreign policy is based on, like any country, defending their borders. Russia has this big geography problem where it's so big and it's got such a great border, and it's situated in such a precarious place where it's difficult to defend these borders. So what its foreign policy is motivated by is finding the best way to defend its borders. So what it has to do in Eastern Europe, to make it quick, is they have to shorten their border with the west. The great European plane is shaped like a funnel and in East Germany it's at its smallest part, and then the further east you go the more it opens up.

So Russia, to defend its western border, it wants to make that border as small as possible. So Russia has to expand westward in order to have a defensible border. The farther east it goes, the moreland there is to defend, the more open flat land that they have to defend, so you know this is why the Russian empire expanded west. This is why the Soviet Union had the warsaw pact and was its furthest westward point was in was in East Germany


So in 91 when the Soviet Union collapsed and all these countries became independent. That's why Putin says it's a geopolitical disaster because now Russia's at its smallest point its population is halved and it loses lots of resources and lots of land.

In 97 NATO begins expanding and it starts moving eastward towards Russia - which is like they're coming at Russia with like a dagger towards the throat of Moscow (geographically). So what happens is they keep moving eastward and you know all the former Warsaw Pact countries go to NATO. Now Russia is very vulnerable. Russia is recovering from the collapse of the Soviet Union and they are trying to piece back together the empire. Their bulwark is Belarus and Ukraine. Ukraine has the Crimea Peninsula which gives them control of the Black Sea. Russia also doesn't have year-round ports where they have access to the sea because their ports freeze so this is one of their only year-round ports, which gives them access to the Eastern Mediterranean, so it's also important for that reason.

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Trakker said:

Pretty sure after last years tournament, the dad said they would never be back.

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dicemen99 said:

Seems strange that big Fred was unaware that S32 weighins operated that way given that the kids had only wrestled in about 8 of them before and also in many, many other PA wrestling tournaments with the same weigh in rules like Tyrant, Waterway, Ultimate Club, etc. Anyone have an idea what spurred this change?

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Corby2 said:

Did they go to your event?

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IndianaHawk98 said:

Don’t know if anyone saw WNO; but, that Paul Kenny and Grey Burnett match was not reassuring… the gap has widen a lot between those two. At one point, Kenny beat him and the script has flipped greatly.

Is Kenny not big enough for 133? Are there any concerns? Sammy Sanchez looked really good…

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IndianaHawk98 said:

Don’t know if anyone saw WNO; but, that Paul Kenny and Grey Burnett match was not reassuring… the gap has widen a lot between those two. At one point, Kenny beat him and the script has flipped greatly.

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RockySmith said:

I think:

2023 freestyle: Kenny 5–3 Burnett (U17 WTT, best of 3)
2023 freestyle: Kenny 7–2 Burnett. (U17 WTT, best of 3)
2025 folkstyle: Burnett 4–2 Kenny (2025 Ironman finals at 126)
2026 freestyle: Burnett 6–1 Kenny (2026 U20/23 WTT)
2026 folkstyle: Burnett 13–1 Kenny (last week)

I expect things can change next year when each wrestler gets in their new environment with new coaches and partners.

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AS17380 said:

So now that Matt O’Neill is training at KD how much does that hurt our odds of getting him

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AS17380 said:

So now that Matt O’Neill is training at KD how much does that hurt our odds of getting him

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AS17380 said:

So now that Matt O’Neill is training at KD how much does that hurt our odds of getting him

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IndianaHawk98 said:

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