I very quickly voted for Nolf, thinking that without the injury default he would have had 2 losses, highest bonus percentage and most pins. Then I started thinking about it a little bit more. Without the injury, Ruth is probably a 4 time champ and Zain was in my opinion the most dominant of the 4 and his losses were all as a true freshman. It's crazy that I would put Nickal 4th on the list, when he would be #1 at most other programs. They were all so good.
I will say that this time next year, I plan to vote for Messenbrink
The only question will be how many pins MM gets for his career. He went all of 24-25 without a FALL, but smoked almost everbody.
Messenbrink is exhibit A why the TF point criteria should have been raised to 18 or 20 if the TD is going to be 3 points. That of course assumes that we must have the damn thing. In a world where I am supreme wrestling dictator, the tech fall is buried on the ash heap of history and we bring back the superior decision.
Ending matches early has a couple effects:
1.) Spares an inferior opponent the possibility of a Rob Rohn win.
2.) Cheats a superior wrestler out a pin-especially high pace guys like Mesenbrink.
3.) Devalues the FALL which should always be the objective of wrestling.
4.) Cheats the audience. One of these days, there's going to be a dual meet where the aggregate time wrestled is 40 minutes, because five matches are TF's in the first or early second period.