It's time to wake-up in the wrestling world

I don't like it, but sometimes the truth hurts.  Sometimes looking in the mirror is difficult and way too revealing.  So we look away.  We search for others to quickly blame in order to feel like the victim.   The decision by the IOC has served as a wake-up call, but after three days, we're still sleeping.  As a wrestling community, we're failing to see that we played a giant role in this decision and, until we face the facts, we're destined to lose again.

First of all, I'll affirm everyone's claims that the IOC is a corrupt political organization looking out for itself and following the all mighty dollar.  However, that doesn't give us license to dismiss responsibility in all of this.  If we dare to look at this situation through the eyes of the IOC, there just might be logic to their decision.  And that might be the start to identifying a few of our own problems.

As a wrestling community, it's not wise to believe all of us have a "voice."  With all due respect, petitions and Facebook 'likes' will do very little in restoring wrestling.  A petition to the President of the United States, really?  That's what we're going with?  Remember how excited the IOC was to hear from Barak Obama in Copenhagen in 2009 for the Chicago Olympics bid?  Have you ever seen a Facebook presence by FILA?  Now, we're taking it to Facebook.  Too little, too late.  That's not how the world works and it's not how America works anymore, either.  Jacques Rogge might feel pressure or hear the complaints, but it will pass in time.  We've entirely missed the big picture if this is how we're planning on fighting for the sport that we love.  We all must choose to be part of the solution rather than part of the problem and if it is going to be reinstated, it's going to take personal relationships with IOC members.  That's not about using our "voice."

As I mentioned, sometimes the truth hurts.  Here's the truth:

• The Associated Press has reported that wrestling ranked low in general popularity scoring just below 5 on a scale of 10  (pentathlon scored 5.2 on the same scale).  We aren't relevant; plain and simple.

• Wrestling has always ranked low in TV, internet hits and press coverage ratings.  It's an extremely difficult sport to watch given the inconsistent and subjective rules.  Olympic wrestling is boring.  It's just not good for TV with the current rules and people don't understand it.  Swimming, gymnastics, figure skating, etc. are easy to watch and understand even if you've never competed in it.

• Wrestling sold 113,851 tickets in London out of 116,854 available at a Games where most events were selling out.

• The IOC report also observed that FILA has no athletes on its decision-making bodies, no women's commission, no ethics rules for technical officials and no medical official on its executive board.

• As previously stated, FILA has basically been invisible on social media outlets like Facebook and Twitter.  Their website is impossible to navigate (even for a wrestling junky like myself) and major international events are basically unreported.  Even their URL is confusing.  It was recently www.fila-wrestling.org, but now it's www.fila-official.com. 

Wrestling wasn't blind sided, either.  The media and general public may not have seen it coming, but there's no way it should have been a surprise to the international wrestling federations.  I've known for quite some time that the IOC has been talking about eliminating Greco-Roman wrestling.  Failure to take that seriously is nothing less than arrogance on the part of FILA and the entire international wrestling community.  Pentathlon had known since 2002 and made progressive change to be in the favor of the IOC.  Wrestling did the opposite.  Pentathlon was also successful in getting someone on the IOC board (Juan Antonia Samarach, Jr.).  FILA did virtually nothing of the sort and everything I've heard is they've never made a push to get someone on the board.  So why expect a different result?

Look at it from the IOC perspective - logically, not emotionally.  Has wrestling grown in the past 10 years?  Compare it to, say lacrosse or soccer in the US.  Since the inclusion of women's wrestling in the Olympics in 2004, major universities across the US have added numerous women's varsity programs, including beach volleyball and lacrosse.  By contrast, the number of Division 1 women's wrestling programs: zero.  Closely related is the fact that college wrestling programs are being dropped annually as a result not offering a comparable opportunity for female athletes and the three-prong test of Title IX (number 2: expansion of athletic opportunities for the underrepresented sex).

The IOC (yes, the IOC) threw wrestling a bone to grow wrestling.  They made it completely comprehensible to offer wrestling to the other 50% of the world's population.  Free of charge, they gave us the single best opportunity to grow.  We took the bone and buried it in the back yard.  I can count on one had the number of individuals who have gone into the trenches for women's since 2004.  Wrestling pulled the victim card instead of seeing it as the opportunity for international growth and influence.  Remember the poster with Bruce Baumgartner and Tim Vanni that said "Any Body Can Wrestle."  Can they?  Can Iran really say wrestling is for everyone?  Can the US, for that matter?  We've refused to invest the necessary resources and manpower into real growth and we throw pentathlon under the bus for being about only a certain echelon of society?

Wrestling was in ancient Olympics and has been in the modern Olympics since the beginning.  It's globally diverse and Olympic medals are won by every ethnic background.  This is important, for sure.  It's not going to keep us in the match, though.  We have to become relevant.  We have to get with the times.  We have to show the world what we have to offer right now and in the future, not just where we've been in the past.

One of the ideals I've learned in wrestling is that participating in sports is not a right; it's a privilege.  For the Olympics, that adage rings true.  Wrestling is not exempt from earning it's place in the Olympic Games.  We're not entitled to anything simply because Jacob wrestled an angel of God 4,000 years ago.

We have to wake up.  We have to look at the facts and listen to the truth.  The writing was on the wall and we refused to look at it.  We have to be better than we are today.  Albert Einstein is quoted to say, "Problems cannot be solved by the same level of thinking that created them."