On The Mat: Wrestling is Saved

Olympic Wrestling is Saved!!!!!!

As many of you may already know, wrestling was voted back into the Olympic Games for 2020 and 2024. This is a result of the efforts of many people all over the world who committed themselves to saving in the Olympics what many of us consider to be the greatest sport in the world. Special congratulations should go to Jim Ravannack, the president of USA Wrestling, Rich Bender, Jim Scherr and all of the other members of the Save Olympic Wrestling Committee.

I also want to take this opportunity to congratulate the members of the USA world team that are now competing at the world championships in Budapest Hungary. While the competition is still being held, here is a list of the USA wrestlers that have placed so far in the competition.

Alyssa Lampe Bronze Medalist 48 kilograms Freestyle Women
Victoria Anthony 5th Place 51 kilograms Freestyle Women
Helen Maroulis 7th Place 55 kilograms Freestyle Women
Elena Pirozhkova Bronze Medalist 63 kilograms Freestyle Women
Angel Escobedo 5th Place 55 kilograms Freestyle Men
Tervel Dlagnev 5th Place 120 kilograms Freestyle Men
Jordan Burroughs 3x World Champion 74 kilograms Freestyle Men

Saving wrestling in the Olympic Games provides thousands of young men and women around the world and here in America the opportunity to pursue their dreams of becoming an Olympic Champion. Winning the Olympic gold medal is the pinnacle of our sport. Unlike sports like baseball, basketball, etc, there is no professional wrestling league. The lessons and skills that are learned by being a wrestler not only are valuable in MMA, but also in the game of life. Once again thank you to everyone who supported wrestling in its bid to remain in the Olympics.

Finally, I am proud to announce that I am helping the Adam Muffler Memorial Organization (A.M.M.O.) in their fight against post traumatic stress disorder (P.T.S.D.). Today, 22 veterans are committing suicide every day. Adam Muffler was a returning veteran student at SLU. He was only 24 years old, with two combat tours served when he decide that "everything was unfixable", and that he "couldn't un-see what he'd seen", and took his own life. With our veterans returning home, we can anticipate a surplus of soldiers in our academic campuses. With a collaboration of the academic institutions, together with the private and public sectors, this 22 a day count can change. A.M.M.O. will be running a MMA fight on October 26th 2013 at the 11,000 seat Chaifetz Arena as a fundraiser for PTSD awareness and rehabilitation programs. This will be the largest MMA charity fight held in St Louis.

Adam's coach Steve Berger had this to say:

"It was evident that Adam had some personal demons he was battling. The adjustment from being part of the military lifestyle to being alone. When Adam was training, he was focused, you could see the stress and unhappiness melt away. He was a great student and training partner and could put together a mean workout. Unfortunately his personal life started getting in the way of training and problems seemed to well up. I truly feel that training as helping combat the effects of PTSD and because of Adam's death we have felt the need to give discounts to veterans and plan to sponsor veterans through a program at the gym because we feel that this outlet is so beneficial."

Please take a minute to like their page on Facebook and please send them a message if you are willing to help or contribute.

TICKETS ARE NOW ON SALE FOR THE EVENT AT http://www.ammo-usa.org/ And for a limited time only you can receive a $5 discount off by entering the code "knucklejunkies" on the website when buying tickets.

PLEASE look into your hearts and come out to support our veterans and be a part of history at this incredible night of patriotism and fighting. Fight announcements will be coming soon and the card is going to be incredible!!

As usual, thank you for taking the time to read this column. Good luck and God Bless.

David