Mat Awareness
By Adam Gusky
Mat AwarenessAug 17, 2020
Ep. 32: John Broughton | Trilla Fight Club
In this episode of the pod we talk Olympic Trials and Triller Fight Club. There's even a guest appearance on this one!
Ep. 31: Is This The End?
Ep. 30: Tristan Moran | Talking Wrestling, Cooking, and Video Games
Tristan Moran was a 2X State Champ in high school and went on to have a very successful career for the Wisconsin Badgers. He's not only a really good wrestler, but he takes pride in his cooking abilities and consider's himself the best gamer in wrestling. It was fun diving into those topics. Check it out!
Ep. 29: Trent Hillger | 2X All American Wisconsin Badger Heavyweight Wrestler
Trent Hillger is a 2X All American wrestler for the Wisconsin Badgers and he's only a junior. He has a big year coming up in a weight class filled with many different styles of wrestlers. Trent was also a 3X State Champ for Lake Fenton high school. In this episode we cover the Badger preseason, how loaded heavyweight is in the NCAA right now, and his performance at Senior Nationals.
Ep. 28: Anthony Echemendia | Life In Cuba, The Journey To The United States, Ohio State Wrestling
In 2019, the name Anthony Echemendia became a household name in the wrestling world. That year, he went undefeated as a senior and won a state championship, and then at Fargo won freestyle AND greco national titles. The reason no one knew about him until then is because he came from Cuba. In this episode, we'll cover what it was like being in Cuba, the struggles he faced during his journey to the United States, and what life is like for him living his dream at Ohio State. Mat Awareness Shirts: https://tdpclothing.com/collections/mat-awareness-gear/products/ma-tee
Ep. 27: Anthony Ashnault | Transitioning To College Wrestling, Mobbin' Media, and More
Anthony Ashnault was an UNDEFEATED 4X State Champ in the state of New Jersey as well as a National Champ for Rutgers. Tune in to hear a deep conversation about transitioning from high school to college, hear about Mobbin Media on Rokfin, and a cuppa other fun topics. It was a pleasure talking to Anthony and I look forward to seeing the match between him and my man Tyler Berger!
Also -- huge shout out to Cam Kramer for the podcast art the last couple of episodes!! Check out his pics at:
https://camkramerphoto.smugmug.com
Ep. 26: Myles Amine | Competing at the World Championships, and Going Into Senior Year as a 3X All American
Myles Amine of the University of Michigan is a 3X All American and took 5th at the World Championships in 2019 in Kazakhstan for his family's home country of San Marino. On this show we talked about competing at the world championships, some differences he noticed during his redshirt year while studying and training with foreign wrestlers, and this episode also features a guest appearance. You'll have to tune in to find out who joins the show... Enjoy!
Ep. 25: Jack Medley | Running Marathons For Fun, and Being a Successful Division 1 Wrestler On the Side
Jack Medley wrestles 125 pounds for the University of Michigan. Not only is he a very good wrestler, but he's spent a lot of his time running throughout the quarantine, so it was fun to hear from him about how he ended up doing not one but TWO marathons during the quarantine.
On this episode we get into what preseason in Ann Arbor has been like, Jack's running career, and a couple of other questions at the end.
Ep. 24: Tyler Berger | Wrestling Underground, Walking 100 Miles Straight, and a Message For Anthony Ashnault
Tyler Berger is coming off an awesome victory over another great wrestler, Joey McKenna. He tells us his thoughts on the Wrestling Underground event and what it was like getting into the cage to wrestle. We also get into his tweet about Jason Nolf (the Penn State Wrestling legend), why he did it, and the stuff people said to him after tweeting it and after the finals match that year. And lastly, we get into his 100 mile walk with Eric Schultz (197 pounder for Nebraska). Yes, they literally went for a 100 mile walk. Also, make SURE you stay till the end for a LEGENDARY call out to Anthony Ashnault.
Ep. 23: Gary Traub | A Quick Fill Up At the Gas Station with Covelli Center Legend Gas Tank Gary
Getting gas is a boring thing that everyone that drives a car has to do, so there's no one better to fill up with than the Covelli Center LEGEND himself Gary Traub AKA Gas Tank Gary. He's the Blue Collar Legend, The People's Champ, America's Heavyweight, whatever you want to call him. He trained over the summer with chickens and at a car dealership, you can't help but love this guy.
Shirts are now available at https://tdpclothing.com!
Ep. 22: Dave Malecek | Legendary Stories with Legends Including Dave Schultz, Mark Schwab, John Oostendorp, and Many More
Dave Malecek was a 2X State Champ at Osage High School, an All American at UNI, and is currently the head wrestling coach at the University of Wisconsin - La Crosse. During the recording of this episode, I heard some of the greatest wrestling stories of all time including so many legends like Dave Schultz, Mark Schwab, John Oostendorp, and so many more. If you're a wrestling fan, you're gonna LOVE this one.
Ep. 21: Ross Needham | 2X All American and Current Head Assistant Coach at UW-La Crosse
Ross Needham was a 2X All American and 4X Academic All American for the University of Wisconsin-La Crosse. He now serves as the Head Assistant coach at UW-La Crosse. He's quite a personable guy, and has a just as interesting wrestling career as you'll find out in the show. We go pretty in depth into his career, but one of my favorite parts of this episode is hearing his philosophy on parenting wrestlers, which is phenomenal. He's quite a character, check it out!
Ep. 20: Cole Schrupp | Legendary Videographer for the Minnesota Gophers
You might not recognize the name Cole Schrupp, but you've probably seen some of his work before. He's made countless awesome videos for the Gophers as well as many other teams, and one of his videos on youtube even hit over one million views. They're good, real good, and I'm always inspired by people that were the first one's to evolve their craft - and that's exactly what he did with wrestling videography. Great humble guy and I really enjoyed this conversation. Check out one of his most popular videos below:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Xzf5aws9Lhg&t=280s
Speed Energy by WinnieTheMoog
Link: https://filmmusic.io/song/5879-speed-...
License: http://creativecommons.org/licenses/b...
Ep. 19: Wesley Schultz | The Only 3X All American That Owns A Ferret
Speed Energy by WinnieTheMoog
Link: https://filmmusic.io/song/5879-speed-...
License: http://creativecommons.org/licenses/b...
Ep. 18: Bebeto Yewah | The Story of a 2X National Champ for UW-La Crosse and World Team Member
Bebeto Yewah started wrestling VERY late in the game, which is one of the many reasons his accomplishments are so impressive. As the title says, Bebeto was a 2X National Champ, and a 3X National Finalist for UW-La Crosse. He also ended up making the world team for his home country Cameroon where he dropped a close match to a 2X Bronze World Medalist which unfortunately ended his tournament. Bebeto talks about his high school career in Michigan, tells the story of how he ended up at UW-La Crosse, how he trained with Franklin Gomez over the summer after his freshman year, and tons more. Make sure to listen to the full episode to hear a CRAZY story about when he went to Egypt to wrestle towards the end of the show!
Music:
Speed Energy by WinnieTheMoog
Link: https://filmmusic.io/song/5879-speed-...
License: http://creativecommons.org/licenses/b...
Ep. 17: RECAP | FloWrestling's First Pro Event
I thought it would be fun to switch around the format of the podcast, and do a recap episode with John Broughton who made his SECOND appearance on the show! We discussed what we liked and disliked about FloWrestling's event, as well as some of our dream matchups that we would love to see happen at future events. I think David Taylor and Sadulaev are near the top of the list! Man we can't wait for NCAA and Olympic level wrestling to begin again. Enjoy the show!
Speed Energy by WinnieTheMoog
Ep. 16: Albie McKinney | Overcoming Adversity
Albie McKinney is currently a professional MMA fighter with a record of 14-6, and was a national runner up for UW-La Crosse. Putting those accolades aside, Albie is an amazing human being that has overcome a number of obstacles in life. I'm not going to get into the details because it would be a disservice to have anyone but him tell his story, so tune in and be prepared to hear about a man that came out on top of some very dark times.
Speed Energy by WinnieTheMoog
Ep. 15: Connor Boike | CEO & Founder of WrestleBoutique
Ep. 14: Kollin Moore | Training at Ohio State in a Room Full of Hammers
Ep. 13: Grant Zamin | 2X All American, Went in to the 2020 D3 NCAA Tournament as the Number 1 seed
Sebby The Sloth AKA Lenny Merkin | The Instagram Famous Sloth, Ran by Greco World Team Member Lenny Merkin (ep. 12)
Tune in to hear the crazy story of how "Sebby The Sloth" blew up in the wrestling world last year. By listening, you'll also get to know the behind the scenes guy, Lenny Merkin, who is a Greco phenom himself. He shares some great stories about building up Sebby, like how he turned a prize he got at a fair into an international wrestling icon, and also shares a bunch of his interesting stories from traveling overseas in the midst of his Olympic redshirt the past year. Check it out and please leave a rating and review if you enjoy it. Thank you listeners!
Nate Jackson | Talking About Race, the Black Wrestling Association, and Training at the NJRTC (ep. 11)
Nate Jackson is a great guy doing so many different great things and I sincerely enjoyed having him on. For those that don't know, he's a current senior level athlete at the NJRTC, a wrestling coach at Princeton, and had a successful college wrestling career himself finishing with two All American honors and over 100 wins. Anyways, we talked about the actions he's been taking with BWA as a response to what is currently going on in the United States, and how everyone can serve in helping fix our countries problems. We also talked a lil wrestling, training, matchups, ya know all that good stuff! I hope to do another podcast with him sometime and dive into his wrestling career a bit more, but thought that this was necessary to talk about right now and I wanted to get it out there ASAP.
BWA Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/bwassociation_/
BWA Survey: bit.ly/BlackWrestlingA
Huge S/O to Nate for coming on and doing his part to make this world a better place for everyone. Now let's do our parts with him. (me included!)
Nazar Kulchytskyy | 3X NCAA Champ, Accomplished U.S. Senior level wrestler (ep. 10)
On this episode you will learn about Nazar, and the struggles he faced to get to where he is today. He came from Ukraine not knowing much English, and ended up winning 3 national titles for UW-Oshkosh, and made it look easy. This conversation really humbled me and made me grateful for how easy my life has been, and I am very excited to share it with you guys. Enjoy the show!
Evan Wick | 3X D1 NCAA All American for the Badgers, CIF State Champ, Sushi Enthusiast (ep. 9)
John Broughton | Ben Askren's go-to Video Guy, Creator of the TrackWrestling Highlight Videos, and Wrestler at UW-Whitewater (ep. 8)
Kyle Conel | 2018 NCAA All American, Aspiring Game Dev (ep. 7)
Donald McNeil | The Comeback Story of a Lifetime, Current Athlete at the New England RTC (ep. 6)
Donald McNeil suffered a spinal injury during a greco match in the summer of his sophomore year. To put the severity of the injury into perspective, roughly ten thousand people suffer from an injury like this each year, and only 77 come out with fully recovered. After his injury, he was hearing terms like paraplegia tossed around him in the hospital. In this episode, he elaborates on the injury, the rehab process, and what it felt like having wrestling success after such a life changing event. One of the most inspiring wrestling comeback stories I've ever heard. Be sure to give this one a listen.
Jude Swisher | 2020 PIAA State Medalist, Win Magazine’s 2020 Wrestling Journalist of the Year (ep. 5)
I talked with Jude about everything from what it's like knowing David Taylor on a personal level to how he grew the HMA podcast (with Sam Herring) into something huge at just age 15. Super cool interview and we covered lot of fun topics, check it out and please leave a review if you liked it. Thanks!
Go check out his stuff @ hmawrestling.com!
Eric Barnett | Badger 125 pounder, 3X Wisconsin State Champ (ep. 4)
Eric Barnett is a 3X Wisconsin state champion from Hortonville High School (high school record of 185-3), and is currently the 125 pounder for the Wisconsin Badgers. Eric was very successful early on in his career so he talks a lot about what he did to stay motivated and make sure he didn't end up burning out. He also talks a lot about his transition from high school to college, and gives some great advice and insight for kids that are planning on wrestling in college. I really enjoyed catching up with Eric and think you'll enjoy what he had to say as well.
Cam Sykora | 5X Minnesota HS State Champ, 2020 133 pound Big XII Champ for NDSU (ep. 3)
Check out my interview Cam Sykora! He was a 5X Minnesota state champ, and went on to wrestle for a year at SDSU , before transferring to NDSU. At NDSU he was a 4X NCAA Qualifier, and most recently was the 2020 Big XII Champ at 133 pounds. It was awesome getting to know Cam a little bit and hear him reflect on his career, be sure to give it a listen!
Taylor Venz | Nebraska 184 pounder, 2018 D1 All American (ep. 2)
On this episode of the Mat Awareness podcast, your host Adam Gusky sits down with Taylor Venz to talk about everything from life in quarantine, to taking ice skating lessons as a young kid, and doing stadium stair workouts. Enjoy!