Mat Awareness

In this episode of the pod we talk Olympic Trials and Triller Fight Club. There's even a guest appearance on this one!

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!

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.

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

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 

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!

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. 

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.

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!

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.

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!

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!

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!

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.

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 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.

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!

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!