A Wrestling Weekend To Remember

TigerBlog watched "The Irishman" on Netflix last week.

He spread it out over three days, in fact. He's not sure he could have made it through a movie that length in a movie theater, though he does remember when he saw "The Right Stuff" in the theater way back in the pre-Netflix days of 1984.

That movie, if you've never seen it, is about the Mercury astronauts. It runs 3:12, which is fine for a football game but not to sit still for a movie. Anyway, TigerBlog's friend Ed Mikus Jr. dragged him to see it, despite the fact that TB had no interest in a move that long.

It started at 8. At what TB thought was about 30 minutes later he looked at his watch, to see that it was actually 10:40. So maybe he could have done "The Irishman" in the theater.

Or not.

Here is his mini-review: Instead of watching "The Irishman" once, watch "Goodfellas" twice. Or better yet, watch "Goodfellas" once and "Dog Day Afternoon once." That way you get peak DeNiro, Pesci and Pacino - and it'll only take you about 60 minutes longer to do so.

Yeah. That about covers it.

TB also watched another movie this weekend, one that he'd seen a bunch of times before: "Almost Famous." Now that's a great movie, especially the scene where Russell talks to William's mother on the phone. There aren't too many scenes in any movie anywhere better than that one.

The movie is the story of an up-and-coming band that is just hitting it big. The name of the fictional band - modeled after "The Allman Brothers" - is "Stillwater."

As TB was watching the movie, the Princeton wrestling team was actually in Stillwater, taking on Oklahoma State. It was the start of an incredible weekend for the Tigers. 

If you're interested in just results, then you can say the Tigers went 0-2. If you're interested in the big picture, then you can say that nobody who was part of the team this weekend will ever forget it.
The big picture is always so much better.

Princeton, ranked 12th nationally, began the weekend in the aforementioned Stillwater to wrestle against No. 9 Oklahoma State. The weekend then concluded back at Jadwin yesterday afternoon, against No. 1 Iowa.

Between the two matches, Princeton competed in front of about 6,000 fans.

And, by the way, the Tigers acquitted themselves quite well. They actually won more matches than Oklahoma State, but a forfeit led to an 18-15 OSU win.

Then, back in Jadwin - which happens to be 1,350 miles from Stillwater - Princeton fell 30-9 to the Hawkeyes. Even with that defeat though, Princeton put on a great show for the large community of New Jersey wrestling fans.

The entire weekend seemed like one huge match of nationally ranked wrestlers after another. There were bouts that could provide rematches in the NCAA finals if everything breaks right.

Princeton had three wrestlers who won both of their matches: Patrick Glory, the No. 4 wrestler at 125, Travis Stefanik, unranked at 184, and Quincy Monday, ranked ninth at 157.

All three defeated wrestlers ranked higher than they are.

Patrick Brucki, an All-America a year ago and the No. 2-ranked wrestler at 197, went 1-1 on the weekend, with a win over Oklahoma State's No. 6 Dakota Geer and a loss to Iowa's No. 3 Jacob Warner. That's a lot of intensity in a weekend, sort of like a mini-NCAA tournament.

Princeton is now off until the 19th, when it hosts 20th-ranked Rider. Princeton is the highest-ranked Ivy League and EIWA team, and there will some huge Ivy matches come the new year.

This weekend didn't affect any of that, but it was still an incredible experience. It was a great bit of scheduling to be able to pull off, and it probably created all kinds of logistical headaches to coordinate.

In the end, it was well worth it, as Princeton had, as TB said, the kind of weekend that they'll all remember forever.

And isn't that the point of it?