I came here from Ireland and learned the Iowa way of wrestling and the culture surrounding it. I joined in and busted my arse. Iowa wrestling is a way of life.

10:59…I went to Penn state when I was 16 years old for a wrestling camp and after one of our drills they called for us to go get water. I stayed behind and ended up face to face by myself with Cael Sanderson (who was the coach of course) and I asked him about this very moment and he remembered it immediately. So I asked if he could teach it to me and he said “I’ll tell you what, when we come back from break, we’ll work on it” and he kept his promise. We worked on backfall cradles for the next half hour at least and I ended up using it to win a ton of matches. Thank you for helping me Cael 🙏

Cael Sanderson is THE MAN!
Pure and seamless technical perfection - look at Cael's eyes during the match, he's in his Zen space, totally in control.
Love the use of the ankle pick and the cradle too - something the Iowa Hawkeye  wrestlers seem to not use at all.
I watched this whole documentary and I felt that the wrestler who didn't make the starting line-up, Josh Budke, would have benefited much more from going to a wrestling program that emphasized technique, holds and leverage - like Iowa State.
Instead, the Iowa Hawkeyes all train in the Dan Gable style - endless conditioning, strength training and stamina work, but less emphasis on pure wrestling techniques.
The most successful Iowa Hawkeye wrestlers tend to be squat, stocky, muscular wrestlers who use their strength and stamina to bully and wear out their opponents - which was NOT the right style for a wrestler who is lanky and lean and less physically strong, like Josh Budke.
In the beginning of the documentary, I didn't care for Steve Mocco - who sounded like a bullying jerk.  But, when it's revealed that he lost almost all his matches as a young kid, yet stuck with it and built himself into a wrestling monster - my respect for him grew enormously.
I liked Mike Zaddick, but his dad seems kind of nuts - the stereotypical "sports-father".

Cannot thank you enough for posting the entire documentary.

iowa st head coach is a good man

When you commit to wrestling, you sacrifice a bunch and you work your butt off all season. It is really hard to not take something like that seriously.

Lol every time they showed Tom brands it looked like he hated Zalesky and was just waiting for his time to come.

man i wish dan gable was still coach because i heard his drills are deadly

Thanks for posting these up man. Appreciate it

Cael executing that crazy cradle was brutal! Whoa!

This is like an animal documentary.

Many thanks.  This has been fantastic to watch.

Anyone ever notice the similarity in looks between Cael Sanderson and Channing Tatum?

Zadick will always be a champ in my book.

Such a good documentary

when cael sanderson came out i got chills it was like as if god had entered the room

watching this and doing pushups and situps getting ready for next season, yeah buddy

commit and train 24-7 push past things u never imagined u could do

look how the iowa state coach smiles. you don't see that shit in the iowa room lol

Best quote:  "Give yourself the BEST CHANCE to win!"