I grew up during the Dan Gable wrestling era at Iowa. From my perspective as a kid, the only names in wrestling were Iowa, Iowa State, Oklahoma and Oklahoma State. In fact, from 1968 until 2000 only one other school won the national championship. In the last 12 years, Minnesota and Iowa have both won three national championships which can only add some spice to the animated rivalry between the two schools. Though I have never seen any wrestling in person, I'm enough of an Iowa fan to want to go see them, especially when I can use my University of Minnesota student ID to get in free.
I arrived at the end of the introductions and found a place to sit next to some Iowa fans. Shortly afterwards some Minnesota fans sat on the other side of me. Even though wrestling is a pretty straight forward sport (get your opponent on the mat and if possible on their back), I still felt like a novice and learned some from listening the comments of those on either side of me. The two teams were evenly matched with Minnesota ranked 4th and Iowa 5th. Both wrestlers were ranked in 8 of the 10 bouts. That meant there wasn't much action at times since neither wrestler could find a good opening. There was little chance of seeing a pin. These wrestlers were just too good. Sometimes the fans were so quiet that I could hear the instructions the Iowa coaches were giving. The quietness may have had something to do with Iowa winning 4 of the first 5 bouts. The crowd was much more animated when Minnesota turned the tables and won the last four bouts resulting in a 15 to 15 tie. That felt very unsatisfying to me. Neither team should have to settle for a tie after all the work that they put in. When I got home I discovered that Iowa won 16 to 15 since they outscored the Gophers 41 to 33. That gave them the extra point and the win. In the past three years I've seen the Gophers beat the Hawkeyes two times in football. It was nice to see Iowa come in and get a win.
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