Before the era of the big man in the mid 80's, before Hulkamania ran wild, promoters kept their championships on smaller athletes with solid wrestling skills and backgrounds. Vince Sr. trusted Bob Backlund with his strap, while in the AWA, Nick Bockwinkel was Verne Gagne's go-to guy. And there was a reason why Ric Flair was "The Man" who traveled from one territory to another seven days a week, twice on Saturday, twice on Sunday.
With pro wrestling's style having predominantly transitioned from athletics on the mat to high-flying acrobatics, perhaps a background in amateur wrestling isn't as necessary or prevalent today. However, there's at least one up and comer who loved his amateur upbringing and feels it makes a difference in his matches.
Can Crushers recently spotlighted Tye Clodd, a wrestler from Israel who discovered our podcast and reached out to us. (We're over in Israel!) If you haven't heard the interview, give it a listen. It was posted February 12.
Clodd's training in amateur wrestling only lasted a year, but he made the most of that time by going to practice every day. At 14, he was younger than the advanced kids but older than the newbies, so he went to both practices! Seven days a week, (but only once on Saturday and once on Sunday) "The Last and Most Honest Man in Wrestling" trained for three hours. "I was sitting in school just waiting for it to end, so I can run and go to the practice," he remembers.
Competition included a tournament in Tel Aviv in which Clodd earned first place among four competitors. He had qualified for his country's national tournament, but an injury abruptly ended his scholastic wrestling career.
In his own words, Clodd does some "damn good" German Suplexes, but his amateur wrestling mostly helped him with his stamina to train as a pro. He realizes his amateur career was short and would never want to disrespect those athletes who wrestled all through their scholastic careers because, "they could flip me over 1,000 times and pin me before I'll even say, 'Hello. How are you there?'"
Clodd loved his wrestling training and would do it all over again if he could. In fact, he may just do it all over again! He reached out to his trainer who told him the door is always open to come back to train!
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