Dan Henderson and Matt Lindland picked a strange object of their athletic devotions. I’m not talking about MMA, I’m speaking of the almost universally misunderstood sport of Greco-Roman wrestling
I can’t prove it with numbers or any other reliable evidence, but my experiences tell me that the vast number of Americans are totally ignorant of what distinguishes one style of wrestling from another, particularly in the case of Greco. A reasonable percentage of the population understands that there is a thing called Greco Roman wrestling, but the individuals making up this segment of the populous typically harbor complete mistaken conceptions of the sport’s nature.
The most common confusion over Greco that I encounter arises from a lack of public awareness over the fact that the Olympics feature two styles of men’s wrestling, each of which awarding different sets of medals. While most people are usually vaguely aware of wrestling in the Olympics, I would guess that more than half of them wrongly believe that all Olympic wrestling is Greco-Roman.
The average Joe I run across outside the wrestling community definitely does not know that Greco is a form of wrestling where leg attacks, i.e. trips and shots, are totally forbidden. When I explain Greco’s unique rule restrictions to this hypothetical every man, he becomes incredulous, wondering aloud how any such a sport is possible.
I can understand the general utter lack of familiarity with Greco. The term ‘Greco-Roman wrestling’ rarely bubbles up in popular culture, and when it does, those discussing it have little interest in providing information on its various nuances. In fact, the typical pop culture consumer only encounters Greco-Roman wrestling as means for a lazy comedian to score cheap laughs. This pattern noticeably manifests itself in Will Farrell’s on-screen depiction of a Greco wrestler in the terrible Tim Meadows vehicle “The Ladies Man”. The movie seeks to produce comedy through the following, and depressingly common, rationale: “In Greco-Roman wrestling men touch each other. Men touching necessarily entails gayness, and gay equals ridiculous. Therefore everyone ought to ridicule Greco with uproarious and derisive laughter hahahahahahaha. Hey everyone let’s mis-characterize a sport, and then laugh at its perceived gayness hahahahaha.”
Oh man, good stuff. Good good stuff. Boffo.
When a throwaway Will Farrell performance in a bad movie is the most common thing people associate with a sport, then that no doubt exists as to that sport’s utter obscurity. Yet somehow, someway, Matt Lindland and Dan Henderson discovered Greco-Roman wrestling, found they were incredibly good at it and decided that they would spend years of their life attempting to become the best Greco practicioners in the world.
The problem with their aspirations towards Greco-Roman greatness was a financial one. Living costs money, and Greco hardly pays any by itself. Fortunately for Lindland and Henderson, they found that Greco could help them make some cash in another sport.
In the late 1990’s, the proliferation of mixed martial arts provided tough people with a new way to make a few bucks by beating each other up. Lindland and Henderson realized that their years grinding away as college wrestlers and as standouts on the U.S. senior Greco circuit left them with the skills to compete at high levels in MMA, and collect some Olympic dream-fueling money in the process. So they started fighting, and in 1999, they founded Team Quest, a means to increase the commercial success of their fighting endeavors while gathering like-minded competitors for a beneficial training environment.
As they embarked on their MMA careers, Lindland and Henderson were in the midst of culminating their run as wrestlers. The Sydney Olympics loomed, and would likely be the last shot for the two to climb to the top of the Greco-Roman wrestling world. Their chances at succeeding at this climb looked decent, both wrestlers were in top form heading into the Olympic Trials; Lindland had dominated the 76 kg weight class domestically for three years running, while at the 2000 Pan American Championships, Henderson notched the biggest win of his career by upending Cuba’s defending 85 kg world champion Luis Enrique Mendez Lazo.
Sadly, only Lindland clinched a spot on the 2000 Olympic Team, though only after a weird and shockingly complicated legal battle. At the Sydney Games, he would reach the pinnacle of his wrestling life by battling into the finals and earning an Olympic silver medal. Henderson, on the other hand, lost in the Olympic Team Trials Challenge Tournament and fell to the third place match, where he defaulted to none other than Chael Sonnen.
For most international wrestlers, the end of an Olympic cycle marks a logical place to move on from the sport. Henderson and Lindland, however, unexpectedly pressed on for another year for a bid at the 2001 World Championships. Only this time, Lindland moved up to Henderson’s weight of 85 kg.
What resulted will likely never happen again; two MMA teammates competed directly against each other for a chance to attend the World Championships in wrestling. Lindland and Henderson were the only two wrestlers left standing at the end of 2001 Greco-Roman World Team Trials, and the pair would compete in a best-of-three wrestle off for the World Team spot at 85 kg.
I cannot find photos or videos of Lindland and Hendo’s wrestle off. Since USA Wrestling changed their website, I can no longer even find the results. But we do know that Lindland won the wrestle off, because later that year he claimed a silver medal at his second straight world-level championship.
Both athletes would choose 2001 as the year they would walk away from wrestling for good, and concentrate on their careers as fighters. As things stand today, the two don’t appear to be on particularly good terms, nothing indicates that the 2001 Trials match has anything to do with the rift between them.
[Note: When I post the complete rankings, this entry will appear in its proper place at number two]