Earl Smith, the proprietor of D1collegewrestling.net, has finally decided to open up his massive vault of old wrestling videos, and start posting the footage on Youtube.
In a gesture of friendship, Earl lets Bloody Elbow know when he posts these videos, so that we can bring them to our readers immediately.
In this edition of “Videos from the Wrestling Vault” we have rare footage of UFC Bantamweight champ T.J. Dillashaw wrestling in high school. Before he played the role of David to Goliath (or Swain to Shute) when beating Renan Barao for a UFC championship, Dillashaw pulled off wins against amazing odds as a prep athlete.
The footage above shows Dillashaw’s 119 pound match against Minnesota’s Charlie Falck in the 2004 Dream Team Classic, which features a team of national stars facing off against stand outs from a particular state. This usually ends pretty poorly for the selected state, but surprising results tend to occur in these sorts of exhibitions.
Falck came into this match as one of the highest rated wrestlers at his weight in the nation. Wrestling for power-house Apple Valley, he won four Minnesota state championships, and had committed to wrestle collegiately for then still dominant Iowa Hawkeyes. Meanwhile, Dillashaw wasn’t even the best at his weight in the state of California, having placed second in the state in 2004.
Despite long odds, Dillashaw weathers the storm and notches a come-from-behind win over Falck on the strength of three escapes and a sweet duck-under takedown versus Falcks two takedowns. A clutch ride out in the third period cements a 5-4 win for the future UFC champ (I’m pretty sure the displayed score at the end is incorrect).
Dillashaw went on to a strong college wrestling career at Cal State Fullerton, where he qualified for multiple NCAA tournaments. Falck finished as an All-American twice for the University of Iowa.