I sat next to Donny Cliver and Chad Workman at the Sweet Home Invitational wrestling tournament last Friday so I could gain some insight on the wrestling jargon and strategy. I would ask Cliver a question and he would give me an answer or ask Workman for additional details.
But I stumped them on one question: who is Nelson of the full-nelson/half-nelson technique?
The best answer they had, which is probably right, was that it was some dead guy who developed the move. That got me to thinking, which isn’t always a good thing. How about if we came up with some names for techniques by our local wrestlers. So let’s begin.
The only thing I remember about wrestling occurred during P.E., where I basically learned to count the squares in the gym’s ceiling. I was in the smallest weight division and still gave up 10 pounds. So I developed this philosophy. Why put up resistance? I will now call this philosophy the half-Roberts. For a couple of seconds, fake resistance and then take the fall in less than 30 seconds.
A full-Roberts would be similar to a lazy dog who rolls over on his back to be scratched on his stomach. That takes five seconds max. Fortunately for SHHS, there are no wrestlers who employ this technique.
Now for a memorable strategy from wrestlers on the high school team. A half-Vandehei is where you take your opponent, show him a couple of outstanding moves, and then put him out of his misery with a first round pin. A full-Vandehei requires at least a half dozen showy moves that makes the opponent wish he had done the full-Roberts a long time ago.
A half-Rosa requires audience participation. In the half, Rosa toys with his adversary, even though he could easily pin him, just to get the audience upset for not pinning him more quickly.
But he eventually obliges. A full-Rosa really torques the spectators off because he allows his opponent to finish the match with some semblance of respectability.
Let’s reverse directions and start with a full-Corliss. Corliss is in constant motion, poking, probing, and eventually dismantling the defense of his competitor. But it requires constant movement and his batteries never wear down. There is no half-Corliss; it’s always full-Corliss, full time.
With the Martin boys, we will have to use first names. So a half-Brandon is where he pretends his opponent is an opposing running back. He lays an explosive tackle on him and then helps him up (an escape in wrestling). Then he does it all over again and again because he enjoys it so much. A full-Brandon is usually an injury-causing crushing blow and his opponent limps off the field . . . I mean mat.
Now a half-Rob (not to be confused with the half-Roberts, which, trust me, no one would) is very similar to the half-Brandon but requires a little more technique and the ability to send your man airborne. A half-Rob requires the competitor’s feet to come off the ground followed by a back-crushing descent to the mat. A full-Rob, however, requires at least a one foot clearance and the opponent to be whimpering in the fetal position once he is grounded cleanly on the mat. Perhaps he should be allowed to call this a full-Martin, based on brotherly seniority rights and the fact that he has won each of his matches by a pin this year.
I’m starting to feel a little tired from this activity right now, so I think I will go into a full- Roberts. And I’m not even wrestling anymore.