I have seen a good bit of this kid. He is very, very good technically and he has college-level funk but he will have some issues dealing with the power and conditioning at the college level, at least at first (but for the most part that is to be expected). He could very much use a redshirt season right off the bat IMO. Although I never have seen it before, he has apparently had some head and maturity issues that have caused him some problems against elite competition. Actually there is a video on flo of him wrestling Realbuto where this seems to be the case so I guess I have seen it before. That match was very sloppy and is not indicative of his usual wrestling.

He has all the credentials for sure, 4x champ and 300+ wins which is very impressive. BUT, he is a 4x under NY's current 2 division set-up, which has denied him competition against the elite long island guys at the state tournament and on this subject (unfortunately) LI Marty is correct, those are generally the guys to beat in NYS. I get the feeling Murphy may have an Ian Paddock-type of couple years in that he will win some matches but he will also take some fairly serious lumps.

Originally Posted by vaisforlovers

For some reason I thought NYS was all one division.

Used to be, up until the early 2000's. One representative was sent to states from each section 1 through 11 (districts, if you will) plus a Catholic School and Private School rep. So back in the day it was a real accomplishment to just make states, and then even more of an accomplishment to win it, even with the relatively small size of the tournament, as just about every guy at states was dangerous. Then they went to a large/small school format, and then a few years after added wild card selections as well, so now there's just a shitload of kids at the tourney in both divisions. Its still tough but it is watered down quite a bit. The 2 division change seemed to really benefit western ny the most (in the small school division particularly), while somewhat lessening long island's impact at the state tourney by making their sectional teams relevant basically only in the large school format. I think that the majority of wrestling folk out here prefer how it used to be, and there is talk of returning the tournament back to a single division, just with multiple reps per section. I'm sure the long island folk would especially prefer this, as there have been numerous years when their sectional runner-up team could have won the state team title. Not sure why historically they have been so good out there, but they really were on a different level for quite a while. Things seem to have leveled out a bit, pretty much since the Nickerson era.

Originally Posted by TLV

Just Indiana and CA as far as I recall with one division?(and maybe N.J.??)

I think I read NJ was one division. But they don't allow Blair to compete, so it's watered down too. I wonder how KY does it? Falconwrestler.....you out there?

Originally Posted by r.payton@att.net

Ky. does it very poorly .

Haha! I know that, but think of how poorly it would be if it was watered down with many divisions. I'm kinda pulling for them to only have one, so it's not as bad.