Sanderson vs Gutches

[Big]

Say Cael Sanderson's quest for his first NCAA tilte would be the same year as Gutches' senior year. Who would win? Gutches was pretty dominant his last year.

[Trusty]

LES...no doubt!

[ODH]

Didn't Gutches win a world title a year or so out of college?
Cael had the greatest collegiate career ever. Part of that was that he was great as a freshman and improved every year.

I don't think he was one of the all-time greats his freshman year.

[ideamark]

If I remember correctly, the two wrestled freestyle in an early round at the US Nationals. The thing that sticks out in my mind was... in the one-hour ESPN tape-delayed broadcast, they opened with a 5-10 second snippet of the match (Les taking down Cael) with one of the commentators saying something like, "In what many would argue was the most exciting (or greatest) match of the entire event...") It's a shame they didn't show the whole thing.

To my way of thinking, Gutches and Sanderson are so similar in so many ways. They both always seemed to be so clean-cut, classy, prime examples of good sportsmanship... yet, (usually) so dominant, and making what they did look easy.

Mark

[Trusty]

Les made the 96 Olympic team, which was his last year in college. He then went on to win the World title in 97. Les is one of the all time greatest, too bad injuries ended his career early.

[JensenS]

Theres a clip on Youtube somewhere, or at least there used to be of Gutches giving Cael some flight time I think at the OTT's in 2000.

[Big]

What if Sanderson started his run during Gutches' junior year? Can you imagine Cael would win only two NCAA titles instead of four? It would have been a heck of a rival for those two years.

[JensenS]

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=VGZQOEid5AI

Found the clip

[Trusty]

If I'm not mistaken that was at US nationals.