Hlas: Wrestling mania is soon to consume Kinnick

IOWA CITY - You may think football is somewhat savage, perhaps primitive.

Pshaw! Football is an infant in world history compared to wrestling, and college wrestlers occasionally say things that would have passed viral and gone straight to thermonuclear had they come from football players.

'It's still a wrestling match,” Iowa 125-pound junior Thomas Gilman said about the Grapple on the Gridiron extravaganza Saturday at 11 a.m. at Kinnick Stadium when the fourth-ranked Hawkeyes battle No. 1 Oklahoma State.

'It's still an opponent going to try to rip your head off. So I've got to go out there and rip his head off instead.”

Over 33,500 tickets have been sold for the dual. But how many of those customers would have been hesitant to attend if they thought there was (gulp) a real chance of a competitor's head being removed from his body?

Or perhaps the better question is this: How many more people would buy tickets were that a possibility?

Gilman was exaggerating, of course. Considerably. Just to make sure, though, I asked him if he'd ever ripped off a foe's head.

'I've tried,” he said. 'I've tried multiple times, never successfully. I think the day that I can, that's going to be a real good day for me. Not for the other guy, though.

'I think you always try to rip the other guy's head off. Within the rules.”

Yes, within the rules. Disqualifications never do a wrestler any good.

Let's cut this fellow a little slack and suggest he may have thought he was supposed to be cutting a WWE-type WrestleMania promo. Could you blame him for thinking that, given he could be performing in excess of 40,000 fans in a stadium Saturday. The weather forecast sounds promising, with sunshine and a high of 55 degrees projected as of Tuesday afternoon.

'There's 34,000 (tickets) sold right now,” Iowa Coach Tom Brands said. 'What's that mean, there's 36,000 left? So hurry and get your tickets.”

This will be unlike anything that's ever happened in college wrestling. This will be just plain big.

'It's obviously good for the sport, growing the sport,” Gilman said in a more-serious moment. 'The more fans you can get around wrestling, the better.

'Football is a good sport and it gets a lot of publicity. But wrestling is a good sport and it doesn't get so much publicity. So maybe this event here at Kinnick will get it a lot more publicity.”

How could it not? How can an outdoor wrestling dual with around 40,000 fans not power its way to attention on a college football Saturday? Images from that will make non-wrestling fans stop and look, even if all the competitors leave the mat with their heads still attached to their torsos.

'It's going to be an international thing,” said Gilman, who was 31-6 last season and finished fourth in the NCAA Championships. 'I have no doubt that the Russians will be watching this. They're going to put it on state television, I assume, highlights of it.

'People are going to see this, people that don't necessarily watch wrestling.”

And young Mr. Gilman will be ready.

'The texture of the mat, the temperature, how cold - it doesn't matter,” he said. 'The only thing that matters is I'm going to go out there hard, I'm going to put my opponent down.”

At least Gilman is giving the other guy a head's up.

l Comments: (319) 368-8840; mike.hlas@thegazette.com