Is wrestling watered down untill after christmas?

[schrutedwight]

I have to disagree about the competition being watered down.  Will the state tournament be watered down?  maybe so, but its 1 tournament out of the season.  The TSSAA may have decided to split divisions for this tournament but the way I see it you can try and wrestle anyone you want through out the season. so your competition is watered down only if you let it. No one says if your A-AA that you have to wrestle only A-AA teams all season or DIV 1 can only wrestle DIV 1 schools.   Does the TSSAA decision on the split keep wrestlers from going to off season tournaments, camps and clinics to become better wrestlers? NO. 

I think the split will grow the number of wrestlers in TN and the more wrestlers means more and better competition.  WHen you can start hanging pictures of All State Athletes in your school and get some names in the paper etc. kids will gravitate to that.   When i first came to Tn the team i took over had 17 kids on it and only 4 of them had wrestled before High School.  4 years later when the program started to have some success the numbers have grown to over 40 in the room.

If people are not happy with crowning 3 state champs in a weight class ( AAA, A-AA, Div2) then someone needs to come up with an All Star event that gives  these state champs the opportunity to  wrestle each other to find a true state champ in TN.

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I do not think "maybe so" is accurate. It is definitely going to water down the competition. Without the all star match in place there is no way to know who the "best of the best" really is. And to counter your argument about scheduling better teams, it is important to know the best of the best teams train to peak come February. A loss during the year is overlooked when the state finals come around and the podium is topped. So while a tough schedule is good for seeding, the wins/losses don't matter as much until the third week in February.