The RTC Cup is Finally Happening
/
An RTC cup is something we have been pining for. A pipe dream of epic proportions to finally lead to a professional team-based league. That may be getting ahead of ourselves. After all, we are two, approaching middle-aged, fellas in Michigan who love kibitzing about Wrestling. We do not offer any help in funding, planning, and organizing such things. We are well aware.
FloWrestling has had better months in publicity recently, but have announced the inaugural RTC Cup to happen on December 4th and 5th. Finally, the RTC’s will get together with Freestyle Duals in a competitive event.
In the last couple decades, the World Cup has risen from a complete afterthought to must-see viewing. The live-streaming era brought interest to watch duals between the best of the power-Wrestling countries. In 2018, Iowa City packed Carver-Hawkeye to watch the loaded USA squad best everyone. It was exciting, a lot of fun, and an bundled in an easy to watch format.
The World Cup has brought geo-political impacts even the main-stream media notice.
Unfortunately, politics make the World Cup a tough to plan event. Russia sent a C/D team to Iran in 2017. Russia and Iran were late drop-outs to Iowa City in 2018. The USA responded by sending backups to Russia in 2019. The hopes for a true World Cup may be optimistic at best anytime soon.
That doesn’t mean we can’t have fun domestically, right? We have seen how Freestyle duals can be fun for fans of all interest levels. Team-based competition raises the heart rate, brings interest, brings pressure, and most importantly brings money.
Look no further than this first installment. Six RTC’s will square off in the six Olympic weights. First of all, the initial rosters look to create matches we don’t normally see unless the two happen to be in the finals of the US Open. Plus, throw in fellas wrestling for other countries and you have a recipe for a weekend of battles not normally seen on the US Senior circuit. While we are on the US Senior circuit, the goal is to qualify for the trials and the World/Olympic teams. It really has nothing to do with creating the best matches. We have seen some great barnstorming events that we appreciate, but there still is picking and choosing.
Could an RTC Cup shape RTC’s development? Maybe filling out the weights become important creating more opportunities for funding post-college. The success of men’s freestyle duals could lead to interest in Women’s and Greco duals. Everyone loves a team to root for.
Back to next month’s RTC Cup. It appears by the shape of the pools that Cliff Keen has the #1 seed, which makes sense to me with my bias sitting here in Michigan. The Spartan Combat (Cornell) and NJRTC/SERTC (Princeton/Rutgers/Virginia Tech) appear to be the #2 and #3 seeds. When you look at the rosters, there really doesn’t seem to be favorites. There are just six weights. We know by watching college wrestling how quickly a dual can swing by just seeing an upset or a swing match go another way. For instance, I really don’t like how Cliff Keen matches up with the Wolfpack WC.
Some sour pickles will point to Hawkeye and Nittany Lion not joining in on the fun. It’s too bad, but both of those RTC’s have some holes that would potentially be exploited in this event. There is also no reason to give credit to anyone who chose not to show up to this event. I’m sure they were offered.
This will be a great weekend of easy to follow action for all levels of fans, star-power, and upsets. We can’t wait. After all, when you get a bunch of Wrestlers in the same room, they’ll try to win. I think we will see it from the first whistle.
