Carlos' First Wrestling Match

Carlos had his first wrestling match on Saturday and I must say - it was awesome!  I know nothing about wrestling; it's one of the few mainstream sports that I have no experience with.  But that didn't stop me from cheering loudly, using a lot of generic encouragements such as "come on", "don't give up", and "stick with it".  I plan to do a little research so I can at least understand a bit about what's happening.

I was incredably impressed with the amount of dedication shown by these young kids.  Weigh-in was at 7:30 AM and some kids had to do sprints in the gym wearing several winter jackets to drop a few ounces and make weight.  It was obvious during Carlos' match that he had a number of weapons at his disposal, and throughout his 5 matches I could see improvement - he was learning and adapting as the day progressed.  It is amazing how much he has learned in such a short amount of time.  I am now a big fan of wrestling.

Here's one of Carlos' matches against the toughest kid at the tournament.  It ended in an L, but it was a very exciting and competitive match.  I was very proud of his performance (sorry about the poor quality - I only had my BlackBerry with me).

Around 6 PM the main part of the tournament was wrapping up and they were getting ready to progress onto the finals.  Prior to doing so, they decided to announce the raffle winners.  Well the kids have the attention spans of kids and started going ballistic as they were getting the mic setup.  It was as I'd imagine a "Ballroom Blitz" video if there was ever one made - they were all wrestling and going nuts.  The lady announcing the raffle asked for silence two or three times, gave up, and started screaming at the top of her lungs "shut up" through a microphone that sounded like she was 2000 leagues under the sea.  I was dieing laughing and managed to tape part of it, where you can hear her yelling shut up and trying to announce the winners.  I think you probably had to be there, but who knows: