Your Never to Old to Wrestle
September 22, 2004, by Jim Baron
Jim Baron wins third place in Veteran’s World Freestyle Wrestling Championship held in Hradec Kralove, Czech Republic September 10th, 11th and 12th, 2004.
I’m Jim Baron. I own a restaurant company based in Dallas/FW called Blue Mesa Grill.You may have met me – I have worked out at Al Roger’s place in Fort Worth a couple of times. It’s hard to believe that at 56 years old I decided to start wrestling again. I had not competed since high school (1966!) and I knew very little about freestyle wrestling. It started about a year ago. For the last couple of seasons, I have been helping as an assistant coach at St. Mark’s School’s wrestling program. Rick Ortega, the head coach, has encouraged my participation, and they have a great program. So 2 or 3 days a week I wrestled with the kids there and started getting in a little better shape and remembering some of the old moves (you really never forget).
Then Mustafa Yigit joined us as an assistant coach. Mustafa who is 45 was on the Turkish national team and had competed in Greco and Freestyle on the world level, winning several international tournaments. I think he is the first person who analyzed my wrestling style. You have to know how Mustafa talks - “Jim Baron…. strength good, skills OK, conditioning OK,….balance bad”. He encouraged me to consider competing in the Veteran’s national tournament in Las Vegas in April. We did a variety of work outs – free style skill practice, live wrestling, weight work (very different – moving with weights to build strength for throws, gut wrenchs, lifting opponent from mat), work with a 60 pound dummy, running – windsprints, quarter miles, and distance, flexibility and speed training. He worked on my balance by having me crawl around on my knees with weights while he tried to push me over. Or he had me do several front or reverse somersaults(to get me dizzy) and then shoot on the dummy or him. After 3 months of training I competed in Vegas at 69 Kilos (152 lbs – I lost about 15 lbs to make weight but most of it just came off from the intensive work-out schedule) and took third. I lost to a former NCAA national champion, Wayne Boyd, who had taken Gold for a couple of years. I lost 7-5 mostly because I was slightly intimidated and my conditioning was not 100%. He back tripped me to my back in the first period and spent the rest of time defending his lead. I took him down twice with a straight double leg and was able to gut wrench him but could not come all the way back. But I pinned a Canadian guy, Jim McGill to take the bronze.
Then Mustafa pushed me to enter the World Veterans Championship to be held in the Czech Republic. We pushed up the accelerator on the training – 8 to 9 practices a week – and I can tell you I was not over- trained. The guys I faced in the Czech Republic were very strong – these guys have wrestled free style their whole lives – and most have not taken a break in 40 years! Very strong with their arms – head control, snaps to head locks, two on ones – I mean strong. They all had pulled weight – in my weight class some of wrestlers weighed close to 170 by the second day of tournament – weigh-ins were the night before the competition started. I had a big weight class – 11 wrestlers from Iran, Russia, Kazakstan, Czech Republic, Hungary, Ukraine, Canada, Latvia, Poland, Germany and me. I was a little spooked. Four or five of the wrestlers had medaled in world competitions including prior Olympics. The wrestler from Kazakstan asked to warm-up with me the day before the competition because he was over weight and he hurt me with reverse cross faces and tight- as -a -vise head locks. He was last year’s silver medalist.
I was a nervous wreck once the tournament started. I did not sleep well – 7 hour time difference – when it is 10AM there it is 3AM here. Obviously English is not the language being spoken – 300 wrestlers from 42 countries- so you are hearing all of these different languages. Even though the brackets were posted the wrestling was not called in the correct order. I would warm-up and then not get called when I thought I was going to get called. Then I would get cold. I would do it again and again I did not get called. After 3 hours of that, I am sitting cold against the wall – I am called – not in the hole – on the mat now – the wrestler from Iran is already standing in the middle of mat – yikes! He is a highly ranked wrestler, but I did not know that. It’s a good match. After a passivity call against me he gets the legs in and has me in a head lock – he has my left arm squeezed against my head and he is rocking me over. It is very tight, I could hear cartilage breaking between my shoulder and my neck. One of the things I learned with most of these guys is that do not just go for the gut wrench. They initiate a series of moves to actually set-up their preferred move - and many of them like the upper body moves – high guts or to trap a leg, or get a leg in and then work the head with a series of different moves – reverse cross faces, different forms of power halfs and like I said they are strong. Once I knew I was going to go over I released all of a sudden and bridged through – I came out and was able to reverse him and when he was still surprised I gut wrenched for 2 and I was ahead 3-2. I was able to take him down twice in the second period and won 5-2. My second match I dominated a guy from the Czech Republic and pinned him at the beginning of the second period. These two wins propelled me into the semi- finals because I was in the smallest pool and I had won my pool. In addition the Iranian guy continued to wrestle back and win and knocked out a couple of good guys.
In the semi’s I faced the 3 time world champion from Russia, Victor something or other. We had a good match – and he won fair and square 5-2. I had watched him wrestle – he was fast with a great single leg. He also defended well against the single leg by grabbing around the opponents upper chest, throwing his hips in and tossing the opponent over the leg that was not being attacked. He did it to the wrestler from Ukraine and literally bounced him off the mat for a 3 point move. I took the Russian down twice, once to his back but it was ruled that we were out of bounds and I only got one. He took me down twice and got me over with a very high gut wrench. I felt good about the match.
In the consolation match I got ahead of the Latvian 3-2 with a take down and a gut wrench. I then surprised him, by not stalling, and used a single leg and then a navy ride to expose his back and then quickly coming up and pancaking him to the mat for a pin. Bronze medal!!!! Yes indeed.
It was a great tournament. Mustafa Yigit did a great job coaching and preparing me. Thanks to Al Roger’s for his program and welcoming me in to train. My wife Liz was a great support and my biggest fan – it’s not easy when your husband starts working out a couple of hours every day. I can tell you that at 56 this bronze medal is one of my most prized accomplishments.