Beach wrestling won't let sport get stuck in the sand
If you have sand, you can wrestle.
That’s the theme of several wrestling promoters in the country since FILA announced last fall that beach wrestling would be added to the international stage … or rather sand.
“Like many, we thought it was stupid when FILA came up with this idea,” said Neal Duncan, the president of TW Promotions. “But when we thought back some 20 years ago, we said this thing has a lot of possibilities.
“In 1985, we had a Hofstra wrestling party that was down at the beach (on New York’s Long Island) and we started wrestling with each other,” recalled Duncan. “All of a sudden, we had like 300 people watching us and everyone started wrestling. We actually had young girls want to wrestle when their fathers pushed them in.”
Du
ncan is taking that same approach in hosting the Asics 2005 East Coast National Beach Wrestling Championships, August 13, on the Atlantic Ocean in the city of Long Beach, N.Y. While the competition will be officially sanctioned by USA Wrestling, Duncan wants to make sure people know this event is open to anyone.“It’s all about promoting wrestling to the general public,” said Duncan. “The thing about wrestling is that it has a strong Midwest tradition. But we haven’t hit the mainstream public very well. One of the big things with this is developing wrestling in the inner city. Those people aren’t going to buy into the sport unless they see it as something that is fun and something anyone can do. This sport is going to to do that.”
Duncan also believes the cultural diversity of Long Beach will bring out all types of people and mentioned that the Metropolitan Wrestling Association in New York is using this event to help promote its “Beat the Streets” initiative to get the New York youth involved in wrestling rather than hang out in the urban area.
“It’s just a train ride out of Manhattan into Long Beach,” Duncan said. “You can walk right to the beach.”
But Duncan also has received interest from people all over the East and will simply invite people on Long Beach to participate in the event that will follow the official beach wrestling rules.
“Those people are up and down the board walk constantly,” Duncan said. “Once they see the action and guys going at each other, they are going to stop and watch. They are going to want to wrestle and will probably be full of sand.
“What are they going to do next? They’ll probably head down to the water and jump in.”
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