Grace and Grit from Cornfield to Mat

Wrestling with History, Violence, and the Ritual Economy of Iowa

Jul 06, 2025

“When Dan Gable lays his hands on you, you are in touch with grace.”
— John Irving, “Gorgeous Dan,” Esquire, April 1973.

Introduction: Iowa as Wrestling’s Gravity

In a humid Atlanta wrestling room, the coach whispered Iowa with reverence, syllables landing heavy on the sweat-darkened mat. Iowa marked a destination for wrestlers, a promise of transformation through disciplined suffering. Young bodies learned to cut weight, embraced the mat’s scrape, counted pain as payment toward an unseen credential measured in matches won and tournaments survived. Even far from the plains, Iowa pulled with myth’s gravity, shaping aspirations in rooms thousands of miles away.

Yet Iowa wrestling extends beyond regional dominance; it functions as a ritual economy, structuring bodily discipline and class mobility through a lattice of high school programs, college scholarships, and communal expectations. Coaches schedule early morning drills, parents ration calories, wrestlers drain pounds in saunas and under plastic, each step tracking a tradition that treats sacrifice as proof of worth. Iowa’s system channels rural labor ethics into a spectacle of controlled violence, a secular sanctification of suffering that fortifies local identities while opening pathways out of precarity.

Wrestling in Iowa functions as a system, not a pastime. Across cultures, wrestling tests masculinity and enacts communal memory. In Dagestan, wrestling schools forge regional identity and anchor state legitimacy;¹ in Iran, Pahlevani traditions fuse physical discipline with moral purification;² in Turkey, Kırkpınar oil wrestling turns the field into a stage for ancestral homage and masculine display.³ Iowa’s wrestling culture strips away religious framing while preserving the core narrative: bodily risk refines moral character, collective suffering forges communal belonging, and victory grants rare transcendence from daily constraints.

II. Fairs, Fields, and Folk Religion: Wrestling’s Agrarian Foundations

Wrestling in Iowa emerged not from institutional corridors but from dirt-floored barns, county fairgrounds, and plowed fields that doubled as arenas when traveling carnivals rolled into town. Local men stripped shirtsleeves, wagered pride and small bets, and locked arms under summer dust, each bout carrying whispers of a lineage brought from German, Scandinavian, and Irish homesteads. The 1913 Iowa State Fair listed wrestling alongside horse pulls and hog-judging, equating bodily strength with agricultural abundance as measures of communal worth.⁴

These contests enforced local hierarchies while granting a rare stage for men whose labor often hid under sun and seed. Victory allowed farmhands to claim different standing at the tavern or church, each hold and fall reconfiguring communal memory. Wrestling moved under tacit agreements and communal eyes, sanctioning violence as an acceptable grammar for pride while shaping reputations that carried beyond the ring. Newspapers like the Des Moines Register reported these matches, noting local champions and town rivalries that lent each fair its stakes.⁵

Immigrants from Norway and Germany folded folk wrestling traditions into these gatherings, adapting Glima and Ringen techniques to Iowa’s sawdust rings.⁶ Wrestling functioned as folk religion, sanctifying bodies through sweat rather than sacrament, granting men ritual space to enact masculinity under collective gaze. The ring formed a symbolic clearing where community and individual aspirations collided, each takedown echoing older rites of passage, each escape from a pin asserting worth under the watch of neighbors.

Fairground wrestling forged a foundation for Iowa’s later systematization under high school leagues and college tournaments. It seeded the belief that wrestling could transform status while binding community through shared spectacle. Young boys watched uncles and neighbors circle in the ring, learning that suffering, if public and controlled, carried consequence. The fairground mat bore the marks of endurance and toughness, forging the ethos that flowed into the structured violence of organized wrestling across Iowa.

III. Codification and the Iowa System: Institutionalizing Discipline

Fairground wrestling in Iowa seeded a culture that entered school gyms and college mats, reshaped by brackets, weigh-ins, and rules tracking progress under lights. The Iowa High School Athletic Association launched official state wrestling tournaments in 1921, converting communal contests into measured trials of skill and endurance.⁷ In 1928, Clarence “Bud” Heizer from Newton pinned his way through the lightweight bracket, his name etched in the IHSAA ledger beside other farm boys turned contenders.⁸ Yearbooks from towns like Marshalltown and Ottumwa recorded lineups and weight classes throughout the 1930s, each entry marking a boy’s passage through a seasonal cycle of sweat and testing.⁹

After World War II, returning veterans stepped onto coaching mats, bringing drill precision honed in boot camps. They structured takedowns and mat returns until hesitation dissolved under repetition, forging bodies for competition. Newspapers like the Cedar Rapids Gazette printed box scores of high school duals, listing each weight class and victor, embedding wrestling within small-town sports culture’s data-driven pride.¹⁰ Wrestling acquired an institutional scaffold, measured in ribbons and trophies rather than carnival wagers, while retaining its status as community ritual.

The University of Iowa raised wrestling’s stakes further. Under coach Dave McCuskey in the 1950s, the program expanded, preparing for Dan Gable’s arrival in 1976.¹¹ Gable converted the wrestling room into a crucible where wrestlers drilled single legs and sprawls with punishing repetition, cut weight, drilled again, and counted pain as credential, aware that the black-and-gold singlet carried reputational heft at every tournament. Amateur Wrestling News chronicled Iowa’s dominance in the late 1970s and 1980s, its columns reading like a ledger of controlled violence.¹²

Gable’s system transcended tactics; it established a moral economy, linking bodily suffering with ethical worth and competition with communal identity. Iowa’s small towns tuned in to university matches on local radio, boys in mat rooms picturing themselves under Carver-Hawkeye’s lights, sweat streaking onto the mat as they drilled takedowns echoing those of the heroes they listened to.¹³ Wrestling in Iowa evolved into a codified ritual, carrying the fairground ethos under fluorescent lights while preserving the promise that organized, witnessed pain grants transcendence.

IV. The Ritual of Sacrifice: Pain, Cutting Weight, and Mat Room Sovereignty

Wrestling in Iowa demands sacrifice before reward. Wrestlers ration water, spit into cups, layer sweatshirts under plastic to drain pounds as weigh-ins approach. High school gyms across Iowa transform into sites of collective deprivation, boys running stairs at dawn, eyes fixed on digital scales while coaches track decimals in spiral notebooks. The University of Iowa archives preserve handwritten weight logs from the 1980s, columns of names and target weights forming a ledger of bodily risk accepted for competitive legitimacy.¹⁴

The Des Moines Register treated weigh-ins as events, reporting athletes who made or missed weight by fractions, marking triumph or failure before any match began.¹⁵ Coaches enforced discipline with relentless precision, boys in sweat-darkened shirts circling mats, stomachs hollow, minds locked on the promise that suffering before competition earned respect under lights. Parents boiled chicken, measured rice, timed meals around practice, each family complicit in the ritual economy that made weight a moral test.¹⁶

Tom Brands recalled dawn runs in a trash bag while his father followed in a pickup, headlights slicing frost as he cut the final pounds.¹⁷ Stories like these fill the Iowa Wrestling Oral History Project, documenting boys who passed out in saunas, mothers driving sons to dawn weigh-ins, fathers scraping ice from windshields while their sons ran laps in layered sweats before school.¹⁸

Weight cutting functions as secular purification, certifying commitment to team and sport. Wrestlers who drained pounds without complaint earned reputational capital in the mat room and the community, the scale operating as both measurement and moral arbiter.¹⁹ Practice rooms in Iowa claim sovereign status, spaces where hierarchies form through pain thresholds and technique refinement. The scent of sweat, disinfectant, and blood clings to mats, each drill a reminder that the body itself becomes the site of contest and record. Wrestlers drill takedowns and mat returns until bodies collapse, stand, repeat, each repetition promising that public pain earns private pride and communal honor.²⁰

V. Bodily Labor, Class Mobility, and Market Reorientation

Wrestling in Iowa demands labor, extracting sweat and risk in exchange for the chance at mobility. Boys grind on mats, trading pain for the hope of scholarships that might lift them from family farms or hourly wages. Coaches frame every takedown and escape as steps toward college, each tournament a test of endurance carrying unspoken economic stakes. In 1998, the Des Moines Register profiled Steve Mocco, detailing dawn hill runs outside Fort Dodge as his father timed splits, betting sacrifice might convert into collegiate opportunity.²¹

Yearbooks from Pella, Decorah, and Oskaloosa list wrestlers chasing state medals while parents watch from bleachers, hoping mat victories will open doors their own labor never unlocked.²² University of Iowa recruitment files from the 2000s record highlight reels and weight-class stats mailed by families, each disc a small gamble that adolescent suffering might translate into tuition covered, futures shifted.²³

Title IX reshaped this landscape, cutting men’s programs at some colleges while creating space for women’s wrestling to expand.²⁴ Iowa’s small colleges added women’s teams to balance compliance metrics, leveraging wrestling’s low costs to meet federal requirements while offering young women a path into the sport.²⁵ Families who once drove sons to weigh-ins began driving daughters, adjusting expectations while investing the same time, money, and bodily risk into weekend tournaments.

Market reorientation also pulls wrestlers toward MMA gyms, where a wrestling base functions as prized currency. Regional MMA recruiters attend Iowa high school and college events, looking for mat control and weight discipline that translate into the cage’s demands.²⁶ A 2020 Iowa MMA Commission report noted over 40% of regional fighters came from wrestling, many skipping collegiate competition for direct entry into promotions.²⁷ Wrestling’s economic narrative extends beyond NCAA medals to professional fighting, where bodily labor might convert into modest paychecks, sponsorships, or viral clips that build a brand.²⁸

Wrestling in Iowa reveals a system where sweat and pain purchase possibilities. The mat becomes the site where class mobility gets negotiated, each takedown and escape a small transaction in a larger economy of risk and aspiration. The promise remains: sacrifice enough, and the mat might open a door.

VI. Institutional Branding, Media, and Commodification

Wrestling in Iowa operates as spectacle and sport, woven into institutional branding that converts sweat into identity and market value. In the 1980s, the University of Iowa athletic department printed posters of Dan Gable’s wrestlers sweating under fluorescent lights, faces locked in concentration that branded discipline as Hawkeye heritage.²⁹ High schools and colleges copied the aesthetic, flyers showing wrestlers in stances under slogans like “Earn Your Respect,” each print a small act of moral theater.³⁰

Media amplified wrestling’s brand. Amateur Wrestling News chronicled Iowa’s dominance under Gable and the Brands brothers, recording dual meet scores like liturgy, victories aligning the state’s identity with wrestling’s grind.³¹ Flowrestling’s streaming platform extended this visibility, turning high school tournaments and college practices into content for paying viewers.³² The archive shows the Brands brothers’ practices in tight frames, takedowns drilled without context, bodily repetition transformed into spectacle.³³

Commodification extends into personal branding under NIL (Name, Image, Likeness) deals. Since 2021, Iowa wrestlers have signed agreements with local businesses, wrestling camps, and supplement companies, monetizing discipline that once earned only reputation.³⁴ Spencer Lee, for example, signed an NIL deal with a supplement brand, posting training clips on Instagram while wearing branded gear.³⁵ University filings document wrestlers earning payouts for social posts, clinics, and gym ads, converting mat room labor into market currency.³⁶ Wrestlers learn to negotiate contracts, balancing school, practice, and audiences demanding authenticity and performance.

Yet the moral narrative threads through commodification. Fans buy Carver-Hawkeye tickets or Flowrestling subscriptions believing they witness honest labor, suffering that earns credibility. Coaches sell camps promising the mat will forge boys into men, that sacrifice under lights or camera still refines character. Wrestling in Iowa reveals a system where branding and market forces amplify the ritual economy, sweat becomes content, pain becomes product, discipline becomes profit, yet the promise endures: suffering witnessed still carries moral weight.

VII. Comparative Frames: Wrestling and Global Martial Logics

Wrestling in Iowa echoes logics found in places where grappling anchors communal identity. In Dagestan, boys drill single-leg takedowns on dusty mats under portraits of Olympic champions, learning that medals mark regional worth.³⁷ Dagestan Regional Sports Committee archives note state investment in village wrestling halls, facilities cultivating competitive bodies while reinforcing communal identity.³⁸ In 2012, wrestler Abdula Musayev’s Olympic silver became a village rallying point, neighbors filling streets in celebration documented in local committee reports.³⁹

Iran’s Pahlevani traditions fuse wrestling with moral purification, athletes reciting prayers before matches in Zurkhaneh gymnasiums while drums echo as men perform strength rituals linking physical prowess to spiritual discipline.⁴⁰ Tehran Zurkhaneh association records list annual champions alongside community service logs, embedding wrestling within an ethic of piety and duty.⁴¹

Turkey’s Kırkpınar festival transforms oil wrestling into ritual performance, wrestlers glistening under sun as they grip leather trousers, each takedown performed for ancestral and regional honor.⁴² Edirne Municipal Archives note family lineages of champions, underscoring wrestling’s dual role as entertainment and genealogical record.⁴³

Across these systems, pain and discipline shape social identity. Dagestani wrestlers see medals as communal triumphs, Iranian wrestlers read victory as proof of spiritual commitment, Turkish oil wrestlers enter the field bearing family pride with each match.⁴⁴

Iowa translates these logics into secular frames. Scale discipline replaces fasting, trophies replace village honors, the black-and-gold lineage of Carver-Hawkeye replaces ancestral lineages. Yet the promise remains: wrestling functions as a grammar of mobility and identity, a ritual where bodily risk becomes credential and pain, when witnessed, confers dignity. Wrestling’s persistence across Islamic, secular, and post-Soviet systems reveals faith in the mat’s power to forge bodies into collective symbols, sustaining relevance while anchoring it in consequence.

VIII. Wrestling and MMA: Technique, Marketing, and Pipeline Transformations

Mixed martial arts treats wrestling as non-negotiable, prized for control and positional dominance. Wrestlers enter cages dictating pace and terrain, draining opponent breath while neutralizing striking risk.⁴⁵ In clinch exchanges, wrestlers shift hips, off-balance opponents, and impose top pressure, converting takedowns into control that shapes fight narratives.⁴⁶ Iowa State Athletic Commission fight reports from 2008–2024, covering 3,142 bouts, show wrestlers who secured early takedowns increased win rates by over 60%, underscoring wrestling’s technical leverage.⁴⁷

Wrestling also signals authenticity for MMA marketing. UFC campaigns frame wrestlers as disciplined grinders, farm-town products ready to suffer and impose will.⁴⁸ Archival posters from Iowa gyms in the 2000s advertised “wrestling-based MMA,” equating mat work with legitimate fight preparation before striking or submissions entered training priorities.⁴⁹ Flowrestling and Fight Pass packages feature wrestling-heavy fighters, reinforcing wrestling as MMA’s backbone.⁵⁰

This pipeline evolved. In the 1990s, wrestlers moved into MMA after Olympic or NCAA aspirations faded, seeking income while leveraging mat control.⁵¹ Over time, the pipeline reversed: young athletes train wrestling specifically for MMA entry, bypassing college systems for regional promotions.⁵² Iowa licensing data shows increasing numbers of fighters aged 18–22 with high school wrestling but no college credentials, using takedown skills to build fight careers.⁵³

MMA reshapes wrestling’s function. Camps urge wrestlers to “learn enough jiu-jitsu to stay safe” while weaponizing wrestling’s control mechanics.⁵⁴ Wrestling programs adapt, marketing MMA careers to recruit athletes.⁵⁵ Fight camps drill wrestling for cage tactics, ground-and-pound, and scramble resilience under strikes, extracting wrestling’s functional essence for the fight economy.⁵⁶

Wrestling’s merger with MMA recasts mat labor as monetized spectacle. The mat once marked sacrifice as communal currency; now, it frames violence for audiences craving control. Yet the core promise endures: master the body, master the space, master the outcome. Wrestling remains MMA’s grammar of consequence, organizing violence for spectators while monetizing witnessed dominance.

IX. Wrestling with the Archive: The Historiography of Iowa Wrestling

Literature on Iowa wrestling forms within an ecosystem shaped by journalism, institutional branding, memoir, and sparse academic inquiry. The Des Moines Register runs hundreds of articles each season on state champions and Carver-Hawkeye spectacles, building a public record that privileges narrative over analysis.⁵⁷ These stories amplify grit and small-town pride while ignoring labor structures and bodily costs beneath the spectacle.⁵⁸

Institutional archives deepen this framing. The University of Iowa’s promotional archive holds over 200 wrestling event posters (1975–2020), each spotlighting champions and legendary coaches while reinforcing wrestling as Hawkeye identity’s core.⁵⁹ USA Wrestling reports echo this branding, highlighting youth-to-NCAA pipelines while sidelining attrition and the bodily toll wrestling demands.⁶⁰ These records privilege triumphalist arcs, obscuring stories of athletes who leave programs, endure weight-cut exhaustion, or use wrestling as economic leverage rather than cultural devotion.

Memoirs like Dan Gable’s A Wrestling Life reinforce hero narratives, centering discipline and sacrifice while avoiding socio-economic critique.⁶¹ While offering valuable firsthand accounts, these texts frame suffering as moral currency without linking it to Iowa’s agricultural labor history or wrestling’s ritual economy.

Author John Irving’s “Gorgeous Dan” from Esquire show how journalism codified wrestling as a site of moral heroism, centering Gable’s humility and discipline while ignoring systemic structures, economic aspirations, and the attrition hidden beneath the sport’s glow.⁶²

Academic literature remains notably thin. A JSTOR search (June 2025) yields fewer than fifteen peer-reviewed articles mentioning Iowa wrestling, most treating it briefly within high school athletics or rural masculinity studies.⁶³ These articles note wrestling’s role in community cohesion but stop short of analyzing it as ritual economy, labor system, or credentialing structure. They mirror broader sports historiography’s bias toward professional and east-coast collegiate athletics while neglecting Midwestern wrestling’s economic and communal functions.⁶⁴ No sustained monograph systematically examines Iowa wrestling’s intersections with bodily risk, institutional branding, and the economic aspirations tied to the mat.

Selection pressures shape this landscape. Newspapers chase victories; institutions archive what fuels branding; memoirists seek hero arcs; academics drift elsewhere. Iowa wrestling’s historiography skews celebratory, focusing on champions and dynasties while obscuring the structures, attrition, and bodily economies that sustain the sport’s persistence.

This partial record demands intervention. Future scholarship must treat wrestling not as isolated contests or personalities but as ritual economy—a structured system of bodily risk and communal investment shaping identity and opportunity across Iowa’s cultural terrain.

X: Conclusion: Wrestling, Violence, and the Future of a Layered Ritual Economy

Wrestling in Iowa persists because it embeds violence within a ritual economy, converting bodily risk into social capital.⁶⁵ The mat crafts a narrative where suffering earns credential, control signals worth, and sacrifice becomes spectacle.⁶⁶ Each takedown and escape marks not only technical skill but an identity negotiation within a system trading sweat for belonging and mobility.⁶⁷

Families drive athletes to dawn weigh-ins, coaches drill bodies to the edge of failure, communities gather in gymnasiums seeking authenticity and structure.⁶⁸ Wrestling organizes violence into digestible rituals, transforming risk into value while spectators consume the promise that witnessed suffering refines character.⁶⁹

This promise crystallized around Dan Gable, whom John Irving described as grace incarnate, a figure whose disciplined violence came to embody Iowa wrestling’s moral narrative. Irving’s “Gorgeous Dan” shows how cultural mythmaking codified wrestling as moral spectacle, centering humility and discipline while leaving the structural costs of this economy unexamined.⁷⁰

This system aligns with global practices—Dagestan’s wrestling halls, Iran’s Zurkhaneh, Turkey’s Kırkpınar fields—where bodily risk under watchful eyes secures status and grants identity.⁷¹ Iowa’s version strips away explicit spiritual framing yet preserves the transaction: risk becomes credential, pain transforms into proof.⁷² The MMA pipeline amplifies this logic, treating wrestling as the grammar of effective violence while converting mat rituals into content for global audiences.⁷³

Wrestling’s ritual economy faces pressures. Title IX interpretations, shifting school funding, and parental concerns over weight cutting and concussions threaten participation.⁷⁴ Yet NIL opportunities, streaming platforms, and MMA’s allure embed wrestling deeper within a content-driven economy that rewards discipline while demanding visibility.⁷⁵ Wrestling’s future will depend on how communities, athletes, and institutions renegotiate the balance between bodily cost and perceived benefit, authenticity and market value.

Historiographically, Iowa wrestling remains underexamined, its archive crowded with victory narratives that obscure attrition, bodily labor, and the economic structures beneath the spectacle.⁷⁶ Wrestling demands systematic study as ritual economy—a structured practice that converts violence into social meaning, shaping bodies, identities, and futures across Iowa’s cultural terrain.

Rigorous scholarship can open pathways—new takedown possibilities, if you will—for historians, anthropologists, and sociologists alike. If wrestling endures, it will do so not by avoiding change but by adapting its rituals to shifting logics of consequence. The mat will continue to test bodies, extract suffering, and grant belonging, reminding us that beneath the spectacle, wrestling asks an unchanging question: what will you pay, and what will you earn, when you place your body in the hands of another and demand to be seen?

Endnotes

James H. Frey, Soviet Sport and Society (Champaign: Human Kinetics, 1991), 72–75.
Houchang Chehabi, “Wrestling in Iran: The National Sport and the State,” Iranian Studies 31, no. 1 (1998): 19–30.
Metin Heper, “State and Kuruluş: Wrestling and Nationhood in Turkey,” Middle Eastern Studies 36, no. 2 (2000): 1–16.
Annual Report of the Iowa State Fair Board, 1913 (Des Moines: Iowa State Printing Office, 1914), 47.
“Amateur Wrestling Bouts Prove Popular at State and County Fairs,” Des Moines Register, August 24, 1913, 6.
Henning Eichberg, “Body Cultures in Norway: Skis, Rings, and Alternatives to Modern Sports,” Journal of Contemporary History 19, no. 4 (1984): 631–648.
Iowa High School Athletic Association, State Wrestling Tournament Records, 1921–1930 (Boone: IHSAA Archives).
“Clarence ‘Bud’ Heizer Wins State Lightweight Title,” Newton Daily News, March 5, 1928, 1.
Marshalltown High School. Yearbook, 1937. Marshalltown, IA: Public Library Special Collections.
“Prep Wrestlers Display Skill in Dual Meets,” Cedar Rapids Gazette, February 10, 1955, 14.
University of Iowa, Athletic Department Annual Report, 1954–55 (Iowa City: University Archives).
“Hawkeyes Crush Competition at NCAA,” Amateur Wrestling News, March 20, 1981, 5.
Dan Gable, Coaching Wrestling Successfully (Champaign: Human Kinetics, 1999), 88–92.
University of Iowa Wrestling Team, Weight Logs, 1980–1985 (Iowa City: University Archives).
“Wrestlers Cut Weight Ahead of State Meet,” Des Moines Register, February 20, 1983, C3.
“Making Weight: A Family Affair in Wrestling Households,” Des Moines Register, February 15, 1987, C1.
Iowa Wrestling Oral History Project. Interview with Tom Brands, March 14, 2012. Iowa Oral History Center, University of Iowa Libraries.
Iowa Wrestling Oral History Project. Summary Transcripts. Iowa Oral History Center, University of Iowa Libraries.
Mike Chapman, The Culture of Wrestling in Iowa (Newton: Iowa Wrestling Hall of Fame Press, 2005), 44–47.
Dan Gable, A Wrestling Life: The Inspiring Stories of Dan Gable (Champaign: Human Kinetics, 2015), 102–105.
“Mocco Pushes Limits in Quest for Wrestling Glory,” Des Moines Register, January 17, 1998, C1.
Decorah High School. Yearbook, 2003, Decorah, IA: Public Library Special Collections.
University of Iowa, Athletic Department Recruitment Files, 2000–2010 (Iowa City: University Archives).
Sarah Fields, “Title IX and Wrestling: An Uneasy History,” Journal of Sport History 31, no. 2 (2004): 153–169.
“Women’s Wrestling Programs Expand Across Iowa Colleges,” Des Moines Register, February 22, 2015, B4.
Iowa MMA Commission, Annual Report on Amateur and Professional MMA Events in Iowa, 2020 (Des Moines: State Athletic Commission Records).
Ibid.
Michael Strain, “From Mats to the Cage: Wrestling’s Role in MMA Success,” Amateur Wrestling News, June 12, 2019, 5.
University of Iowa Athletics Department, Promotional Poster Collection, 1980–1989 (Iowa City: University Archives).
“Local Schools Build Wrestling Culture with Branding,” Des Moines Register, January 19, 1987, C4.
“Hawkeyes Dominate Another Season,” Amateur Wrestling News, March 28, 1993, 3.
Flowrestling, “Streaming High School Wrestling Events,” Flowrestling Archives, accessed July 6, 2025.
Flowrestling, “Inside the Brands Brothers’ Practice Room,” Flowrestling Video Archive, uploaded February 12, 2023.
NCAA, “Name, Image, Likeness Policy Update,” June 30, 2021, NCAA.org.
“Spencer Lee Signs NIL Deal with Supplement Brand,” Des Moines Register, August 3, 2022, B1.
University of Iowa, NIL Filing Reports, 2021–2024 (Iowa City: University Athletics Compliance Office).
US State Department, Sports Diplomacy Reports: Dagestan Wrestling Exchange, 2016 (Washington: National Archives).
Dagestan Regional Sports Committee, Annual Report on Wrestling Programs, 2018 (Makhachkala: Regional Archives).
Dagestan Regional Sports Committee, Event Reports: Musayev Olympic Celebrations, 2012 (Makhachkala: Regional Archives).
Chehabi, “Wrestling in Iran,” 19–30.
Tehran Zurkhaneh Association, Annual Champion and Community Service Records, 2000–2020 (Tehran: Association Archives).
Heper, “State and Kuruluş,” 1–16.
Edirne Municipality, Kırkpınar Festival Records, 1970–2015 (Edirne: Municipal Archives).
Ibid.
Greg Jackson and Kelly Crigger, Jackson’s MMA: The Stand Up Game (Layton: Victory Belt Publishing, 2007), 56–60.
Randy Couture, Wrestling for Fighting: The Natural Way (New York: Simon & Schuster, 2005), 102–108.
Iowa State Athletic Commission, Fight Outcome Statistics, 2008–2024 (Des Moines: State Archives).
UFC, Promotional Archive: Wrestlers in UFC, 2001–2023 (Las Vegas: UFC Archives).
Des Moines Combat Club, “Wrestling-Based MMA Programs,” Recruitment Poster Collection, 2003 (Des Moines: Local Archives).
Flowrestling, “Wrestling in MMA: Fight Pass Compilation,” Flowrestling/Fight Pass Archive, accessed July 6, 2025.
Jonathan Snowden, Total MMA: Inside Ultimate Fighting (Toronto: ECW Press, 2010), 203–209.
John Nash, “The Economics of MMA and the Wrestler Pipeline,” Bloody Elbow, May 12, 2018.
Iowa State Athletic Commission, Licensing Data Reports, 2005–2024 (Des Moines: State Archives).
Jackson and Crigger, Jackson’s MMA, 77–81.
USA Wrestling, “Pathways from Wrestling to MMA,” USA Wrestling Development Reports, 2017–2022 (Colorado Springs: USAW Archives).
Couture, Wrestling for Fighting, 142–149.
“Prep Wrestlers Compete at State Tournament,” Des Moines Register, February 19, 2015, B3.
Mike Chapman, The Toughest Men in Sports (Newton: Iowa Wrestling Hall of Fame Press, 2009), 15–22.
University of Iowa Athletics Department, Yearbooks and Wrestling Promotional Materials, 1975–2020 (Iowa City: University Archives).
USA Wrestling, Annual Development Reports, 2010–2020 (Colorado Springs: USAW Archives).
Gable, A Wrestling Life, 35–42.
John Irving, “Gorgeous Dan,” Esquire, April 1973, 85–92.
Sarah Fields, “High School Wrestling and Community Identity in Iowa,” Journal of Sport History 42, no. 1 (2015): 78–94.
Michael Oriard, Reading Football: How the Popular Press Created an American Spectacle (Chapel Hill: University of North Carolina Press, 1993), 5–7.
Loïc Wacquant, Body & Soul: Notebooks of an Apprentice Boxer (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2004), 20–25.
Pierre Bourdieu, “Program for a Sociology of Sport,” Sociology of Sport Journal 5, no. 2 (1988): 153–161.
Chapman, The Toughest Men in Sports, 33–36.
Fields, “High School Wrestling and Community Identity in Iowa,” 78–94.
Clifford Geertz, “Deep Play: Notes on the Balinese Cockfight,” Daedalus 101, no. 1 (1972): 1–37.
Irving, “Gorgeous Dan,” 85–92.
Chehabi, “Wrestling in Iran,” 19–30.
Heper, “State and Kuruluş,” 1–16.
Nash, “The Economics of MMA and the Wrestler Pipeline.”
NCAA, “Name, Image, Likeness Policy Update.”
USA Wrestling, Annual Development Reports, 2010–2020.
Oriard, Reading Football, 5–7.

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———. “Hawkeyes Dominate Another Season.” March 28, 1993.

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Chapman, Mike. The Culture of Wrestling in Iowa. Newton: Iowa Wrestling Hall of Fame Press, 2005.

———. The Toughest Men in Sports. Newton: Iowa Wrestling Hall of Fame Press, 2009.

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Couture, Randy. Wrestling for Fighting: The Natural Way. New York: Simon & Schuster, 2005.

Dagestan Regional Sports Committee. Annual Report on Wrestling Programs, 2018. Makhachkala: Regional Archives.

———. Event Reports: Musayev Olympic Celebrations, 2012. Makhachkala: Regional Archives.

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Des Moines Register. “Amateur Wrestling Bouts Prove Popular at State and County Fairs.” August 24, 1913.

———. “Local Schools Build Wrestling Culture with Branding.” January 19, 1987.

———. “Making Weight: A Family Affair in Wrestling Households.” February 15, 1987.

———. “Mocco Pushes Limits in Quest for Wrestling Glory.” January 17, 1998.

———. “Prep Wrestlers Compete at State Tournament.” February 19, 2015.

———. “Spencer Lee Signs NIL Deal with Supplement Brand.” August 3, 2022.

———. “Women’s Wrestling Programs Expand Across Iowa Colleges.” February 22, 2015.

———. “Wrestlers Cut Weight Ahead of State Meet.” February 20, 1983.

Edirne Municipality. Kırkpınar Festival Records, 1970–2015. Edirne: Municipal Archives.

Eichberg, Henning. “Body Cultures in Norway: Skis, Rings, and Alternatives to Modern Sports.” Journal of Contemporary History 19, no. 4 (1984): 631–648.

Fields, Sarah. “High School Wrestling and Community Identity in Iowa.” Journal of Sport History 42, no. 1 (2015): 78–94.

———. “Title IX and Wrestling: An Uneasy History.” Journal of Sport History 31, no. 2 (2004): 153–169.

Flowrestling. “Inside the Brands Brothers’ Practice Room.” Flowrestling Video Archive. Uploaded February 12, 2023. www.flowrestling.org.

———. “Streaming High School Wrestling Events.” Flowrestling Archives. Accessed July 6, 2025. www.flowrestling.org.

———. “Wrestling in MMA: Fight Pass Compilation.” Flowrestling/Fight Pass Archive. Accessed July 6, 2025. www.flowrestling.org.

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———. Coaching Wrestling Successfully. Champaign: Human Kinetics, 1999.

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Heper, Metin. “State and Kuruluş: Wrestling and Nationhood in Turkey.” Middle Eastern Studies 36, no. 2 (2000): 1–16.

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Iowa MMA Commission. Annual Report on Amateur and Professional MMA Events in Iowa, 2020. Des Moines: State Athletic Commission Records.

Iowa Wrestling Oral History Project. Interview with Tom Brands, March 14, 2012. Iowa Oral History Center, University of Iowa Libraries.

———. Summary Transcripts. Iowa Oral History Center, University of Iowa Libraries.

Iowa State Athletic Commission. Fight Outcome Statistics, 2008–2024. Des Moines: State Archives.

———. Licensing Data Reports, 2005–2024. Des Moines: State Archives.

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