This stuff makes me laugh. You people would die if you had to wrestle in OK or Missouri or on a National level. OK 10U goes 131lbs to 275lbs. We are 10U & 190+ and often give up 40-50lbs. You learn to adapt or get beat. Safety, while important is not the issue here. I've seen a lot of big weight spread matches and have yet to see anyone get hurt. Seen a lot of kids who were lighter and near or at the same weight get hurt though. I would be more concerned about the crap (literally) that is brought in on the mats from dirty bathrooms on the shoes and the fact that mats are not being sanitized frequently enough or at all. Now those are some serious health and safety concerns.

Another option for everyone worried about "safety" would be to forfeit the match against someone you think is too big or to talented to wrestle. You have that right.

If you think wrestling up is such a good thing all the time, then why bother at all with kids divisions. Pair'em up by weight then let'em go at it. See how long USAWKS lasts after you do that. We get plenty of mat time getting thumped by older boys at practice.

Your correct about asking before you enter your kids in a tournament in KS if you are over 130lbs. Most of the tournaments will try to work with you. However, you should expect to have to wrestle up an age group as the only real option.

One of the neat things about the way OK sets up their series tournaments is that you can see who is going well ahead of time and they do their cut offs on the Wed nights before the tournaments. Usually by then there are enough people listed to give you an idea of what to expect. That really helps if you want to go where you know there will be competition for your wrestler or not.

I think we should encourage tournament directors who use track wrestling to allow us as parents/coaches to be able to view who is going from the time people sign up with est. weights. That way you can make an informed choice wether or not to go to that tournament or not. This makes more sense to me than playing the "Who's here lottery" and then getting rebracketed after you show up. Kids are usually stressed up enough as it is about being there to wrestle, then you go and add they have to wrestle kids 2-3 years older than them or not at all. How is that fair to the kids involved? It isn't, it's about money and trying to pressure people into doing something just to get in some matches at any cost. We played that game for many years, not anymore. If there is any talk of moving us up we collect our money and go to the movies instead.