The gold medal that Henry Cejudo won in freestyle wrestling at the last Olympics sits somewhere inside his sock drawer. It earned him more fame than fortune, although enough money to splurge on a Mercedes E500.

If Cejudo repeats his golden performance in 2012, the payoff will be considerably more lucrative.

USA Wrestling announced this week the creation of a medal fund that would pay wrestlers $250,000 for an Olympic gold medal, $50,000 for a silver and $25,000 for a bronze.

This is bigger than just wrestling, Cejudo said Thursday in a telephone interview. This is bigger than the quarter-million. This is going to change everything. It’s going to revolutionize the sport.

The incentive program, called the Living the Dream Medal Fund, grew out of the United States’ underwhelming haul of three wrestling medals at the Beijing Games, the desire to energize the sport by strengthening it at the grass-roots level and, most important, the urge to keep wrestlers in the sport.

Cejudo, 22, acknowledged that he had considered converting to mixed martial arts. He said he had watched M.M.A. since seventh grade and that his grappling skills would pay dividends inside the steel cage. He said he knew of at least five Olympic-caliber wrestlers who had switched and others who were considering it.

M.M.A. is growing, and it’s a basic wrestling sport, Cejudo said. A lot of fighters are ex-wrestlers. A lot of guys take the easy way out, make quick money. This fund will keep wrestlers in wrestling.

read ful article