It hangs like a dark cloud over wrestling.
Consider Preston Hill:
Hill, 17, was hit with molestation charges and suspended from his Clovis, California, high school for too vigorous application of the move on a freshman. The 14-year-old claimed it was retribution for his having stood up to Hill’s bullying.
Hill’s father Darren offered a defense.
“It just doesn’t make sense,” he said. “His coaches taught him the move when he was in middle school. All the wrestlers use it, and my son did it in front of his coaches at a school-sponsored event.”
Clovis police, however, say Preston went too far. The alleged victim’s father, Ross Rice, explains.
Preston took it beyond a simple wrestling move,” said Rice. “He crossed the line.
Jerome Hunt, also 17, and a former South Dakota state champion, faced 21 counts of rape and attempted rape; each count carried up to 25 years in prison.
Hunt’s lawyer Mike Butler argued that the claims against Hunt are “grossly distorted and exaggerated.”
“It’s not something illegal or not taught,” said Hunt’s former assistant coach to investigators. “It’s being taught all over.”
Defenders in both cases claimed that the Butt Drag is a legal move, and the athletes did nothing more than try to gain the upper hand, as it were. For the record, the practice involves grabbing an opponent’s glute for leverage. Should an errant finger or two gain a better hold, well, these things happen.
Consider Clarissa Chun at the 2008 USA Olympic Team Trials.
The executive director of the National Wrestling Coaches Association offered clarification.
“it is never acceptable to insert fingers into the opponent’s anus (regardless of duration),” he explained.
Brazilian jiu-jitsu is not immune. This is the end at a recent BJJ tournament in Russia. There was a quick tap, and then a distinct look of embarrassment.
Afterwards, the winner offered no apologies.
“Show me in the rules where it’s said that this move is illegal,” Alexander Fedotov said. “Now it’s new school of BJJ!”
Even pro wrestling suffers from it.
Hulk Hogan told TMZ that Andre the Giant would oil-check people “all the time.”
And this is Andre the Giant’s hand.
MMA is not immune.
This is Kazuo “Yoshiki” Takahashi vs. John “The Machine” Lober at “Pancrase: Breakthrough 6” on June 11, 1999 at Korakuen Hall, Tokyo, Japan. Lober himself narrates what happens below.
As a sport, whether MMA, Brazilian jiu-jitsu, or wrestling, is it time we knuckle down and come up with a way to clean up this problem, or else the athletes will take matters into their own hands.
