WRESTLING

Gable

A new film takes a close look at the greatest wrestler and coach ever

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by Paul Ingram

There are two kinds of wrestling fans. There are those who favor huge steroid-inflated biker types bouncing off the ropes of a boxing ring, performing ritualized dances of aggression, using elaborate props, and injuring themselves only when one of their grand productions goes awry. For these fans, wrestling is always Heavyweight Wrestling. They are after action-filled struggles of mythic dimension in which good and evil disguised as huge chunks of meat battle it out.

These fans, and they are legion, will have little interest the HBO documentary "Gable," produced by the University of Iowa Video Center and Shadowbird Productions, Inc.

There are, on the other hand, places in America where Heavyweight represents one-tenth (and usually the dullest tenth) of an amateur wrestling meet. Where the participants wear grim, severe expressions on their faces and talk only the quietest, most intimate, sort of trash at each other.

In Iowa and Oklahoma, where little boys hurl hay bales to build their arms and shoulders, in Pennsylvania where large families of short burly immigrant kids scrap in improvised "king of the hill" contests, and in half a dozen other locales across the country where the DNA reads short and tough: in such places amateur wrestling is followed with single-minded intensity by its handful of fans.

Amateur wrestlers, some of the most perfectly conditioned athletes in the world, think of WWF lummoxes as freaks of nature who confuse muscle bulk with conditioning and acting with true athletic performance. Amateur wrestling fans, many, including myself, former wrestlers, have never been able to understand the failure of their sport to capture the hearts of Americans. The annual NCAA Wrestling tournament is usually picked up by ESPN2 for one of their 3 a.m. timeslots, and even then the announcers are apt to focus on a wrestler's struggle with lymphoma rather than the action on the mats.

Fans of this underappreciated sport will be the ones who'll get worked up about the new "Gable" production. They’ll remember that Dan Gable at his peak was one of the most dominant athletes in the world, one of the best conditioned athletes alive, and, later, one of the most successful coaches in any sport.

Unfortunately, HBO's production is likely to disappoint many of these fans for the simple reason that it contains virtually no wrestling. Apart from a replay of the famous Larry Owings match – the only match Gable lost in his college or high school career – and a few seconds of Olympic "moments," we see nothing of this greatest of amateur wrestlers plying his trade. We see none of his heroics as a three-time state champion from Waterloo West High. We see none of his collegiate wrestling at Iowa State, save his final humiliating loss. Instead, we see a lot of Coach Gable exulting in the heroics of his young charges – fists raised in the air and masculine hugs.

Next page: Where's the footage?

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