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THE TRIALS... 1988
I am upset and angry after the match. It was a horrible call on Vinnie’s part. The rules clearly state that a wrestler can’t initiate a scoring move from outside the ‘zone’, and Douglas was way outside the ‘zone’.
– JIM SCHERR
his ankle and got the takedown to win the match and the tournament. At Pensacola, it came down to Douglas and me for the 198-pound spot on the team. I was in great shape even though I was still hindered by my dislocated shoulder. My strategy was to wrestle solid and see if I could take advantage of a mistake on the part of Douglas. I don’t remember much of my first bout with Douglas, other than I won a low-scoring match. In our second bout I felt very strong and confident. I scored a couple of takedowns early and was ahead by three points with just a few seconds to go. We were on our feet and I was trying to push Douglas out-of-bounds and take time off the clock. We went out-of-bounds and I was about to return to the center of the mat, thinking I had the Olympic team made. Douglas then comes at me and throws me to the mat and Vinnie [Zuaro] gives him three points to tie the score. We go into overtime and I am shocked. Douglas gets a legitimate takedown and he wins the bout. I am upset and angry after the match. It was a horrible call on Vinnie’s part. The rules clearly state that a wrestler can’t initiate a scoring move from outside the ‘zone’, and Douglas was way outside the ‘zone’. I was worried that the momentum had changed and that Douglas would take confidence from beating me in that second match. I also knew that I didn’t have much of an offense with just one good arm. There was one takedown move that I could do – an inside trip off of a Russian tie. My plan was to look for that opportunity against Douglas. Sure enough, the plan worked as I took him down with the inside trip, catching him with my left leg. After the match I was physically and men178 Wrestlers At The Trials
THE TRIALS... 1988
tally drained. My brother had already won the Trials at 220, so we met our goal of going to the Olympics together. There was a feeling of euphoria, but considering the constant thoughts about the sister we lost that week, I was more down than up. Randy Lewis and John Smith met in the 136.5 Freestyle finals. They were 1-1 against each other in their two matches leading up to the Final Trials. Lewis recalls the Pensacola matches and his feelings about competing in the ’88 Trials: In the Trials matches in Florida, Smith had to beat Jim Jordan for the right to wrestle me in the finals. He did beat Jordan rather easily and then he beat me. He won the first match, 8-4. In our second match, I went ahead 2-0; he caught up and was ahead 4-2 when I blew out the ligaments in my bad knee. Referee Rick Tucci correctly stopped the match for my safety and I lost by injury default. John was way better than I thought he was going to be. I wrestled better than I thought I would. I wrestled my absolute best and better than I wrestled in 1984. John and I wrestled very even. The guy who won was the one who had the most points on the board when the clock stopped. I am as proud of my accomplishments in 1988 as anything I have ever done. To go pretty even with John Smith after taking so much time off and cutting that much weight was big. I proved a lot to myself going through those 1988 Trials. Joe Seay coached John Smith during most of his college and Freestyle career. Seay talks about the Smith–Lewis rivalry in 1988: I started coaching John when I came to Oklahoma State in ’84. John took a red-shirt year during the ’85-86 season and we began working a lot of Freestyle, because excelling in international competition was definitely his long-term goal. John was very focused and always well prepared for all his key matches. I knew Randy Lewis from watching him wrestle many, many times over the years. He beat my guy from CalState Bakersfield, John Azevedo, back in 1979 in the NCAA finals by a score of 20-14. Randy was
John Smith and Randy Lewis fought and clawed their way through a series of memorable matches in 1988. Smith won the final encounter at Pensacola to clinch a spot on the Olympic team. Photograph by Ron Good, courtesy of Amateur Wrestling News
always looking to score with the big moves. In preparation for the Trials, I worked a lot with John on how to best wrestle Randy. We knew we had to try and stay away from his strengths – especially the upper-body moves. We saw certain things in watching videos of Randy’s matches where we thought we could capitalize on openings. There was no way we were underestimating Randy Lewis. He was a tenacious Freestyle wrestler. The first match they wrestled, in Topeka, went back and forth. The guys were going all out. Randy would get ahead by a couple of points but
John would always be back in the match. In Pensacola, during their first match, it was more of the same. Back and forth it went – huge excitement. John won that one and they wrestled again. Randy hurt his knee. Randy wouldn’t quit, as you might expect, and tried to keep on going but the referee had to stop it even though Randy didn’t want to. I have always respected Randy for that. These were two great wrestlers. I was very fortunate to be around the wrestling mats at that time. It was unbelievably exciting to be with such dedicated, talented wrestlers, such Wrestlers At The Trials 179