Mike Denney knows what Les Sigman is like at his best.
The UNO wrestling coach was in the corner for all four of Sigman’s national titles with the Mavericks. He’s seen some of the best Sigman has had to offer.
So if there’s anyone qualified to make a statement about Sigman’s readiness for the United States Wrestling World Team Trials Friday and Saturday at the Mid-America Center, it might be Denney.
“I think he’s wrestling the best he’s ever wrestled in freestyle,” Denney said. “It’s all coming together. He’s at his best right now.”
Sigman is the automatic finals qualifier at 120 kilograms, which translates to 264.5 pounds. So he enters the Trials just two wins from a spot on the U.S. team that will travel to Moscow this year for the World Championships.
By qualifying for the finals with a victory in the U.S. Open in April, he avoided wrestling in Saturday afternoon’s challenge tournament. So now he’ll wait to take on the last one standing in that 10-man tournament in a best-of-three series Saturday evening. The finals are slated to begin at 5 p.m.
A pair of victories would put him on the World team, a place he calls “the next in order” behind wrestling in the Olympics.
“It would be a great honor,” he said.
It’s been awhile in the making for Sigman. Since his final D-II title in 2006, the heavyweight from Sturgis, S.D., has turned his focus to the international freestyle game. After battling nagging knee and shoulder injuries — both of which required surgery — Sigman said he’s wrestling fully healthy for the first time at this point in the season.
“Finally,” he said with a sigh. “Since that’s happened, things have been going well.”
His working situation at Penn State has helped, too. Sigman has been an assistant under legendary wrestler Cael Sanderson with the Nittany Lion Wrestling Club for the last year after spending a year with him at Iowa State. It’s allowed Sigman to become a full-time wrestler and train with not only Sanderson — who will be in his corner this weekend — but also with a pair of fellow heavyweights from Penn State’s wrestling club who will be in the challenge tournament Saturday.
“He hit his stride with us here,” Denney said. “He’s hit that same kind of stride with Cael up at Penn State. He’s impressive.”
Sanderson is the only wrestler ever to finish a college career unbeaten. The biggest thing Sigman says he’s learned from his boss is how to carry himself on the mat.
“It’s just his mentality,” Sigman said. “His biggest thing is ‘forcefully use your game plan.’ It’s about doing what you want to do, not going by what your opponent does or doesn’t do.”
Sigman has tested that game plan against the best in the country and the world. And he’s come out on top. In winning the U.S. Open, he rallied after losing the first period to defeat both Tommy Rowlands (a fifth-place finisher at the World Championships) and former University of Nebraska at Kearney star Tervel Dlagnev (a World bronze medalist).
Sigman also has victories over Olympian Steve Mocco, a Chinese Olympian and a wrestler from Greece who has a World medal.
The World Team spot might go through Dlagnev, the top-ranked wrestler at 120 kilograms and someone Sigman knows well. They wrestled nine times in college (all Sigman wins) and five times professionally. Dlagnev has won three of those matches, but fell in perhaps the biggest battle.
“He’s a great wrestler,” Sigman said. “I have to be at my best against him. I’m just going to go out there and aggressively execute my game plan.”
Contact the writer:
850-0781, nickrubek@hotmail.com
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