David Carr Reflects On Final X Defeat & Previews Upcoming RAF Match vs Salkazanov
David Carr takes time out of his IMG Academy wrestling camp to reflect on his Final X loss to James Green and look forward to a RAF match vs Salkazanov.
Video Transcript
David Carr.
We're here at IMG Academy.
This is your, this is your first day.
Our second day on campus.
What do you think of this place?
It's crazy.
I just went on a tour this morning and the facility is, like, state of the art.
You know, I saw for all the sports, they have, like, multiple fields, indoor, outdoor.
It's cool to see, like, the history behind, like, the tennis and how good they were.
The tennis athletes and basketball.
They have NBA players.
And now that they're starting a wrestling program, I, I expect it to be exceptional.
You know, with all the support and the things they have here, it's unbelievable.
What did you think about when you Or what did you think when you first heard that IMG Academy was gonna add a wrestling program?
I, I When I saw, I knew that they had, like, just high-profile sports, lots of good athletes, so I knew that if they were gonna do wrestling, I knew that they were gonna do it, do a great job, and they would take their hiring very seriously and things like that.
And so with the people that they have, I mean, it's some of the best, coaches you can have, especially thinking about high school coaching.
Like, I remember, like, some of the schools near me it was like, the high school coach was just maybe they wrestled a little bit or they did football and wrestling.
Where here it's like the coaches have been at the highest level, they've coached some of the best athletes, and you get that for, like, either a young athlete or high schooler.
It's, it's, it's a pretty cool opportunity.
Yeah.
What do you think, you know, the sport of wrestling maybe benefits from having a brand like IMG Academy now in the wrestling space?
It's, it's big.
I think it's As wrestling continues to grow, you know, with women's wrestling, men's wrestling.
And to have, like, a big brand like IMG Academy, I think it just shows other sports, other organizations how big wrestling's becoming.
For them to think like, "Hey, wrestling's important, we need to add it.
It's a premier sport.
It's something that we want our, young athletes to do," is really important.
'Cause I think wrestling is, it teaches you a lot about life, how to be resilient, how to pick yourself up after a loss, how to be disciplined with the weight cutting.
So there's a lot of attributes, I think, that make great people, great businesspeople.
And so IMG Academy, I think, saw that, and I think that's one of the reasons why they added wrestling.
Yeah.
Yeah.
And I mean, the, the fact that there was no wrestling here a year ago and now whole staff is hired- Yeah kids are on campus, you know, mats are on the ground, they've, they've really developed a lot, for sure.
Iowa State, though, I mean, there's been a ton of development happening there.
I wanna, I wanna catch up with you on that because, I mean, you know, Kevin Dresser's in a new role, Brent Metcalf's the new head coach, and there's a whole brand new women's program, a whole new facility being, being outfitted there.
What's, what's the energy been like on Iowa State's campus with all of those changes?
Yeah.
It's been really cool.
So with Dresser, he's kind of the director of the w- men's and women's.
He's overseeing it, and he has that CEO personality.
He, he's super business.
Super knows how to fundraise, how to get people in seats, and, he's the perfect person for the job.
And then with Metcalf taking over the helm, you know, it's been really interesting seeing how his coaching style differs and the sim- similarities.
But with him, he's just very energetic, super fun.
He's very intentional.
Everything.
He wants a, a schedule.
He wants dates.
He wants everything to be intentional.
And you know, we're doing mental sessions, which is really good.
Everyone has a notebook.
They're doing mental sessions.
They're talking about what they're learning after, before practice.
It's just a lot of new things that I really like.
And, and we're working a lot to just improve on our strength training, wrestling, everything, he's working to improve.
And he wants to really develop our guys to, you know, kinda get used to some of those changes.
And it's really, it's a fresh take.
It's really cool to see.
What are the expectations for the Cyclones next year?
You know, I think it's, it's a little bit of building year, but we got some really, some savages, some studs in there, some All-Americans, so I think this next year, I think it'll be a good year.
I think we'll have a, a lot of good performances.
But we got some young guys I'm excited to see, especially with the five-year rule kinda going into effect, so I'm excited to see how they, they do.
And, a little bit of building year, but also, I think there'll be some good performances individually at the NCAs and Big Twelves and things like that.
And, yeah, should be pretty cool.
And the women's program, of course, with Ali, Ali St. John, she's had some of the best recruits in the country.
Everyone's like a Fargo champ or on world teams that she's recruiting, so that'll be cool to see, and, like, maybe a first woman Cy Hawk would be cool to see as well.
So a lot of cool things going on with Iowa State.
Yeah.
Really cool.
I wanna catch up with you.
Coming out of Final X, you know, I'm sure your, your plan was beat James Green, you're on the world team.
How have you had to maybe pivot after, after that, that Final X series?
Yeah.
It was You know, James Green is a, a, a very tough competitor.
I enjoyed wrestling with him.
You know, definitely some adjustments I have to make and continue to get better.
You know, the plan was obviously try to make the world team, go for a world title.
But, you know, making a pivot, working on, you know, my skills, developing, trying to stay active competing, and, you know, that's kind of my plans for the summer.
Did anything surprise you about how James approached that series?
Yeah.
You know, I, watching film on him and then wrestling him, you know, he made really good adjustments and was able to kinda work in his wheelhouse and do a lot of different things that I hadn't seen before.
You know, watching a lot of his matches and then watching our matches back, you know, he was able to do skills that I hadn't seen before.
And maybe he worked on it during practice and things, or maybe he just felt certain things, but, that was kind of the things that was a takeaway of like, man, he made some quick adjustments and used some moves that kinda surprised me and, yeah, it was a good learning lesson.
One of the big, I think, surprises around 74 this year was Mitchell Mesemerick chose not to compete.
Were you surprised by that?
Yeah, a little bit.
You know, I, I kinda understand it.
He's been wrestling maybe a lot with college season.
He wrestled- He wrestled U23s.
Yeah.
U23s, and he's kind of been competing a lot so I could see him wanting to take a break and, kind of be fresh for his, his last year in college.
Yeah.
Is that somebody that you're looking forward to competing against again?
Yeah, always.
Always.
You know, he's someone, whether he's competing or not competing, I think about, you know, I wanna be ready for this guy.
I wanna be in good shape.
I want to have, precision with my technique.
And so those are the type of people that, that definitely motivate me to stay sharp.
There's a lot of good people at the weight, but he's definitely one of the, the first people that come to mind of like, you wanna make sure you're sharp, you wanna make sure you're at your best.
You got another strong opponent coming up, Sakhazanov at RAF in August.
You guys have, have split.
How do you feel about that matchup this time?
Yeah, I mean, I'm really excited just to continue to push myself.
We're one and one.
He's a great competitor.
He stays in good position, wrestles well, has good offense.
He's beaten a lot of good guys, so he's just a really good competitor.
He's a multiple world medalist.
My goal is to be, you know, wor- a multiple world medalist, Olympic medalist, to get gold at some of those events.
So to test myself against him i- is really exciting for me.
Yeah.
And competing alongside Jordan Burroughs, you know, how, how cool is that?
Super cool.
I mean, that was one of the reasons why I really wanted to get in the event in Cleveland.
Talking to him, he was like, "Hey, I think that'll be my first match back.
You know, we can train together.
Hopefully I can get on the card."
I was able to get on the card and have a good quality opponent.
And so it's super cool to ha- see him back and to be able to train with him.
He's been a great mentor.
Him and his family are amazing people, and I get to spend a lot of time with them, and super blessed to wrestle alongside him.
Awesome, man.
Well, good stuff.
Appreciate all your time, David.
Anything else before I let you go?
No, just, really appreciate, you guys, really appreciate IMG Academy having me out for this camp.
I've had a blast and I'm super blessed to have these type of opportunities, so thanks.
