Wrestling: Sultana benefits from popularity of MMA

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Sultana Coach Rocky Humphrey doesn’t need to recruit wrestlers for his program, guys like Joe Stevenson do it for him.

That’s right, Humphrey said after Sultana defeated Barstow, 59-12, on Wednesday that the sport’s biggest attraction these days is its relation to mixed-martial arts. It seems most of his wrestlers are hopeful MMA fighters who are looking to polish their ground skills.

Stevenson, a former wrestler at nearby Silverado High in Victorville, is a well-known fighter on the MMA circuit. He fought in the main event Saturday night at UFC 80 in England, losing on a rear naked chokehold to B.J. Penn of Hawaii.

If the California Interscholastic Federation really wanted to make a buck, they’d just go ahead and sanction MMA as a high school sport. But I have a feeling they would sanction paintball before they put their stamp on MMA.

-- Dan Arritt

--- Image from www.joestevenson.com