Eleven straight days of wrestling start with RAF 14

Eleven consecutive days of wrestling start tonight with RAF 14, per a calendar posted by Justin Basch. Super 32 runs tomorrow and Sunday, the World Championships go from tomorrow through Nov. 1, and college opening weekend duals and tournaments fill Oct. 31 to Nov. 2. Every level of the sport is live at the same time.

What the run looks like

RAF 14 is the opener tonight. Tomorrow the schedule doubles up, with Super 32 starting its two days and the World Championships beginning the same day and running nine days to Nov. 1. The handoff is close to seamless, because the final weekend of Worlds overlaps the college opener, with duals and tournaments listed from Oct. 31 through Nov. 2.

That is senior level freestyle and Greco on the world stage, the biggest high school tournament of the fall, a card of RAF matches and the first college folkstyle results of the year inside the same eleven day window. Basch called it simply.

Why it matters

For anyone who follows all of it, this is the point in the calendar where the streams stack on top of each other and the sport stops being seasonal for a week and a half. Senior Worlds results set the pecking order internationally, Super 32 brackets reshuffle high school rankings, and college opening weekend gives the first actual data behind the preseason rankings arguments fans have been having since the summer.

Team USA's men's freestyle schedule for the World Championships in Astana is already set, so the lineup side of the biggest event in the run is known going in.

Watch for the Super 32 finals on Sunday, which land in the middle of the Worlds run, and the Oct. 31 to Nov. 2 college window, when the folkstyle season finally starts producing results instead of projections.

Justin Basch

@JustinJBasch

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Today starts a stretch of 11 straight days of wrestling!