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Heavy Mettle World champ Stephen Neal is the next big thing for U.S. wrestling
Posted: Tuesday October 19, 1999 03:50 PM By Brian Cazeneuve
The gold medal in Ankara completed a spectacular year for the 23-year-old Neal, who ended his career at Cal State-Bakersfield in April with a college win streak of 83 matches. He also won the gold at the Pan-Am Games in July, beating Cuba's reigning world champion, Alexis Rodriguez, who was so whupped he twice called time to retie a perfectly knotted shoelace before falling 8-7. Neal's relentless style belies the plodding approach of most other heavyweights, whose often low-scoring matches can be as exciting as watching cauliflower ears grow. He has drawn comparisons to U.S. heavyweight Bruce Baumgartner, who won 13 world and Olympic medals and didn't lose to an American from 1982 until his retirement in '96. Even before the Atlanta Games, as Neal, then 19, was bowing to Baumgartner 22-1 in a training match, Baumgartner knew he was battling a worthy successor. Says Baumgartner, now president of USA Wrestling, "He's on pace to be the greatest heavyweight ever." The prodigy scoffs at the thought. "I could never be that good for that long," says Neal, who once, after gashing his finger in a workout, wrote HARD WORK in blood on the wall of a wrestling room. "I still have no clue about technique once I leave my feet." In his eight victories at the Pan Ams and the worlds, Neal pinned three foes within the first 35 seconds but scored only 1 of his 42 points in the par terre (on mat) position. "I have a small man's mentality," says Neal, who stands 6'5" and weighs 260 pounds but was 135 as a high school freshman. "Getting used to my size I'd ask my body, Where are you going?" At San Diego High, Neal pinned future Heisman Trophy winner Ricky Williams, and he talks of giving the NFL a try after the Sydney Games. Darryl Pope, Neal's mentor and training partner, says that unlike wrestlers who need to be angry to excel, Neal thrives when he's happy. In Turkey happiness meant finding familiar food. "One night we got a Whopper Junior at Burger King, split a chicken bucket at KFC and got a footlong at Subway," says Pope. "I knew Stephen would win the next day because he was smiling and full." All the better to ignore the pistachios.
Issue date: October 25, 1999
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