“It’s not a spectator sport,”
Edgar clarified,
“It’s a spectator sport if you wrestle. If you know what you’re doing.”
The New Jersey native explained that wrestling appreciation often requires direct involvement or personal connection to the sport.
“When you know someone in the game, wrestling’s exciting,”
Edgar said, highlighting how technical aspects of matches might be lost on uninitiated viewers.
During the discussion, Edgar referenced rising star Bo Bassett‘s $5 million worth, explaining the investment potential in collegiate wrestling.
“Carver Hawkeye Arena holds 18,000 people… that place is going to be packed every time he’s in there. So they’re going to get their money back,”
he explained.
The conversation also touched on wrestling’s regional popularity, particularly in states with strong wrestling traditions.
“Rutgers actually has one of the top five attendances. New Jersey’s a very big wrestling state,”
Edgar mentioned. However, he concluded that the sport’s broader appeal remains limited:
“You either have to have a skin in the game, like someone you know, or you have to have wrestled yourself for it to be a fan of the sport. That’s why it’s not like a mainstream sport.”
Edgar’s perspective on wrestling’s challenges as a spectator sport comes at a time when other combat sports are actively seeking ways to expand their audience. Notably, renowned jiu-jitsu coach John Danaher outlined his vision for making jiu-jitsu more accessible to mainstream audiences during an appearance on The Joe Rogan Experience.
Unlike wrestling, Danaher believes jiu-jitsu’s path to broader appeal lies in emphasizing submission-based victories over point-scoring systems. He argues that submissions provide a definitive conclusion that resonates with audiences, similar to knockouts in boxing and MMA.
“When you surrender, that’s you saying I quit, it’s over, and that’s the most definitive form of victory possible in any form of grappling,”
Danaher explained.
While wrestling and jiu-jitsu share common elements as grappling arts, their different competitive formats may explain their varying levels of mainstream accessibility. Wrestling’s technical complexity and scoring system can be difficult for uninitiated viewers to follow, whereas submission-focused jiu-jitsu offers more visually apparent conclusions.
