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Aeoden Sinclair on Why Winning Isn't His Identity - The Barn Session
51 Plays7 days ago
Aeoden Sinclair just made his first U20 World Team and took 3rd at NCAAs for Missouri — but this conversation isn't really about the results.
We talk about what it actually felt like walking out after winning his world team spot (and why it wasn't the moment he expected), why he doesn't think his achievements define who he is, the "second arrow" concept from sports psychology he uses to deal with losses, his faith and how it shapes how he competes, his path to Mizzou and chasing a team national title.
If you're at any of Aeoden's camps this summer, go say hi:
– KC and Springfield camps — June 25th
– Missouri team camp
– Caldwell camps (Idaho)
– Aberdeen, South Dakota — June 29th (date unconfirmed, check locally before traveling)
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#Wrestling #NCAAWrestling #Mizzou #USAWrestling
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Transcript
Introduction and Aiden's Recent Achievements
00:00:00
Cokeley Brothers
All right, folks, welcome back to another episode of the barn session. i am here joined with our latest guest, Aiden Sinclair. He most recently made the U-20 world team, took third at NCAAs this past season for the Missouri Tigers. And yeah, just in general, is a very interesting individual within the sport. And so I'm um'm very excited that to dig into some of these topics and and and go over some of these things. So Aiden, you doing, man?
00:00:25
Aeoden Sinclair
Good. Excited to be here. i love to talk.
00:00:26
Cokeley Brothers
Yeah.
00:00:28
Aeoden Sinclair
You asked my mom, my coaches, i I probably talk a little too much, but this is a good opportunity for me to get all my all my words and thoughts out. So I appreciate you having me on.
00:00:37
Cokeley Brothers
Yeah, absolutely. So let's get into um the the most recent events
Making the U-20 World Team
00:00:43
Cokeley Brothers
for you. You just went out to Ohio um at the Spire Academy and made your first U-20 world team.
00:00:43
Aeoden Sinclair
Yeah.
00:00:51
Cokeley Brothers
um Talk to me about that experience, um especially with your, um this is your third time having been in the finals and what that's what that's like for you, having gotten over that that hump and now being on the world team.
00:01:06
Aeoden Sinclair
Man, it was it was it was cool. it was i remember actually walking out of the venue after I had won, and I was with my Nana, Poppy, and my mom and dad. and we were walking And I was walking out, and I'm like, man just feels like it didn't feel good. Like, I felt like I didn't feel anything. Like, I felt like I was like, ah, whatever about it. Cause the past two years I made the finals and I had lost in the third match, you know, in the best two out of three, both, both times to good competitors, you know? And, uh, I remember walking out feeling like,
00:01:37
Aeoden Sinclair
Man, it just wasn't as satisfying as I thought it was going to be. But it was definitely ah a fun experience. it's like I always have fun competing. I feel like faith is i always say faith is a huge part of my life. And I feel like every time I go to compete, I get an opportunity to pray more, pray for good health, pray for my opponent's health, pray that a weight kit goes well. like Just an opportunity for me to get closer to God.
00:01:59
Aeoden Sinclair
And um it's so that's kind of any kind time I go to compete, that's how how my mindset is. But for some reason, after after um the competition, I just felt like I was like,
00:02:10
Aeoden Sinclair
I don't know. I was just, I thought it would feel different because the last two years I hadn't got it. I remember my senior year, um I graduated literally like the next day we had to drive through the night after losing to a bar.
00:02:24
Aeoden Sinclair
And I remember sitting in my graduation because all the graduation speeches are like coming out right now. And I remember sitting at my graduation being just pissed off, like not mad, like just like,
00:02:28
Cokeley Brothers
Mm-hmm.
00:02:33
Aeoden Sinclair
like, oh my goodness, like i was so close. I shouldn't have done XYZ. You're playing the matches. Cause there were, I had wrestled them like 12 hours before. And now I'm sitting here about to graduate high school. And i just remember being salty about it. Then i remember losing last summer and thinking, damn, like i just made the senior final or the U S open senior finals. And I'm not, I can't even win the U 20 division. Like I was getting butt hurt over that. And the,
00:03:01
Aeoden Sinclair
But then i I don't know. For some reason, it just I realized how, in an in in a nice way, like saying it in a nice way, how in insignificant the tournament really was. like I left it, and I just moved on with my life.
Reflections on Winning and the Journey
00:03:14
Aeoden Sinclair
And I feel like it's going to be a lot of the same things that um I hope to achieve in my wrestling career. It's going to be like, wow, that's not what I thought it was going to be like. Or for some reason, I think it'd feel different. And so it was just kind of a reminder to me that it's not – about ah the It's not about the the result, really. I mean, you can have whatever feelings you want tied to it, but um it's more about just enjoying enjoying it. And so I got to enjoy it a lot. I got to see Ben, too. That was cool. Because year ago, literally at the like this tournament, we had found out that he was really sick. And I was like, damn.
00:03:49
Aeoden Sinclair
That's crazy. I don't know if I'll ever get to see him again. And so the first time I got to see him in person was that um that tournament. And then he's actually he was actually in town today and I got to wrestle around with him a little bit today. so
00:03:59
Cokeley Brothers
Nice. Yeah, I want to dig into some of that because I think it has been a very...
00:04:02
Aeoden Sinclair
Yeah, of course.
00:04:04
Cokeley Brothers
it there's There has been a lot of storybook material around ah Ben and his the last 380 days of his life. um but But I kind of want to sit in on that... um that feeling that you're getting of like, I made the world team and this is something that I've been trying to do for so long.
00:04:23
Cokeley Brothers
Um, but it kind of you know, it didn't feel like I was on top of a mountain necessarily. Do you think, you know, you're going to go out to, it's I think it's in Slovakia this year.
00:04:31
Aeoden Sinclair
Yep.
00:04:31
Cokeley Brothers
Um, say you go out there and you went, you went to a world, a U 20 world title. Do you feel like it's going to be more of the same? Or do you feel like that might be more of like a, an achievement in grandeur?
Mindset and Expectations in Competition
00:04:43
Aeoden Sinclair
I would honestly, I would, for some reason, i feel like it's going to be the latter, like, i or sorry, the former, I think it's going to be the same. I feel like at least how i I believe and train that it's an expectation that I win.
00:04:57
Aeoden Sinclair
You know, ah I have that in my head that um if I lose, it's like, dang, like that must've been an upset.
00:04:58
Cokeley Brothers
Mm-hmm.
00:05:04
Aeoden Sinclair
You know, there's, that's how my mind is, you know, because I feel like I prepare and I prepare and I prepare and my goal is to win every single match I go out and compete in. I mean, this, this off season, i've I've lost two matches so far to Zahid and Kyle Dake and, um,
00:05:21
Aeoden Sinclair
Those are the caliber guys that I want to want to be better than those guys. I want to beat those guys in the next couple years.
00:05:25
Cokeley Brothers
Mm-hmm.
00:05:27
Aeoden Sinclair
And I feel like that's where I see myself. And so for some reason, sometimes I can get caught up in this, oh, I'm supposed to do this or I'm supposed to be beating these guys by this amount.
00:05:37
Aeoden Sinclair
this I should be teching all these guys or I should be getting this amount of points or whatever it is. And sometimes I feel like that can that can trap me a little bit because you can underestimate or you can um wrestle a little.
00:05:51
Aeoden Sinclair
I don't know, maybe people will tie a little bit more identity to it and they'll kind of get more stressed out for it. But no, just feel like... um um the world championships are just going to be ah a really cool experience I mean that's that's honestly what I'm thinking I mean it'll be really cool and special to win you know me last time i made a world team I didn't play so uh hopefully I can win this year team USA it'd be cool to be part of uh team USA winning it you know for the I think it's history if we win it uh three years in a row so that would be ah a sweet deal or however many years in a row we're at but um
00:06:15
Cokeley Brothers
Right. Yeah.
00:06:23
Aeoden Sinclair
Uh, that's something I'm looking forward to for sure. But, uh, yeah, I feel like for personal, uh, glory or anything like that, I don't, I don't know. I'm just not so wrapped up in that I'm more, uh, at least right now, I'm more concerned with, um, developing, developing my skills, but also, um, helping out my teammates.
00:06:39
Aeoden Sinclair
So, uh, it's just opportunity to compete like, uh, like any other, you know, just, uh, it's, in another part of the world, which would be cool. I think Vienna is an hour away. So maybe I can do some sightseeing. I like, ah i like history.
00:06:51
Aeoden Sinclair
So maybe they got some good history.
00:06:52
Cokeley Brothers
All right.
00:06:53
Aeoden Sinclair
I don't know much about Vienna history. So we'll see.
00:06:56
Cokeley Brothers
Yeah. I mean, i think so you're, you're looking forward to really just the experience, regardless of the outcome of the results, no matter what happens actually on the mat, um, being able to go through that, that world team experience, um, being around those people, all those high level wrestlers and, and in a, you know, a country like Slovakia and and in a ah continent like Europe, where there is a lot of history, um, that, I mean, i understand that.
00:07:03
Aeoden Sinclair
Yeah.
00:07:08
Aeoden Sinclair
Of course.
00:07:20
Cokeley Brothers
I think that makes sense. And so you've, um, in your past, you, i mean, you've had a lot of success. You, you, you won, i believe it was three state titles, correct?
00:07:29
Aeoden Sinclair
Yes, yeah.
00:07:30
Cokeley Brothers
And so have, have you ever, have you had things shifted for you in terms of achieving your goal and how that feeling has been different from your expectation?
Shift in Perspective During College
00:07:43
Aeoden Sinclair
Yeah, hugely. i mean, I think in high school, I would have felt that um i should have been treated. i mean, I kind of act like this and it wasn't good by any means. I felt like it it actually like made it harder for me to improve sometimes. But um I would have felt like my um my achievements warranted me being treated differently. My achievements warranted like different attitudes towards me or that I'm seen at a certain level. And and now I'm kind of realizing like,
00:08:14
Aeoden Sinclair
in like a nice way, people really, at least the people I'm surrounded by, so surrounded by here in Columbia, Missouri, outside of um wrestling, like people don't know. So I hate saying like the word, like like they don't care. Like a lot of people innately care about other people, but they don't know what you're doing. And it doesn't have any bearing on their lives. And like, I was thinking about this today. I saw a thing about, um it was like a Lammy, he's a football player. um I think he's from Spain or Portugal. And I was like, this was like,
00:08:44
Aeoden Sinclair
world famous and i don't mean I just found out about him today. like people what I'm trying to get at, like the whole moral of what I'm trying to say is like go do whatever you want to do because like there's so many people. It's not a big deal. like It really isn't a big deal. what you're doing whether like I was thinking about this this year. like I got third at NCAA as my goal is to win, but people aren't like, that's not your identity. Like it'd be crazy. I think it's crazy when people ruminate on that and they, so they, they, I talk with a sports psychologist a lot and we call it shooting yourself with the second arrow. Like the first arrow of losing or not achieving is enough, but that second arrow of, um, wire, like I'm not enough or I'm not good enough or these things that you tell yourself, like,
00:09:28
Aeoden Sinclair
it doesn't have it's It's crazy that people do that. They're just like enslaved to their own suffering. and i just think that ah I don't know even know how I got to this point, but basically, any anytime ah whatever you do, it doesn't matter. It really doesn't matter. You could be the best in the world at it, and you could be sitting next to someone in class who has no idea who you are. and so Who you are like character-wise and your ability to maintain and perform in relationships matters so much more than...
00:09:56
Aeoden Sinclair
what, uh, whatever, um, whatever achievements you could ever do. You know, I think that's the the thing I'm getting at. you You can have whatever trade you want, but what's your character. That's really the only thing that matters. So, and I think wrestling is a beautiful vehicle for a developing character.
00:10:12
Cokeley Brothers
Yeah, i I understand where like the framing, the mindset, that makes sense to me because I also think it helps people handle loss a lot more easily.
00:10:22
Cokeley Brothers
if you aren't If you don't tie your identity and your your your relationship to the sport to the outcome of your matches, it makes things a lot more enjoyable. um
00:10:31
Aeoden Sinclair
Yes.
00:10:32
Cokeley Brothers
So do you do you do you kind of feel like maybe, yes, it makes it easier to... handle those losses, but it also might make the, that feeling of victory, not feel as powerful or feel as impactful.
00:10:44
Aeoden Sinclair
Yeah. Yeah, that's great. I think that's great. I think ah that's a great question. I think yes. um there's that I would agree. I think
Identity Beyond Results
00:10:56
Aeoden Sinclair
there's probably truth to that that, that if you care less about losing, you will care less about winning or something along those lines. Just care caring less about the sport and what you're the activity you're doing, whatever. We'll use wrestling, but um there is truth to that. But I also think like we This is such a funny, I feel like I read these like, I was studying for the LSAT and i there's a ah section of it in the reading part that's about humanities and i always talk there's always like this um anthropology like thing where it's like the study of human behaviors and social sciences and the the thing that you're asking is like one of the topics that I feel like it could be about.
00:11:31
Cokeley Brothers
Mm-hmm.
00:11:35
Aeoden Sinclair
But ah basically what I'd say to that is you have to live in, um in the world at some point. So let's let's say like, I would say I lived in a really warped reality right now.
00:11:46
Aeoden Sinclair
Like I get to be surrounded by wrestling. I get to be, I get a lot of my food taken care of for the majority of the time. and I don't have to pay for anything school wise. There's this and NIL thing.
00:11:57
Aeoden Sinclair
Like most of your expenses are taken care of. You're surrounded by people who also love what you're doing. You're doing it at a super high level and you live in this world where you're like all based on this performance of your wrestling thing.
00:12:07
Aeoden Sinclair
But this is going to end. Like,
00:12:09
Cokeley Brothers
Mm-hmm.
00:12:09
Aeoden Sinclair
For the majority of people, there there is, I mean, I won't deny there there's like that top, it's like, oh, if you did an analysis, probably like 0.001% who continue on to do the Olympic thing, like a David Taylor Kyle Dake, some these guys who continue on in the wrestling world and maybe other guys branch off into UFC, whatever.
00:12:27
Aeoden Sinclair
But for the majority of the time, at least in the climate, climate wrestling in people can't make money and they transition out of sport. And that's the truth for the majority of student athletes. And so you're going to have to deal with reality at some point.
00:12:37
Aeoden Sinclair
And if your whole identity was tied up in um the winning and the losing or the victory and the non-victory, you have this, like, I think a lot of people tell themselves, like, um I do this too.
00:12:48
Aeoden Sinclair
Like, when I say a lot of people, I'm probably talking about myself at some point, you know, and ah they they get caught up in this, like, I'm this great competitor.
00:12:52
Cokeley Brothers
Mm-hmm.
00:12:56
Aeoden Sinclair
I'm way different than these other people. Or like I was a, the common one is i was student athlete. They were in ARPS or whatever it is. But um um you're going to have to work with those people in your careers and in your lives.
00:13:06
Aeoden Sinclair
And so isolating yourself or um telling you, feeding yourself these beliefs that you're this entirely different person than everyone else and that they can never understand is not going to make things easier for you, you know?
00:13:17
Aeoden Sinclair
And so I feel like, when you take whatever your task you're doing and you make it smaller, um you kind of understand the broader picture of I could be doing anything. And so the fact that I could be doing anything means that if everyone could also be doing anything, we could probably bond on whatever it is we're doing.
00:13:35
Aeoden Sinclair
You know what I'm saying to that to that regard?
00:13:36
Cokeley Brothers
Yeah.
00:13:37
Aeoden Sinclair
Like things are very similar in the essence, like at the at the core, like of what you're doing. You got work hard, you got to ask good questions, you got to be humble, like all this stuff is super translatable.
00:13:48
Aeoden Sinclair
And um I feel like part of life is just connecting with other people. And so I would say this is such, I feel like I've just gotten to way too many stuff. But what I'm getting at is, yeah, what I'm getting at is like,
00:13:57
Cokeley Brothers
No, you're. Yes.
00:14:01
Aeoden Sinclair
regardless you should if you bring whatever you're doing up here and whatever everyone else is doing over here it's just going to make that hard
The Value of Relationships and Health
00:14:10
Aeoden Sinclair
it's going to make it hard for you to connect with people you know because at the end of your life and you you know and i talk about this i'm a christian um but at the end of your life it's relationship and health those are kind of the really the two main things that you're that are going to matter to you at least for the majority of people if you if you aren't christian for me obviously um faith in Christ.
00:14:28
Aeoden Sinclair
But I noticed that you have psychology and money behind you. And that was yeah and that was one of the one of the main principles he talks about is like um the wealthy understand the value of like relationships and health.
00:14:31
Cokeley Brothers
I do.
00:14:40
Aeoden Sinclair
And that ultimately is what it is. Whatever you do really will never end up mattering. I always like to talk about the story, Ben, Ben Askren tells me is every year you go to NCAAs and you see these two-time, three-time national champions walking around and no one's asking for their picture, but um they're asking for the guy who got eighth in one of the brackets to take a picture with them and sign their stuff. And it's like, you got this legend over here who's like won three NCAA championships, probably has a world medal, maybe went to the Olympics, and people don't even know who he is.
00:15:09
Aeoden Sinclair
You know what I'm saying? So it's like, what whatever you're doing, it it's probably –
00:15:11
Cokeley Brothers
Yeah.
00:15:14
Aeoden Sinclair
Maybe it matters right now, but maybe in the future it's not gonna matter that much. Who knows? So I think that would be my take on it would be like, yes, you could live in this um reality where this winning is so big and losing is so bad.
00:15:25
Aeoden Sinclair
And I'm this um top competitor and I'll probably take you really far, but at some point you're going want to connect with other people. and it's going pretty challenging to do that if you isolate yourself um into this, ah like this other side.
00:15:38
Aeoden Sinclair
That'd be my
00:15:39
Cokeley Brothers
Yeah, this this so this very much backs up. I had a conversation with a guy who won a national title, i want to say about 15 years ago. And he said it stopped mattering, it like having any impact in his life very quickly afterwards.
00:15:53
Cokeley Brothers
Um, like both inside his like mental state and in the real world. Um, and from my own personal experience, I live in Southern Alabama wrestling.
00:16:04
Aeoden Sinclair
Yeah.
00:16:04
Cokeley Brothers
As far as what people understand for the sport of wrestling down here, it's WWE in the ring, wearing tights, that type of stuff.
00:16:10
Aeoden Sinclair
Yeah, yeah. Okay.
00:16:11
Cokeley Brothers
So. it like you're very spot on about this, this philosophy and, um, the actual gravity behind the sport and the way people perceive it it, it is, it is the, the things that happen right now, right?
00:16:25
Cokeley Brothers
The guys who take, you know, but are on the podium at NCAAs this year. They're, they're the ones that are getting the attention versus the guys who are in the stands who are, you know, for the, for the real nerds, for guys like me, legends of the sport.
00:16:36
Aeoden Sinclair
Yes.
00:16:36
Cokeley Brothers
Um, What, where did you start to sort of adopt this philosophy? Was it, was it during your time with Ben and then continued at Missouri or, you know, when did this start to become part of your sort of sports psychology repertoire?
00:16:51
Aeoden Sinclair
Yeah, i think ah I think for me it was primarily – I would definitely say as I got to Mizzou. But I think the whole thing was I was in high school. I made it to the top of the top. I was like – want to say i won almost every everything high school-wise that year. Yeah.
00:17:08
Cokeley Brothers
Mm-hmm.
00:17:09
Aeoden Sinclair
I was number one ranked in the country. And i remember like just feeling so lonely. like Lonely not – my family, we we have a really strong relationship. like I didn't feel any like loneliness from them or anything like that. But I felt like isolated at school. I felt like when I would go to school, I'd want to be treated a certain way. like um And for for lack of a better term, I wanted people to be like asking me all these questions or like – quote unquote, worshiping me or like, like wondering why I was so good. And I wanted attention from it. And I never got that. And there was this disconnect. And then I started to resent them because I'm like, well, you don't understand who you're around right now. There's not many people who are like this. You don't um like this was me back in high school. I obviously like, I don't think like this anymore, but I feel like this was like, and under maybe i and I feel like sometimes back in high school, I try to like hide it. But I feel like for the most part, this is how I was. I was like, why,
00:18:04
Aeoden Sinclair
it wasn't I wouldn't say I was like mean to people, but I wouldn't engage as much because I'd be like, why why don't you get this? like Why aren't you asking me? I figured it out. And you're sitting over there like talking about XYZ. I'm the best guy in the country right now.
00:18:21
Aeoden Sinclair
you know like I couldn't make sense of it because there was this guy, maybe there's a guy who's going to play d three basketball that everyone was obsessed with.
00:18:21
Cokeley Brothers
Yeah. Yeah.
00:18:27
Aeoden Sinclair
and I'm like, what are we doing? This is so silly to me. you know And then ah so I realized, I think for me, it was like,
00:18:30
Cokeley Brothers
yeah
00:18:34
Aeoden Sinclair
I was like, well, they'll never understand. um I'm this only, there's a reason only, there's reason there's only one champion at the end of the day and um everyone can't be the same. And I tell myself these things and it just made it really hard for me to connect with people and really, really hard to like live this like real life, I would say like a life with relationship and,
00:18:55
Aeoden Sinclair
opportunity and enjoyment and my whole life was wrapped around wrestling. And I like, like i say this a, you know, I love wrestling. Like I loved my time at AWA. I loved going to AWA. I loved doing, I loved working out. I loved working hard. I actually think most men for the majority of the time enjoy doing hard things like enjoy working hard. Um, but I, I just always felt like there was something missing. And, uh, I think when I got to college, I kind of realized that, wow, like my identity was just wrapped up in what I did.
00:19:25
Aeoden Sinclair
And that was all I cared about. And at the end of the day, it never, it doesn't really matter. And I just think I adopted it, um, through college. I think part of it too, is you'd set goals and you fail those goals and you realize, wait, everything's okay.
00:19:38
Aeoden Sinclair
Like, I'm going to continue to get to do what I love, and I'm going to keep working at these goals just because I – one of my goals was four-time national champion. Just because I didn't achieve that um doesn't mean that – it doesn't mean that the world's going end. It doesn't mean that ah the pursuit of a three-time national champion is any less worthy. So I think ah for me it's just um dealing with – failure as well as trying to just build connections with other people and live a more enjoyable life.
00:20:07
Aeoden Sinclair
You know, not this, not this like, I don't even want to use the word of warrior. I want to use it like a word like, ah I don't know, just self rugged individualism. Like I can do this all by myself and I don't, I can't be surrounded by anyone because they will throw me off or something like that.
00:20:22
Aeoden Sinclair
But um yeah.
00:20:23
Cokeley Brothers
that's Is that like, I don't know if there's, there's the alpha male and the sig Sigma male.
00:20:23
Aeoden Sinclair
Yeah.
00:20:28
Cokeley Brothers
I don't know if it's one of those type of personality types, but I understand.
00:20:30
Aeoden Sinclair
Yeah. Yeah.
00:20:32
Cokeley Brothers
yeah I understand what you're saying.
00:20:34
Aeoden Sinclair
Yeah. I don't know the difference.
00:20:34
Cokeley Brothers
um
00:20:34
Aeoden Sinclair
fruits I think Sigma is greater maybe. i don't know. Greek alphabet.
00:20:38
Cokeley Brothers
think people, yeah I think people say Sigma is like, not, not alpha that everybody looks up to, but like this guy in the shadows, it's like, he's the one pulling the strings or something.
00:20:38
Aeoden Sinclair
Oh, okay. Okay.
00:20:45
Aeoden Sinclair
felt
00:20:46
Cokeley Brothers
I don't know. I don't, I really don't know. But yeah, So you're at Missouri and, and from what it sounds like is, is things have changed for you in a lot of ways and for the better. And, um, you're growing not only as a wrestler, but as a person there.
00:21:01
Cokeley Brothers
Uh, and, and this is the same school that your, your club coach Ben Ashkren went to. um you know, what, what went into your decision to be at Missouri?
Decision to Attend Missouri
00:21:10
Cokeley Brothers
Um, was it, did you, was it sort of like, I want to follow the path of my, my coach or how did, you know, how did you find yourself at a, at a program that it in the last couple of years has not been, um on the radar the way that they've normally been.
00:21:25
Cokeley Brothers
now I think that'll look a little different this upcoming season, but I just, you know, I want to get your read on this.
00:21:28
Aeoden Sinclair
Yeah.
00:21:31
Aeoden Sinclair
Yeah, no, that's great. I think ah for me, um it was a lot of it was um a mix of Ben, but it also just um the guys I had looked up to my whole life were coming to Mizzou. You know, ah how he this is something Wisconsinites know really well, but that Wisconsin State tournament, man, it's great.
00:21:47
Aeoden Sinclair
It's great to compete in, but it's great to um go to and watch.
00:21:47
Cokeley Brothers
Mm-hmm.
00:21:50
Aeoden Sinclair
And before I'd gone to NCAA, that was NCAAs for me. And so I grew up watching Keegan O'Toole win four state titles, Peyton Mako win, I think he won two state titles.
00:22:00
Aeoden Sinclair
And I grew up watching these guys. and thinking, a dang, like this is pretty sweet. These dudes are awesome. like if i If I ever got the chance to be around them or are um just to get to wrestle with them or even win, I think at the time i was telling myself, if I ever got the chance to win one state title, that'd be pretty sick.
00:22:18
Aeoden Sinclair
And i ended I never thought I would wrestle in college.
00:22:18
Cokeley Brothers
Mm-hmm.
00:22:20
Aeoden Sinclair
I never thought I was going to be this guy. In middle school, i never – I won here and there, um but I was not by any means like the best guy, and I would lose a lot. And when I'd lose, it was probably pretty ugly. I'd get like pinned or teched pretty quickly.
00:22:32
Aeoden Sinclair
So I just assumed that I wasn't going to be this guy, and um for some reason, it ended up working out for me. Yeah. Yeah, I think ah I looked up to those guys heavily.
00:22:43
Aeoden Sinclair
I think Ben talked so well about his time at Missouri. And i also looked up heavily, to greatly, whatever word I want to use, to Ben. I looked up to what he had built and developed.
00:22:54
Aeoden Sinclair
And um I always loved that he would always talk about how close they were to winning NCAAs. And it just kind of, for me, it felt like a project that, not even a project, but something that can be passed along to me.
00:23:08
Aeoden Sinclair
And I wanted to do something special. I want to come here and help Coach Brian Smith win a national title. That's the goal. You know, I feel like there's only – there's a number out there.
00:23:19
Aeoden Sinclair
Maybe five or so five or six might even be too high. But there's not that many teams that have won a national title in wrestling. And I wanted Missouri to be one of those teams that that does that. And I really clicked with the coaches.
00:23:30
Aeoden Sinclair
I really enjoyed Coach Maple, Coach Dom. Grew up watching them too, you know. I remember going to Carver 2017.
00:23:34
Cokeley Brothers
Mm-hmm.
00:23:35
Aeoden Sinclair
I think I was double fisting Carver cones. I was a chunky kid. like sixth grade and i i have a picture of spencer lee from there when he after his uh first national title um and i was i was like his size and i't i remember thinking like man i didn't realize how small these guys were on tv they look so giant but uh i remember ah I remember watching Coach Maple at 61 KG and then Coach Tom. And I just think at the time when I was getting recruited, that was what I wanted. Like, that was everything I wanted. And I wanted to be this guy that could help this program and be another national champion for Mizzou. And since being here, I love it. Mizzou athletics is fantastic. um I've never really been anywhere else. I hear – stuff from other programs, um from other athletes and stuff. And i think i i think I have it really well. really i have I have a really good thing going here. So I'm looking forward to ah the next couple years. And I'm really ah i'm really excited to see what ah if I can get done what...
00:24:32
Aeoden Sinclair
what what what Ben was trying to do. You know, that's kind of one of my goals is I do believe we can be a team national national championship, I think, ah or a win a team national title. I think it's funny when guys doubt that because every year at NCAA is like crazy stuff happens. And I remember my freshman year when UNI almost beat a Oklahoma State in the Big 12s. I'm like, why can't that be us? Like, we have the guys to do it. Like, we have really, really talented guys.
00:25:03
Aeoden Sinclair
There's no reason that it couldn't be us. I mean, ah at at the highest levels of the NCAAs, I mean, you know, this is probably talking with a bunch of the guys. It's like you're separated by really thin margins, and you never know what's to happen on the day, you know? And I'm even saying all this in the sense of like,
00:25:18
Aeoden Sinclair
oh, we need to get lucky. That's not even the case. Like we have just great dudes who can win. Like they can develop and win.
00:25:23
Cokeley Brothers
yeah
00:25:24
Aeoden Sinclair
I've seen it in high school. I've watched AWA kids. watched a kid who walked in. I was like, this dude can't even do karaoke. Like you can't even like do the, not the singing, but like the, the warmup.
00:25:33
Cokeley Brothers
yeah yeah
00:25:33
Aeoden Sinclair
ter And, uh, and now he's in the state finals. Like what is going on? How did he get so good in, uh, two, three years? And so, uh, I think ah <unk>t I don't see why that can be any different in college. And yeah, I'm i'm really looking forward to the next three years. It's crazy. I have three more years, but it's also crazy that I've been here for two years. It's weird.
00:25:54
Aeoden Sinclair
It's crazy.
00:25:55
Cokeley Brothers
Yeah. Yeah. And i I totally understand where you're coming from because it starts to feel like to jump the jump, the jump from high school to college is a big jump.
00:26:01
Aeoden Sinclair
Oh,
00:26:06
Cokeley Brothers
I don't know if you went through the experience. go ahead
00:26:09
Aeoden Sinclair
oh yeah.
00:26:09
Cokeley Brothers
My, my, my welcome to college wrestling experience was a Tuesday night, 30 minute live go. And I spent about 29 minutes of it with my face being pressed into the mat. um And so the that jump, it's it's steep.
00:26:18
Aeoden Sinclair
Yeah.
00:26:23
Cokeley Brothers
There's a learning curve to it, but that doesn't mean that there can't be this ah development change, right? This velocity change behind people and what they achieve in at high school versus in college.
00:26:36
Cokeley Brothers
ah And I think you're a pretty good example of this because... from my personal perspective, you, you redshirted last year and you wrestled one 97 for a lot of your matches.
00:26:48
Cokeley Brothers
And then the the assumption was that you would wrestle one 84 this year, as you did.
00:26:48
Aeoden Sinclair
Yeah.
00:26:52
Cokeley Brothers
And preseason truth be told, you were not like a high up guy on my radar because you had taken these losses that sort of like made me question what was going on.
00:27:04
Cokeley Brothers
um Can you kind of talk through that redshirt experience, the decision behind wrestling one 97 and the learning curve that you went through there?
00:27:13
Aeoden Sinclair
Yeah, I think ah i think i I was wrestling 197 because we had a guy who we thought was going to come back in the middle of the year. And so I was just kind of – because we had ah another guy, Colton Hawks, 84.
00:27:24
Aeoden Sinclair
And so we kind of just needed a guy to fill in the weight class until ah um one of our other guys came back and finished out his um career.
00:27:24
Cokeley Brothers
Mm-hmm. Mm-hmm.
00:27:32
Aeoden Sinclair
But ah he just he was still injured, and so it it didn't work out that way. So I was – I think I was – probably should have been 84 the whole time.
00:27:41
Cokeley Brothers
who
00:27:41
Aeoden Sinclair
But ah I started out as 197. I was got the start in a couple of duels, and I was excited for that. And, yeah, I think ah think I just lost matches. I mean, know i want I think if I can look think back, I had four matches um that I lost.
00:27:57
Aeoden Sinclair
I lost to Wyatt Volker, who's at heavyweight now, which is kind of crazy, and um ah Andy Smith from Virginia Tech, and then Stephen McKinnon and Dustin Plott.
00:28:01
Cokeley Brothers
Mm-hmm. Yeah. Mm-hmm.
00:28:10
Aeoden Sinclair
um I remember the first one I lost was the Virginia Tech one, the Smith. And I remember thinking, like, how did I just lose that match? Like, I felt like I was way better than the dude. um And i I just lost. I mean, I think I struggled to get out from bottom and gave up some takedowns, like some silly takedowns.
00:28:29
Aeoden Sinclair
And it made it hard for me to come back. And then the Volker match, i I remember thinking he was just like so much stronger than me. He just like blast doubled through my face. And I just i just lost that match. and And I remember like, man, I got to fix my head position. That was like kind of something i developed in college. was like, I don't need to like run at guys with my arms like a zombie. I could probably like use my head to defend a little bit, right? And so I worked on that a little bit. And then the Buchanan match,
00:28:58
Aeoden Sinclair
He was strong. He was he was good. 197, they were all strong. I remember feeling a little bit weak, kind of like a little bit of a baby there.
00:29:02
Cokeley Brothers
Yeah.
00:29:05
Aeoden Sinclair
But I feel like if I wrestled 197 now, I mean, I wrestled Evan Bates almost every day in the room and I did fine. So I feel like if I was to wrestle 197 now, I'd be fine. But ah yeah, for some reason, i last year i just lost.
00:29:17
Aeoden Sinclair
I mean, I think it's a it's it sucks losing, but it's also like, look how much better I've gotten, you know, if you need any more evidence of like a program where you're actually going to develop and you're, we're actually trying to actively improve your skills.
00:29:26
Cokeley Brothers
Mm-hmm.
00:29:34
Aeoden Sinclair
Look no further, you know, like I lost those four matches. And now this year I, or this past year, I only lost a one guy and I lost them like overtime. Yeah. Both times.
00:29:44
Aeoden Sinclair
And so i think, ah I think it's a, I don't know. I would agree. I think I'm a prime example of, um, look what happens when you, when you surround yourself with good coaching rather than, um, trying to, uh, not calling anyone out, but trying to go get paid or trying to go wherever the highest bidder is going to, going to buy you. Like, do you really want to sell your, um, the thing that you love for this money that you're probably going to make later, um, in your life? Ooh, I, I can't say that for certain. And I don't know how much money kids are getting offered, but, um,
00:30:16
Aeoden Sinclair
Yeah, I don't know. I just think it's a silly trade-off. It's like you're trading off something special, something like that you could really only do for five years, four years um for this number of money to build yourself a a nest egg or whatever people want to say. And yeah, i don't know. I just think you should surround yourself with um loving good people um who care about you, who care about your success and ah they will, you you're going to do special things. Yeah.
00:30:46
Cokeley Brothers
Yeah. So the, the, the culture at Missouri, you, you, you're saying nothing, you're, you're singing praises for it. Uh, and so I, I want to I want to hear about your relationship with the coaching staff, the culture, uh, and the team overall, what, you know, what do you feel like is a big differentiator, and what goes on at Missouri versus other programs?
00:30:52
Aeoden Sinclair
Of course.
00:31:08
Cokeley Brothers
You know, how, how are you guys, um, able to sort of, take these steps and and put in these, um, this development, right? Because there are definitely programs that you can, that you can recognize that like they bring in good athletes, but they don't really go anywhere with it.
00:31:24
Aeoden Sinclair
Yep.
00:31:24
Cokeley Brothers
Um, so what, what makes Missouri, this group, this culture, this team that's able to, uh, produce this way?
Team Ethics and 'Tiger Style'
00:31:31
Aeoden Sinclair
Yeah, I think it's i think it's simply Tiger style. It's our core pillars that Coach Smith has. I don't know when he first developed it, but he's written a book on it now. um But you have Believe, Compete, Expect to Win, and One More, and they're just our four core values.
00:31:46
Aeoden Sinclair
I think he's developed something that we can tangibly – understand what like why it matters and understanding that it's more than just about individuals um i think another thing that uh maybe college wrestling does well but specifically mizzou or specifically we do i think fantastic is no one's above the team it's that simple like you could be i remember thinking about this like even if you came into a team in college and you were like Gable Stevenson, where you like had won an Olympic gold medal, or you were this really great wrestler before you even had gotten to college.
00:32:04
Cokeley Brothers
and
00:32:18
Aeoden Sinclair
The team is still the team. Maybe they'll respect you, uh, differently in different regards, but if you come in thinking that you're above the team, you're going to find out pretty quickly that that's not how things work, you know? And so I think, at Mizzou specifically, I think they just do a good job of, them um, um,
00:32:34
Aeoden Sinclair
making guys understand that the little things matter. Um, life beyond wrestling matters. Um, the relationships and the values and the, um, the, the things that you stand for matter beyond wrestling, beyond, um, uh, athletics.
00:32:48
Aeoden Sinclair
I think Mizzou athletics as a whole does a great job, but, um, specifically in, um, in our ah wrestling sector, you know, i just think they get guys to understand that, uh,
00:32:56
Cokeley Brothers
Mm-hmm.
00:32:58
Aeoden Sinclair
What you do, the little things, how you hold yourself, who you are, it matters. And so ah um one thing I heard one of our strength coaches say, but I bet you Coach Smith would agree, is like, if you think you're, if you're too big for a small job, you're probably too small for a big job.
00:33:13
Aeoden Sinclair
And I think that's, ah that kind of sums up the program. um everyone Everyone should be taking up a servant servant leadership role. um trying to figure out how they can best help their teammates. And um in doing that, like people are going to want to pour into you and and help you out. And so ah I think coach Smith does a really good job of just making sure everyone knows, Hey, no one's above the team. We're all, we're all in this together and we all have a common goal and this is what we're trying to get to. So I think, ah I think these next couple of years are going to look very, um just kind of continue to pull guys along with me. I think um I've been learning a lot about leadership, which I could touch on later too, if there was a question about that, but yeah, Yeah, I think Mizzou, the reason Mizzou excels is that um everyone understands that we're in this together.
00:33:59
Aeoden Sinclair
Yeah,
00:33:59
Cokeley Brothers
Yeah, so I want to touch on one thing about that because you said no one's above the team.
00:34:02
Aeoden Sinclair
go ahead. Yep.
00:34:04
Cokeley Brothers
But i think another crucial element to having a ah great room is nobody feels that they're below the team either.
00:34:12
Aeoden Sinclair
Yes, yeah, I agree.
00:34:12
Cokeley Brothers
ah especially like when it's in the post season and you know, there's, there's eight or 10, however many guys you guys, you have qualified for NCAAs, um, just because you have the rest of the team, the other 20 guys, you know, they might not be going, they might not be competing that weekend or even on a, you know, on a weekend where there's just a duel and there's no opens or anything.
00:34:34
Cokeley Brothers
It's still ah imperative that everybody is firing on all cylinders as best as they can. um And this is something that Yanni Diakmahal has talked about a lot too at Cornell in terms of like a cultural adjustment is making sure everybody knows that they're a cog and in the machine.
00:34:45
Aeoden Sinclair
yeah.
00:34:53
Cokeley Brothers
um do Do you feel like that is very present at Missouri and everybody feels like they are a part of this push, even though they might not be the ones competing and directly representing the program?
00:35:04
Aeoden Sinclair
yeah i think ah Yeah, I think that's great. I think that's a great point you made. I think that's something we strive for, for sure. I mean, I know, I mean, I sit in in all the team meetings, ah like personal team meetings without the coaches, obviously, right?
00:35:16
Aeoden Sinclair
And that's something we talk about constantly is like, hey, guys, you guys got to understand, like, um your maybe your season's over, but like some of the other guys' seasons aren't over and they need your help, like need help cutting weight, need help coming to workouts.
00:35:29
Aeoden Sinclair
And you guys are just, because at some point you're probably going to be in this role. Um, and we need, we we're, we're going to give you the same thing, you know, we're going to support you in the same way.
00:35:39
Cokeley Brothers
Mm-hmm. Mm-hmm.
00:35:40
Aeoden Sinclair
And so it's like, um, just helping out in this season. And then, and when I say season, mean, let me just frame of time, whether it's two weeks leading up to NCAAs or whatever it is, just help us out now so we can help you out later, you know?
00:35:52
Aeoden Sinclair
And, I think, uh, I think every team probably struggles with that. I think there's probably some guys who are like, they finished their, um, season in January and they're ready to,
00:36:04
Aeoden Sinclair
have some fun, you know? And it's just, it's part of part of being on a team is, ah part of being a leader is just trying to get guys to the kind of the same point that you're at. But everyone's different. Everyone needs different, um ah support they have they have different needs they have different struggles and I think uh like you said like just connecting connecting is honestly the biggest thing is like people will feel um like they're left out if they don't feel like they have anyone that they can come to you know but um I think we just do such a great job of um including each other we all hang out together um we all spend a lot of time with each other and that I think it makes it really easy for guys to be like yes whatever you need out I'm there yes whatever it is whatever it is yes yes yes And so I think i think like you'll find this um on some college teams.
00:36:32
Cokeley Brothers
For sure.
00:36:52
Aeoden Sinclair
like Guys are just there and they understand that. Some guys, I feel like, will like take up the role of I'm the guy. I'm like a glue guy. I'm this guy that like holds everyone together. I'm the guy that serves as much as I can.
00:37:03
Aeoden Sinclair
And I think that's great. I think it's great that they help and do whatever they can. But I also think, too, like they know their own personal journey. Maybe they don't want to be the guy in the spotlight. Maybe they don't want to continue wrestling after college, but they understand that they' their value or what they perceive their value is, is helping and they get satisfaction out of that. So I think like sometimes people can get real caught up in trying to change the way that these guys think. It's like...
00:37:27
Aeoden Sinclair
Some people are just different than others. Some people wrestle for different reasons. It took me forever to figure that out. Like i was like, why would you never want to try to win everything that you enter into?
00:37:32
Cokeley Brothers
yeah On Twitter, yeah, yeah.
00:37:35
Aeoden Sinclair
And I just, or why aren't you motivated to do this? Or why don't you want to come wrestle? Like it's so fun. um Like it just makes me happy. And I i just realized that people win and, or people compete and wrestle for different reasons.
00:37:49
Aeoden Sinclair
I think a really good example of that too, is I think someone's doing ah a big board comparison or has that, have you seen that in social media? Like they're, Yeah, yeah, yeah. And I think ah yeah I hadn't seen someone had talked to me about it.
00:38:02
Aeoden Sinclair
But I remember going back in the flow rankings and looking at like what high schoolers have done. And like, some of the dudes on the big board, you just never have heard of. And it's crazy because you think in high school, you're like, oh, like we all probably are going to do good or whatever it is.
00:38:10
Cokeley Brothers
Yeah. That's...
00:38:15
Aeoden Sinclair
But then they get to college, they're on their own. And whatever reason that they had wrestled for, whether it was for the attention that they got, or maybe their parents pushed into whatever it was, they just lost that because now it's now you're an adult.
00:38:25
Aeoden Sinclair
And now the choices are yours. And So i got into a lot of things there, but what I'm getting at is yeah team dynamics.
00:38:31
Cokeley Brothers
Yeah. Right.
00:38:34
Aeoden Sinclair
It's change.
00:38:34
Cokeley Brothers
Right. So you mentioned personal team meetings. So is this, is this like you guys coming together and as the, as just the wrestlers and sort of having like conversations about maybe these are just some pain points or like, these are some things you're noticing in the room or activities outside of the room that, you know, we need to be able to, you know, be, a be that culture that promotes success.
00:38:58
Cokeley Brothers
Um, is that kind of what you guys do? Like how often do you guys have these meetings? What is that like?
Building Team Connections
00:39:04
Aeoden Sinclair
Yeah, we try to do them once a week. I think ah one thing i can i can talk specifics too. Um, we're reading a book right now called mind gym. Um, so we're all splitting off into groups. Um, we're selecting our chapters and then every week we all come together as a team and then we'll split off into, so we'll come together and talk and then we split off into groups of six or it's not groups of six, it's six groups of five, right?
00:39:26
Aeoden Sinclair
Cause we have 30 guys.
00:39:26
Cokeley Brothers
Mm-hmm.
00:39:27
Aeoden Sinclair
And, um, um, the the whole reason that we do that is I feel like, like I was talking about earlier, like People struggle when they lack connection. It's all about connection. If you, when you ask people to take steps of commitment, because, okay, here we go. This is so fun. This this is great. I'm actually getting excited. Let me, okay, so broad spectrum.
00:39:47
Aeoden Sinclair
This is what I think. I don't know how true this is, but this is what I think. The more wrestling that you do, the better you will be at wrestling. That simple. Like the more time that you can have into wrestling, the better you will be at wrestling.
00:39:57
Cokeley Brothers
Mm-hmm.
00:39:58
Aeoden Sinclair
The better system or the better map that you have, the more accurately you can identify weakness and the quicker that you can get at wrestling. But any time spent wrestling, you're probably not going to get worse at wrestling.
00:40:08
Aeoden Sinclair
um For you to get worse at wrestling, it would take like a long time of really, really, really poor wrestling. But even then, like if you started at zero and you got a poor habit, but it allowed you to score points, like you're going get better. So wrestling, the more time you can spend wrestling, the better you're going at wrestling.
00:40:25
Aeoden Sinclair
To spend more time at wrestling, you need commit to wrestling more. So that means saying no to social stuff, saying no to – sometimes it's like professional opportunities. Sometimes it's academics, which I hate saying because you – I do think for the majority of the time, people can achieve what they want academically and also achieve what they want wrestling-wise. I don't believe that you have to have bad grades to be a good wrestler or whatever it is. um I do think you can balance two things. But one thing Coach Messamrink always said was like, you have three things in life. Social, right? You can be social, athletics, and academics, or professional or career, whatever. And you can only really be great at two of them. And I do kind of agree with that. Like, if you're trying to balance all these plates, you're really going to struggle. So up more commitment means more opportunity to wrestle. So you're to
00:41:06
Aeoden Sinclair
Go and wrestle more because you're more committed to it. But the only way you lead to a higher level commitment is to let the guys know that, like, they're valued and that they care and that it's enjoyable to do that. It's enjoyable to be more bought in. If it's not enjoyable, if if they feel like they're – loyalty is a two-way street. If they feel like they're putting in all – like, relationships, right? You think about, like, girlfriends and boyfriends. If someone's, like – putting in all these effort and the other person feels like they're not or or like this one person putting in all the effort and they're like, you're not putting in any effort.
00:41:38
Aeoden Sinclair
There's going to be ah a disconnect, there's going to be frustration, there's going to be shutting down, there's going to be a probably breakup, whatever it is. And so it's the same thing in a team if if people are pouring in but they feel like they're not getting anything out it's going to really be a a huge huge off-putting um effect and and it's going to lead to just lower levels of commitment lower levels to wrestling and then ultimately a bad team and so uh i think uh What we're trying to do is just connect, connect as much as possible, get guys.
00:42:07
Aeoden Sinclair
We're only as good. i mean, that you've probably heard heard this like Navy SEAL stuff, but you're only as good as your weakest link, right? And so ah if that guy can feel connected and make more strives towards committing,
00:42:13
Cokeley Brothers
Mm-hmm. Mm-hmm.
00:42:19
Aeoden Sinclair
That's going to motivate everyone else around them because it's like, well, I don't – sometimes they think about race to the bottom, right? I don't want to be the worst. I can't be the worst guy on the team. I need to keep getting better. You know what I'm saying? And then there's guys that are like, I'm trying to be the best guy on the team. You got opposite ends of the spectrum. And so um I think ah the whole premise of what I'm getting at is – A lot of our team building stuff is just to to keep developing relationships. You're going to experience hard things in college. I mean, it's five years of your life. Some of the most like formative times, time in your life outside of high school. And, uh, there's probably going to be family deaths. There's probably going to be relationship struggles. There's probably going to be identity crisises crises, whatever. And, ah
00:42:57
Aeoden Sinclair
you're going to want these people to support you. And if you feel that, you feel like this wrestling community, this wrestling, these people are the ones that love you the most. You're probably going to want to spend more time with them. And if you guys are doing that, probably going to want to wrestle more, right? Because that's like what brought you together. the rest So the whole thing is,
00:43:13
Aeoden Sinclair
develop develop community develop community develop community show the guys that you love them be vulnerable um help them understand do hard things with them that's another thing that builds connection but um there's no work around time you know it just takes time and so uh it's my second i'm entering into my third year um and uh i'm really excited for what the next three years can hold i i like to think uh my mindset is uh it's our team's gonna be like bamboo right like No one sees a lot of growth, but like you're going to see it and the next day you're going to be like, whoa, top four finish.
00:43:44
Aeoden Sinclair
Whoa, top two finish. Whoa, they just won. It's like, well, I knew this was going happen two two two years ago, but everyone gets to see it today.
00:43:47
Cokeley Brothers
Mm-hmm.
00:43:52
Aeoden Sinclair
So, ah um yeah, that's kind of what I'm thinking. And that's kind of primarily where our team team meetings are orientated at. But, yeah, just a lot of community and connection.
00:44:01
Cokeley Brothers
Yeah. So, so you're, like you said, you're two years into this and you've pretty clearly already taken on a leadership role in the activities that you guys do in the culture that you try and uplift.
Leadership Challenges and Growth
00:44:15
Cokeley Brothers
And also it, a leadership on role on the mat where You are achieving the things that guys on the team want to achieve. So even with three years left, yeah as a freshman, you've you've you've taken on this leadership role.
00:44:29
Cokeley Brothers
ah What has that been like for you? Has it been fulfilling? Has it been difficult to sort of guide people at times? Have you felt like you've needed um you know additional perspective, whether it's from your previous coaches or your current coaches? how How have you gone about that experience?
00:44:49
Aeoden Sinclair
You're asking great questions. I like this. This good. literally asked Ben today.
00:44:52
Cokeley Brothers
Mm-hmm.
00:44:53
Aeoden Sinclair
I had a question about leadership and it was all related to what exactly we're kind of talking about right now. And yeah, I think being a leader can be freaking challenging sometimes uh you're setting a standard you're setting an expectation that people that you want people to uphold and no one wants to um no one want no one's gonna believe in a hypocrite you know if you say one thing and do another like that's not gonna be convincing to a lot of different people a lot of people so uh I think ah as a leader, um people, it's fun to talk about and it's fun to be like, yeah, yeah, that's what I want.
00:45:07
Cokeley Brothers
in
00:45:27
Aeoden Sinclair
my um I remember my mom would always talk about like, this was so funny. It's probably some Instagram quote or something she saw on Facebook or Pinterest, but she was always talking about like a lion like does what a lion needs.
00:45:39
Aeoden Sinclair
Like when things get hard, the you know what i'm talking about?
00:45:40
Cokeley Brothers
Yeah.
00:45:41
Aeoden Sinclair
Something along the lines of something normalistic, whatever.
00:45:42
Cokeley Brothers
Yeah.
00:45:43
Aeoden Sinclair
But yeah. It holds true. like Everyone loves talking about um how cool be and like being in this role and getting to be um looked up to, but it's challenging, man.
00:45:55
Aeoden Sinclair
I struggle with it all the time. There's things that I watch my guys do that I'm like, man, it kind of seems like fun or enjoyable. You just want to relax sometimes. they're just like
00:46:05
Cokeley Brothers
Yeah.
00:46:06
Aeoden Sinclair
But you're like, man, I probably shouldn't i probably should. have I need to be an example. I need to tell them this or i need to say this or You don't want to be a buzz kill. You don't want to be whatever it is. And i think ah sometimes it's hard because it's just all eyes are on you.
00:46:14
Cokeley Brothers
Mm-hmm.
00:46:18
Aeoden Sinclair
You got 30 guys, 29 guys, whatever that is, times two, 30, 60, 58.
00:46:24
Aeoden Sinclair
You got eyes on you and you're trying to I'm just trying to do the best that you can. And you're human. You're going to make mistakes. And so, ah yeah, I think leadership is challenging. Definitely super challenging because you are held to a really high standard and there's a lot of accountability that goes with that. But I like challenges. I enjoy doing challenging things. I i want to be the best at my craft, which happens to be wrestling right now.
00:46:48
Aeoden Sinclair
And I think this is just another one of those opportunities to try to excel really highly at something. And I also think the skills that I'm learning and developing right now are skills that I'm probably going to use the rest of my life. I was thinking about that today. I was like, um maybe I should, ah I was looking at a dining room table a little bit earlier today. And there's like a class on building your own dining room table that I could bring some guys with. And I'm like, And that'd be a pretty cool skill. But then I was like, i probably forget how to do that in a couple of years. But the leadership stuff, I'll probably remember for probably keep the majority of my life. You know, I was looking at registering for some of my classes in the fall. And I was like, man, intermediate macroeconomics probably be valuable. But then I was like, well, probably won't remember half of this stuff, but I'll definitely remember how to connect with people and how to encourage and how to lead by example and all these values that kind of go beyond what you can physically
00:47:38
Aeoden Sinclair
like academically learn. So that was kind long winded. But ah yeah, leadership is definitely hard. um And it's a great opportunity for you to develop some great and awesome skills.
00:47:50
Aeoden Sinclair
But ah yeah, i do I do look to mentors all the time.
00:47:51
Cokeley Brothers
Yeah.
00:47:53
Aeoden Sinclair
I ask questions all the time. I i feel like the majority of the time i suck at what I'm doing. So it's it's kind of a good mindset to be like, man I'm pretty terrible at this. let me Let me ask some people who know what they're doing.
00:48:05
Cokeley Brothers
Yeah, it's it's very interesting listening to you because i I've i have um you know i've i've i've in pulled in a lot of wrestling media in my time and and Ben Askren is somebody who I've listened to a fair amount because he's got a very interesting mind. Uh, but listening to you break your, break your thought process down, you do it in a very, you do it in a very similar way.
00:48:25
Cokeley Brothers
Uh, and so I think, I think that's interesting.
00:48:25
Aeoden Sinclair
Yeah. Yeah.
00:48:27
Cokeley Brothers
Um, and it it makes sense because you, you go to him for, uh, guidance and he's, he's played a prominent role in your life. Uh, and so I do, I do want to talk about him a little bit or talk about your relationship with him, uh,
00:48:38
Aeoden Sinclair
yes
00:48:42
Cokeley Brothers
having him there, his first tournament back, like from this, this near death experience, uh, watching you make a world team, uh, did that kind of add a little bit of extra that was that kind of cool? Like it's awesome having him there to, to be able to witness this achievement.
Admiration for Coach Ben Askren
00:48:58
Cokeley Brothers
Um, what was that like?
00:49:00
Aeoden Sinclair
Man, it was so cool. I actually, my favorite part was just seeing him, like just getting to talk with him and talk with him about everything.
00:49:04
Cokeley Brothers
Hmm.
00:49:05
Aeoden Sinclair
And he loves talking about wrestling. My parents were excited to see him. My Nana and Poppy, my Nana was excited. She's like, he looks so great. I can't believe it.
00:49:13
Cokeley Brothers
Yeah.
00:49:14
Aeoden Sinclair
My Nana was a nurse for like 40 years. And she's like, I've never seen this. I've never, this is insane. And she was asking him all these questions. uh i think we were just excited i mean how i felt was i was just happy to see him like happy to get to talk to him and see him in person and he was uh so trying to show some moves on me wrestle with me a little bit and it was just cool to the just be around him like i maybe it was special for him i can't speak for him right maybe it was cool for him to see me make a world team but for me it was just i just loved seeing him it was so great it was feel like i never missed a beat i feel like uh
00:49:48
Aeoden Sinclair
When he was here today, was supposed to go in the wrestling room, 10.30, do the – I'm wearing my collared shirt, right, because I thought it was – do some video stuff.
00:49:55
Cokeley Brothers
Mm-hmm.
00:49:57
Aeoden Sinclair
10.30, do the media stuff with him, and then wrestle with Keegan. And then end wrestling with Keegan and then staying until like 2 o'clock. I was supposed be out of there for lunch. I was like, going to get out probably by like 11.30, 11.45, and go get some lunch.
00:50:11
Aeoden Sinclair
And I hung out until like 2 o'clock because I just want to be around him. He's just – um how he is and his character, you just, those people are really just, I don't know. I don't know how to like moth to a flame. Like you just want to be around those people. There's just something special about it. And that's who he is. And um I just, it's just funny. I just can't get enough. I was like, oh man, I'm just going to skip lunch today. So I had a PB&J like 15 minutes ago, something like that. But ah um yeah, I just, I think for me, it was just, I just got to see him and be around him again. And that was amazing. So
00:50:49
Cokeley Brothers
Yeah. ah So he's wrestling soon, which...
00:50:53
Aeoden Sinclair
yeah.
00:50:55
Cokeley Brothers
i don't i don't I don't know about you. I'm blown away by that. i to bed the ah The fact that he's able to physically do that basically a year after having gone through a very near-death experience and having lost like 100 pounds or however much weight he lost, along with everything else, that's that's pretty crazy.
00:50:57
Aeoden Sinclair
yeah
00:51:13
Cokeley Brothers
He's doing it on his birthday. He's doing it up in in your home state at Milwaukee. um Is there a possibility that you're competing in that?
00:51:23
Aeoden Sinclair
Oh, yeah, I think so. Yeah, definitely a possibility. They're trying to set up a match right now. I think i they he had told me about a name, um but I'm not sure if anything's in set in stone. I would love to get some more more of those raft matches, and I like it. I feel like it's a I do keep wrestling so much that I've been wrestling all these matches, so it's like they're hard. It's struggling to find like new, exciting, quote-unquote, exciting matches. But yeah.
00:51:47
Aeoden Sinclair
Yeah, I think, a ah yeah, im I would love to keep keep getting on those. rap sees this be like But keep keep testing me.
00:51:53
Cokeley Brothers
yeah.
00:51:55
Aeoden Sinclair
Keep giving me some stuff. I love it. But, ah yeah, I think you can expect me to be on the Milwaukee card um if everything works out as it's supposed to.
00:51:57
Cokeley Brothers
Yeah.
00:52:04
Aeoden Sinclair
But you can't make any promises.
00:52:04
Cokeley Brothers
Okay.
00:52:05
Aeoden Sinclair
You never know with promotion and this stuff, what goes on. But i I'm expecting – I think I'm going to be on it, so. I have a my i have it in my calendar ah that I'm there.
00:52:12
Cokeley Brothers
Okay.
00:52:15
Aeoden Sinclair
So usually usually that's a good sign.
00:52:16
Cokeley Brothers
Yeah. Yeah. So this, this would be your second time wrestling RAF. ah What was, what was the first time like for
Experiences at Real American Freestyle Events
00:52:24
Cokeley Brothers
you?
00:52:24
Aeoden Sinclair
Yeah, it'll be my third time.
00:52:25
Cokeley Brothers
Third.
00:52:26
Aeoden Sinclair
Yes.
00:52:26
Cokeley Brothers
Oh, you wrestled. Oh, yeah. You wrestled Zahid.
00:52:29
Aeoden Sinclair
Yes.
00:52:30
Cokeley Brothers
And then before that, or was it after that you wrestled Saifudinov?
00:52:34
Aeoden Sinclair
Yeah, Saifudinov. Yeah, yeah. I wrestled him first, and then I wrestled Zahid.
00:52:36
Cokeley Brothers
Yeah.
00:52:39
Cokeley Brothers
That's what it was.
00:52:40
Aeoden Sinclair
Yes, it's definitely cool. It's different than – it's way different than college wrestling. It's way different than ah like a Who's Number One event. it's like ah It's like its own thing. I mean I've never done a UFC event, so – but I remember I was talking to with Chael Sonnen when he was there, and he said it was super similar. Like all the production stuff is very similar to what you'd expect at a UFC thing, and I was like, huh, interesting. I didn't realize that. ah i I would have thought it was a little bit different. But um they did it they do a great job. I think people love it. People are loving it. The attendance is pretty crazy. It's cool seeing um all the fans get involved. We do those fan fests where we sign.
00:53:17
Aeoden Sinclair
um before our matches and we're there for a little bit and I think it's just so cool to see all the people that get so fired up for the matches and they love wrestling i think it's also cool that like wrestling is kind of like uh being joined hip to hip with this uh with MMA and kind of getting roped in with uh these MMA characters but I think we're learning a lot from it you know um I was uh I was actually just thinking about this the other day like
00:53:19
Cokeley Brothers
Yeah. Mm-hmm.
00:53:40
Aeoden Sinclair
for some reason, I feel like it's not that big of a deal to like, not a, not a big, big of a deal, but like to T like playfully tease or like, um, have some banter before, before any of the matches, like the MMA guys do it to a really like the nth degree.
00:53:55
Aeoden Sinclair
Right. But, um, I think wrestling could do it and it would work out.
00:53:55
Cokeley Brothers
Mm-hmm.
00:53:58
Aeoden Sinclair
And I, I was picturing like in college, like walking out in the NCAA finals with a, with a t-shirt cannon and just start shooting. Like you could bring some of that promotional stuff into, uh, into college wrestling and like, yeah, yeah.
00:54:08
Cokeley Brothers
Mm-hmm.
00:54:10
Aeoden Sinclair
Wearing shirts and stuff. I feel like all the guys you see walk out, they they're trying to be these stoic individuals. Like it's very much like chess grandmaster tournament. Um, here we go.
00:54:20
Aeoden Sinclair
Uh, and ah r RAF and, uh, it's just different.
00:54:21
Cokeley Brothers
Mm-hmm.
00:54:24
Aeoden Sinclair
It's more promotional and, uh, it's more fan involved. I think, uh, my, my mom and dad, or a lot of people ask me RAF related stuff. And, um, I always say like historically and traditionally wrestling is like a chess.
00:54:37
Aeoden Sinclair
It's a game of chess. Like there's a lot of respect, there's silence, there's stoicism, losing stinks, winning is awesome. Like um there's so much tension, but there's not really this trash talk element.
00:54:48
Aeoden Sinclair
And chess is very similar in that sense. Like these players aren't trashing each other publicly in open forums all the time.
00:54:50
Cokeley Brothers
Mm-hmm.
00:54:54
Aeoden Sinclair
And then there's like this big brawl, heated emotional brawl that happens. And wrestling, i feel like isn't isn't like that, but MMA is different. I feel like MMA, there's this trash talk there. But I think a it's definitely teaching wrestling wrestlers how to separate. At least I am. I'm learning how to like, I can goof around and banter and I probably will never be the dude that says like personal attacks, but I would definitely attack. like you're wrestling.
00:55:20
Aeoden Sinclair
If I, if there's certain things, I think it's like, well, you never shoot any of your own shots or like something like and stuff like that. You know what i'm saying? Like you could say stuff like that and it'd be playful and whatever, because wrestling is not that big of a deal and you're going have to go compete and you'll just find out if whatever you're saying had validity or not.
00:55:27
Cokeley Brothers
Yeah. Yeah.
00:55:36
Aeoden Sinclair
So I think, I think wrestlers could, uh, we're learning a lot. We're definitely learning a lot. And so, uh, I think it's ah it's really cool. It's definitely really cool for the sport. So ah I've learned a lot from RAF. I'm looking forward to do more RAF events. I'd love to get some maybe some sort of ah personality going. I don't know what I'd be. Maybe that's, ah I don't know. Who knows? Mr. America, that's Wyatt Hendrickson. So I'd have to figure out something else.
00:56:00
Cokeley Brothers
Right. Yeah. You, you, you, I think you're a good fit for real American freestyle in a lot of different ways. ah One, you, you're very like, you don't fit the mold of, of like the Iowa style wrestler from the early two thousands where everything, where you're very stoic.
00:56:00
Aeoden Sinclair
The accountant.
00:56:16
Cokeley Brothers
ah You, you, you are very comfortable smiling and showing that you're having a good time and just expressing yourself.
00:56:16
Aeoden Sinclair
Yes.
00:56:23
Aeoden Sinclair
oh yeah
00:56:23
Cokeley Brothers
um But along with that, you wrestle like you wrestle a lot, like more. yeah That is also very anti mold of what you see for wrestling post high school.
00:56:35
Cokeley Brothers
the the trend in college and at the senior level is you wrestle when you have to, and that's it. And everything else doesn't really matter, but you are very contrary to that. You'll go wrestle at U twenties and it's the senior U S open, and you'll go wrestle a real American freestyle event a week after NCAAs. And you'll, you'll do all of these things.
00:56:54
Cokeley Brothers
And I'm kind of wondering why, like that is one of the first things I noticed about you is that like, you will just compete as much as possible, even though that is contrary to the way people work in the sport.
00:57:06
Cokeley Brothers
So why?
00:57:07
Aeoden Sinclair
Yeah, no, that's great. i think ah
00:57:10
Aeoden Sinclair
Competing is the only way you're going – not the only way, but it's ah it's a measuring stick. It lets you know where you're at. you know I think there's so many perspectives I have on competing, but that's one of them.
00:57:20
Aeoden Sinclair
So we'll throw this in a bucket. Measuring stick, you know there's counter arguments all the time. like You can do that with practice matches. um You don't need to do it so frequently to get a good idea. like There's probably an optimal amount of spacing, but whatever.
00:57:32
Aeoden Sinclair
It's a measuring stick. That's option one of the things that I love about it. The other thing I love about it, is it's fun. It's meant to be fun. Like people don't get that.
00:57:41
Cokeley Brothers
Mm-hmm.
00:57:43
Aeoden Sinclair
Like, I think there's, there's this air, um, around competing that there's nerve should be these, a lot, all these nerves and tension. And are you, are you what you said your training was?
00:57:54
Aeoden Sinclair
And like, it's my, my guy and my coaches and my systems versus yours and all this stuff. Um, And I just think it's like you you did wrestling. You started wrestling because you enjoyed it, because it was fun. you know um Some people don't have that relationship with competing at the start, but at some point you probably enjoyed it.
00:58:13
Aeoden Sinclair
you know You probably had fun competing. You probably had fun traveling with your friends. You probably had fun um wrestling these matches. you know You probably had fun eating cool meals with whoever it is or staying up late, doing whatever it was after the tournament.
00:58:24
Cokeley Brothers
Mm-hmm.
00:58:27
Aeoden Sinclair
cool experiences, you you have fun doing that stuff. And I just, and I grew up doing that. I grew up going to tournaments and having fun with my friends and having fun with my coaches. And it's a lot of the same stuff. I just love doing these trips because it's like,
00:58:41
Aeoden Sinclair
Like said, I just get to – it's a really cool experience. You get to meet really cool people. And you get to wrestle. It's something that love to do. So you got measuring sticks, so it's great for just developing your wrestling, right?
00:58:53
Aeoden Sinclair
But it's also just great for developing your, like, love for the sport. You just love it. It's fun. You get to do it. And then I would say – I just think for me, the other thing is just gratitude.
00:59:04
Aeoden Sinclair
Like it's only a finite – you only get to do it a finite amount of time. You know, I'm 20 years old.
00:59:08
Cokeley Brothers
Mm-hmm.
00:59:09
Aeoden Sinclair
I recover really quickly. I can get six hours of sleep and be fine, you know, for the most part. I don't do that. i try to optimize the best I can, but I could do that. I could, there's guys, i know i have teammates who can eat junk all day. It's like people talk about like little kids, like stomachs, they can eat whatever they want and like not get sick. Whereas like as people get really old, they're like, I could never do that. I feel like I'm like,
00:59:30
Aeoden Sinclair
I'm young, you know, I can do this now. There's not that many opportunities to compete. You know, you kind of, it's really hard to find. I would say I'm one of the better guys in the sport, right? And ah in in this sport, in the sense of like, I get more opportunities afforded to me, but like, I'm like one of the, one of the top percentages that gets that there's, do you have a hundred percent of college wrestlers and international wrestlers.
00:59:56
Aeoden Sinclair
And I'm up here in this 3% right now where i get to where I get to compete in college wrestling, where I get to do these RAF events, and then I get to do this the senior and age division circuit in the U.S., and then the world championships. And I think for a lot of these people, a lot of those opportunities aren't afforded. They can't do the RAF stuff. They're too old to do any age division stuff. There's no U.S. Open for U23s.
01:00:19
Aeoden Sinclair
They only get one tournament outside of the colleges and they don't start. They don't start on their college team. There goes, i don't know, 20 matches. Sometimes it depends on how many matches your, your college team wrestles. This was like, you got into this because you love it. And then you don't want to do what you, what you love to do. Like go compete, go have fun, take a load off, just go relax. I feel like in the,
01:00:39
Aeoden Sinclair
Funniest way, like competing for me is like relaxing. And like I talked about right at the start, it's it's worship, it's prayer for me. Like I feel like I get to go compete and I get to be like, man, god I'm going to surrender this outcome.
01:00:49
Aeoden Sinclair
I love what I'm doing. um You've p blessed me with this ability to be out here, be healthy. um hope you keep him healthy. Let's have some fun. let me let's Let's just have some fun. And so everyone knows too, like the week up to to competing, the whole goal of the coaching staff is to make it fun.
01:01:04
Aeoden Sinclair
So we're playing spike ball, we're playing funny music. I'm listening to like like the girly bop music and you're just goofing around with your friends because because that's what you have to do before you can be you know because for six minutes maybe it's it can be a little stressful but I just think you're only you're only doing that for six minutes you're having fun and stresses stress can be fun so uh yeah that's my whole mindset is measuring stick finite amount of time to do it and it's just enjoyable like you make memories doing it so fun
01:01:26
Cokeley Brothers
Yeah.
01:01:35
Cokeley Brothers
Yeah, i you know I think most people get into the sport because, you know or at least they didn't get into the sport just through enjoying wrestling practice all the time, right? they're not um the People aren't in the sport to just get better at it all the time.
01:01:44
Aeoden Sinclair
Yeah.
01:01:47
Cokeley Brothers
They want to actually
Enjoyment of Competition and Technical Improvement
01:01:49
Cokeley Brothers
compete. That that is the fun part of the sport. And so I totally agree with that. There's the angle of of of risk of injury. You seem to be able to kind of at least wrestle through if, if you deal with any injuries, wrestle through them, um, or just kind of avoid them in general.
01:02:02
Aeoden Sinclair
yeah
01:02:05
Cokeley Brothers
Uh, so I'm, yeah, i I think that's great. I think that's all awesome. Uh, you through this very, you've a very diverse group of people that you've wrestled, um, in the college scene and on the senior level,
01:02:26
Cokeley Brothers
um You take third at the US Open, you make a U-20 World Team, you took third at NCAAs this year. um Talk about your framing, your perspective of what this upcoming season is going to look like. You mentioned you only lost to one guy this last year. He was at the the first event, um the national duels, and then it was at NCAAs. Same guy in overtime.
01:02:54
Cokeley Brothers
And you're like, from my perspective, the person who's gotten the closest to figuring out how somebody can take him down. ah And ah you you beat the guy who won your weight at national duels.
01:03:00
Aeoden Sinclair
Right.
01:03:06
Cokeley Brothers
You beat him and he he wins at NCAAs. What do you pull from the previous season and from your time wrestling on the senior level through all through all of that?
01:03:18
Cokeley Brothers
to sort of give yourself a guiding point or a frame to best set yourself up for success this upcoming season.
01:03:27
Aeoden Sinclair
Yeah, I think if I could spit right off the top of my head, spitballing, first thing was, ah I mean, adjustments, right, from season. You've got to finish things finish your attacks, right?
01:03:37
Aeoden Sinclair
So working on finishing single legs, working on scoring those positions um is like a technical adjustment, right, that we're we're constantly working on.
01:03:40
Cokeley Brothers
Hmm.
01:03:46
Aeoden Sinclair
You know, that's got to be the broad. That's the reason I lost, you know, this year in those two matches because I couldn't finish those attacks. um And so that's like kind of the broadband spectrum, but specifically in the context of these other people, i would just say that i now self-identify with I'm going be the top.
01:04:05
Aeoden Sinclair
I'm top three right now in the country, in the nation right now. Possibly it could be top three in the world.
01:04:08
Cokeley Brothers
Take.
01:04:09
Aeoden Sinclair
Like that's where my mindset is at, right? That's, I'm roped into this group. I'm i'm with the Kyle, the Kyles, or not Snyder, Kyle Dakes and the Heat Valencias and the Parker Keck Isens.
01:04:22
Aeoden Sinclair
I'm up there. That's me. And I've seen all those guys beat them. it's like, i'm I'm the guy, I'm in that air, like I can beat these dudes. It gives you that self-confidence. It's like, no, no, like I'm definitely supposed to be the guy that is beating these guys. I always tell this, oh man, I could i could go on tangent after tangent after tangent. but I always say that go compete. go the One of the other reasons I love, I tell guys to go compete is because even if you lose a match to like a really good guy, but it was a close match, now you're self-identifying and you realize, wait, that guy who was not nearly as good as I thought he was. And that even gives you confidence or you win a match that you were never supposed to win. We had a guy, not never supposed to win, but didn't think you could could win. We had a guy from Mizzou
01:05:02
Aeoden Sinclair
beat Melvin Miller at the U-20 US Open. And it's done huge things for his confidence.
01:05:05
Cokeley Brothers
Yeah. Yeah.
01:05:07
Aeoden Sinclair
Huge things. And if he would have never gone to the tournament or participated because he couldn't win or he didn't think he could win, he would have never gotten that identity growth, that growth of, wait a minute, like...
01:05:17
Aeoden Sinclair
I've done this and I can do it.
Belief in Potential and Love for Wrestling
01:05:19
Aeoden Sinclair
I'm i'm good at wrestling, you you know? And so I think that's one thing that's going to carry me in. It's just that self-identification of I'm meant to be one of these best guys. going to be the best guy in the world. These guys, this guy's a two-time national champion. This guy's a three-time national champion or four-time national champion. This other guy's a national champion. I'm bound I'm going to, i'm gonna I'm going to do it.
01:05:36
Aeoden Sinclair
You know, why, why wouldn't it be this year?
01:05:36
Cokeley Brothers
Mm-hmm.
01:05:37
Aeoden Sinclair
And then, um, yeah, I just think, uh, just wrestling those better guys, you understand positions better. You understand that slow matches aren't anything to be afraid of. You understand that like these, um, low scoring things aren't anything for you to, to get overly anxious about.
01:05:52
Aeoden Sinclair
Cause you've been there, you've done it, you know how to stay poised. And I think that's just more practice doing all of those things, all those skills that are gonna pay dividends when I get, uh, to NCAAs, but also when I achieve my goals beyond NCAAs, you know?
01:06:03
Aeoden Sinclair
So, uh, Yeah, I think um wrestling, this stuff, just there's so many benefits to it. Wrestling and with these senior guys has so many benefits to it. It allows people to... um I think it has allowed me to jump levels. you know ah i just...
01:06:17
Aeoden Sinclair
i said The moral the story is i didnt just enjoy wrestling. And the longer I do it and the more I get to do it, the the more fun I feel like I have. And I feel like I'm constantly learning something new every day. um And it's just it's just so enjoyable. I've just been super blessed. And ah I'm looking forward to this next season. i'm I'm more looking forward to it for myself. I want to be really dominant, as always. um But ah I'm more looking forward to it.
01:06:41
Aeoden Sinclair
I want to see what my team can do. I'm just – I love those guys.
01:06:43
Cokeley Brothers
Yeah.
01:06:44
Aeoden Sinclair
And I think it's something special. and i just I just want to see, oh man, I love him so much. That's the thing I'm so like wrapped up in them. Like, oh, I'm just looking forward to just watching some other guys
Encouraging Team Culture
01:06:56
Aeoden Sinclair
achieve some stuff. You know, I think that's, that's a beautiful thing. So.
01:07:00
Cokeley Brothers
that's that's i mean that's a great That's a great sign from like, if if I were like a a blue blood Missouri fan, I would be like, okay, this we're in a really good spot. We got this guy on our team. he iss He's leading them. He is the the type of expression that you're putting out about how much it matters to you that your teammates are.
01:07:21
Cokeley Brothers
you know you're pushing them to get to this success or you're you're you're cheering for them this much and that there is this type of culture on this team that has nowhere else to go but
01:07:28
Aeoden Sinclair
Yep.
Psychology in Sports
01:07:32
Cokeley Brothers
That's a very reassuring thing to hear. ah So that's awesome. I also totally agree with Sometimes you just kind of need that. It doesn't have to be a win necessarily, but you kind of just need to ship prove to yourself like, Hey, I, I can wrestle these matches. I can win against these people because sometimes you just got to remind yourself. It's just another person. It's just another person. You guys are just wrestling for six minutes. Um,
01:07:58
Cokeley Brothers
That's a, that's a great, ah it's, so it's so so, it's so simple, but it's not necessarily the easiest thing to to kind of put yourself, wrap yourself around. And that, that's where the sports psychology and the mentality of being a winner, being a champion sort of comes into play.
01:08:13
Cokeley Brothers
um Okay. I, I've, I told you 45 minutes, we're over an hour. i
Personal Preferences and Cross-Training Benefits
01:08:17
Cokeley Brothers
don't want to keep you for too long.
01:08:17
Aeoden Sinclair
It's okay. Let's do it.
01:08:19
Cokeley Brothers
um So I'm going to hit you with just a couple of lightning round questions that don't have to be too complicated. And we can get you out of here.
01:08:24
Aeoden Sinclair
Okay, okay.
01:08:26
Cokeley Brothers
ah
01:08:26
Aeoden Sinclair
Okay.
01:08:26
Cokeley Brothers
Favorite warmup music.
01:08:28
Aeoden Sinclair
Ooh, country. I love country music. Blues country specifically. Chris Stapleton when he was in – I think it was a something brothers. um'm for Thompson brothers and then little Steel Drivers.
01:08:40
Cokeley Brothers
Okay.
01:08:41
Aeoden Sinclair
I like that stuff a lot.
01:08:43
Cokeley Brothers
Okay. Go to post weigh-in food.
01:08:48
Aeoden Sinclair
fruit and honey. And then ah if I had, if I got to choose like some sweet potato and rice, so like that long sustaining carbs, but right after you want that, you want some watermelon and some honey that gets you right.
01:08:58
Cokeley Brothers
Mm hmm. Yeah. ah ah Favorite movie.
01:09:04
Aeoden Sinclair
Someone asked me that today. It's just too hard to answer. But I feel like – oh, recently Obsession. And we could talk about that for a while. But Obsession is a great movie.
01:09:13
Cokeley Brothers
yeah Yeah.
01:09:17
Aeoden Sinclair
So I bought eight tickets for all me and my – I watched it on a Saturday, bought eight tickets on a Tuesday. half It's a like cheaper tickets. And all a bunch of my teammates and I went and watched it.
01:09:26
Cokeley Brothers
Mm hmm.
01:09:28
Aeoden Sinclair
It was so fun. I was like, oh, my gosh, what do you think of this and this in this?
01:09:33
Cokeley Brothers
Wow. Yeah, I haven't seen it yet. i Actually, I would love to take my wife to go see it. It looks looks really good.
01:09:37
Aeoden Sinclair
Yes, you got to.
01:09:39
Cokeley Brothers
um one One match that you wish you could run it back on.
01:09:43
Aeoden Sinclair
Oh, Dustin Platt.
01:09:45
Cokeley Brothers
Okay.
01:09:45
Aeoden Sinclair
Definitely Dustin Platt.
01:09:45
Cokeley Brothers
Okay.
01:09:46
Aeoden Sinclair
The
01:09:46
Cokeley Brothers
ah And then if you could change one thing about the sport of wrestling, what would it be and why? Like it could be literally anything.
01:09:54
Aeoden Sinclair
do for here. Oof. I think... Yeah, I think I would change um the the weird college stigma that you can't train at, the weird stigma in college wrestling where you can't train at other colleges.
01:10:09
Aeoden Sinclair
I think a huge thing that made me better at AWA was that like, I would go to other AWAs and other um locations and train with the best guys. I wrestled Connor Cole Marisol all the time, but they lived two and a half hours away.
01:10:21
Aeoden Sinclair
It didn't matter. I feel like um a lot of colleges isolate and like,
01:10:22
Cokeley Brothers
Mm-hmm.
01:10:25
Aeoden Sinclair
it's, it's super taboo for one college wrestler, college wrestler to go to another RTC and train. Why, why is that weird? Like you guys are, yeah, i get whatever secrets, X, Y, Z, like who cares? Like you're trying to get better at wrestling. It didn't matter in high school, but it matters now that we're in college, but it's, then it's not going matter later. Like,
01:10:45
Aeoden Sinclair
I don't know.
01:10:45
Cokeley Brothers
Mm-hmm.
01:10:45
Aeoden Sinclair
i just I would love to see more RTCs open up their rooms and do camps. that Oh, this is goes along with it. I'm sorry. i know it's a lightning round, but i'm I'm thundering it right now.
01:10:54
Cokeley Brothers
do Go ahead, go ahead.
01:10:54
Aeoden Sinclair
But ah I would love to see – I would love to see – College wrestlers go to camps like outside of senior national camps. Why don't RTCs hold camps? i i am I feel like I'm humble enough to put aside my ego and go learn from some other colleges or go learn from some other RTC athletes that are willing to do camps. I would pay money to go. like I'm telling you, like even if you wanted to just train with me, I don't think I'm too good for this stuff. I just want to be around some cool opportunities. I've always thought of that. like Why don't we just bring in some of these top senior level guys to show some stuff? Wait, they're affiliated with a college, so we can't do that. It's like, don't know. Why not? Like, who cares? I don't care. Like, let me go be around the best wrestling.
Predictions and Wrestling Philosophy
01:11:36
Cokeley Brothers
I've actually never heard that perspective before. Like i and I know about like it's, you know, if you're, if you're at, you know, if you're wrestling in Nebraska, you're not really ever going to be going to the Iowa RTC or the Hawkeye RTC or whatever. um But you can before and after college.
01:11:50
Cokeley Brothers
So that's fine. um Yeah, that is interesting.
01:11:51
Aeoden Sinclair
Right? Weird, right?
01:11:53
Cokeley Brothers
Yeah. it is It is interesting, and and I've never heard that perspective. I wonder if other people share that same philosophy of like they would be interested in and open to to doing that type of stuff.
01:12:04
Cokeley Brothers
um I actually, they ooh, I do have one more.
01:12:05
Aeoden Sinclair
Go ahead.
01:12:08
Cokeley Brothers
um So you wresttle you wrestled Dake at the US Open and Zahida RAF, and they're both wrestle each other at Final X.
01:12:12
Aeoden Sinclair
Yeah. Oh, yeah.
01:12:15
Cokeley Brothers
Who do you have? Who do you have winning?
01:12:16
Aeoden Sinclair
I think Zahid will win. um I don't know what's been going on. i haven't watched Dake's earlier matches. I need to go back and watch some of his like college stuff or maybe right as he entered the senior circuit.
01:12:27
Aeoden Sinclair
But he isn't he doesn't really attack like when he needs to. He's super defensive. And I think Zahid is constantly attacking.
01:12:32
Cokeley Brothers
Mm-hmm. Mm-hmm.
01:12:35
Aeoden Sinclair
like They're very like polar opposite in that regard. I would say like Kyle Dake's defense is really, really high level. He's got that amazing chest wrap. And Zahid's defense is... i don't think he's like anything spectacular, like not better than anyone. If you watch Parker versus Zahid, Parker was able to get to his legs and they were kind of like easy, easy finishes, you know, it's just hard to get to his legs, but once you get there, it's kind of easy finish. So, uh, I just think Zahid has really high volume and, um, that's just gonna, um, that's just gonna work out for him. is He pokes and prods a lot. He's quick and clean with his finishes.
01:13:04
Aeoden Sinclair
That's a big thing. Plays the edge really well, which is going to be unique now with the new rules. But, um, Yeah, I think Zahid will win that match. But I love both guys. Like, both guys are cool. Awesome. I follow ah Kyle Dake's Vitality Wellness Club on Instagram, and I was learning about ah sleep stuff today.
01:13:21
Aeoden Sinclair
So he's always got some good good advice in there for me.
01:13:24
Cokeley Brothers
Yeah. Yes, he's very very um non-conventional... health and wellness standards. He does functional patterns.
01:13:32
Aeoden Sinclair
Yes. Yeah, yeah.
01:13:33
Cokeley Brothers
He's, um, all into the, to the wellness club that he's got established, um, out, out, out in Penn state now. So, um, yes, he's, he's a very interesting individual and I, I would highly recommend to go back and look at some of his, uh, earlier wrestling.
01:13:47
Cokeley Brothers
It's not necessarily that it's changed a lot, but I do think he has reserved himself a little bit more to be more on the defensive side. Um, but he definitely would like he, he talked about in college, how, um,
01:13:59
Cokeley Brothers
his he He did not like letting his opponent score points, no matter what. So he would ride people out for two minutes and not score
Future Conversations and Summer Camps Promotion
01:14:07
Cokeley Brothers
a turn. And Matt returned them 500 times because he did not want to give up a point. um So like sometimes his matches would be low scoring because of that philosophy.
01:14:15
Cokeley Brothers
But he he definitely is a little bit... um you know His age might be showing. But he's also getting younger.
01:14:20
Aeoden Sinclair
That's what Kurt's saying.
01:14:21
Cokeley Brothers
So I don't i don't really know. I don't know. um
01:14:23
Aeoden Sinclair
that's what that's what
01:14:24
Cokeley Brothers
Aiden, this has been... this has been great. Um, I've got, there's, there are some other subjects that I would, I would love to dig into, but maybe we'll have, um, maybe we'll have you come back later. Um, because I, I want to talk about you've, you've put, put some interesting things out there about your relationship with wrestling and, and that comparison to the, to the greater scope of life. And you've kind of mentioned it here and there during this conversation. Um, but I, I, I want to, you know, it's an hour and 15 minutes into this so we can, we can pause now and, and maybe come back to it at a later date. So,
01:14:55
Cokeley Brothers
This has been great. um If you have anything that you're doing this summer or anything that you want to plug, feel free.
01:15:02
Aeoden Sinclair
Yeah. Hey, if you guys go to any camps, I'm doing like a, basically whole week's where they camp. So there's one in KC or one in Springfield, 25th of June. We got our Missouri team camp. Got to go to that. Idaho, shout out Caldwell, Caldwell camps. If you guys go to the, go to that one. And then I'm coming up, I'm going to do one in Aberdeen, South Dakota. So that's like I say the 29th, 29th of June.
01:15:27
Aeoden Sinclair
That date might be wrong. Something around there. So check out that stuff, guys, and compete as much as you can. But yeah, come to the camps. I love seeing wrestlers.
01:15:35
Cokeley Brothers
Absolutely. Yeah. Awesome. Well, folks, thank you for listening. This has been a treat for me. I hope you've enjoyed it. Yeah. And we'll we'll see you next time.
01:15:46
Cokeley Brothers
Have a good one.