SOURCE: www.wrestlersarewarriors.com

November 30, 2016

The debate around wrestling uniform has been going on in this country for the last 100+ years. Mark Palmer wrote a nice piece for Intermat on the history of the wrestling uniform in the US. This issue around the singlet is not new to our sport and it makes sense given the complexities of pairing a uniform to a hand-to-hand combat sport through the changing social mores and styles in a rapidly evolving country. As a photographer I've been reading the articles and comments with great interest, particularly Mark's and Matt Krumrie's USAW article. There's also a NY Times piece on the subject. I also read Tim Foley's weekly piece on Intermat and he's unabashedly anti-singlet. I wanted to give my perspective as a long time wrestler, fan and photographer. I'm not overtly locked into the singlet for nostalgic reasons, my perspective comes from 1) trying to suss out the noise from actionable ideas, and 2) as a leading photographer of the sport I want the best photographs possible and a uniform change will impact my work. I feel there may be a need to parse some of the rhetoric as well, because as informative as the articles and dialog have been, I feel strongly that we're conflating several issues into one, namely: Barrier to entry and senior level aesthetic.