Fri. Mar 29th, 2024

Tyrone is and has always been BIG on wrestling. There is always lot of talk about who did what last year and which wrestler is going to do best during the coming high school season. If you know about it, you know that wrestling can be a demanding master, that takes effort and time and dedication beyond most other sports. To be able to wrestle well in the school season, one must spend a lot of time in the offseason. Clinics and tournaments are the everyday breath and life of any wrestler who really wants to improve at the sport. And of course the best wrestlers don’t start wrestling in high school or even in junior high. The best of the best have uncountable matches and tournaments and workouts under their belt long before they hit wrestling in junior/senior high school.
Nine-year old Ronnie Garbinsky, who has wrestled and won all over the United States, recently returned home from his trip to Japan to wrestle in the All-Japan Tournament. Ronnie was accompanied by his mother Beth Garbinsky and a tremendous amount of money had to be raised to get the pair to and from the festivities in Japan. Dances and benefits and contributions showed the way to enable Ronnie and Beth to be able to make the trip. The Garbinskys thank everyone who had even the smallest part in getting the finances to be able to make the trip. Without mentioning each group and person individually here in this column, Ronnie and Beth and the entire community owes each of these wonderful benefactors so very much for allowing a fine young man to enjoy the sights and scenes and be enriched by the quality of wrestling he took part in, while on the trip in Japan. Ronnie won a fifth place trophy in the All-Japan Tournament and went undefeated in each of the “Exchange matches” the team wrestled in prior to the tournament. The “exchange matches” got the name from the fact that the kids would exchange gifts such as singlets or T-shirts before the match in a gesture of friendship. Ronnie’s gifts of T-shirts were provided by Family Clothesline.
There were 30 kids in a bracket from Japan, Taiwan and China, and the bracket for the tournament was set up in such a manner that once a wrestler lost his first match, he could finish no higher than fifth place. Ronnie won his first two matches in the tournament and recorded an overall won-lost mark of 8-1 while in Japan.
Ronnie wanted to specifically thank Anthony Romano for the time and effort he put in to drill with Ronnie while he was preparing for the trip. Without that preparation, Ronnie would not have been able to do as well as he did.
Most of us who are avid fans of the wrestling we see in the local gyms are not aware of the several other styles of wrestling. We look with wonder at the style of wrestling and points scored when we watch the Olympics. That is called free-style and was the kind of wrestling Ronnie had to get used to for the entire trip to Japan.

By Rick