To set the stage further, The Wrestling Room Facebook page may not have the same ring to fight fans as the owner of a major MMA media outlet, but with 24,000 active group members and enough of a reputation to get into heated, notable beefs with everybody from wrestlers to parents of wrestlers to entire fanbases, the mark Mineo has left on the sport surpasses the connotation of “a Facebook group.”
“I first got involved in forums again just sort of as an administrator,” Mineo said. “Then, just two years ago, I decided to just do my own thing and start up a twitter account based on wrestling media, and then I started my own forum on wrestling media. Over that two-year span, I’ve gotten approached by several other outlets and I didn’t really want to make the jump to join another platform; I wanted to build something myself.”
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Mineo’s connections have given his word plenty of validity, and he’s now a frequent name sourced when it comes to insider information, and an equally frequent name to take information to for dissemination.
If The Wrestling Room hasn’t heard of you, you likely don’t matter yet in wrestling.
As much as Mineo is known for the lowdown on NCAA dirt, he’s just as known for arguments and debates. He’s never shied away from hot takes and bad news. It’s even led to animal feces being shipped to his home address.
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You would think arguments like “MMA vs Boxing” or “MMA vs Wrestling” wouldn’t even get him up in the morning these days, but conversations like that are actually still some of his favorite.
“I have a pretty good baseline knowledge and a good understanding of the MMA rankings of the guys at each weight, the weight classes, who’s coming in and who’s sort of at the end of their career,” Mineo explained. “I remember when there was a clashing with boxing and MMA fans and what’s better and who would win and all that.”
Mineo explains that as contentious as the MMA and boxing communities used to get, the same has rarely ever been said between MMA and wrestling fanbases.
“I’m not sure of if this is just kind of a thing with overall respect or if something’s changed or what, but you don’t see it,” Mineo said. “I mean we see a little bit of back and forth – ‘wrestlers make the best MMA fighters’ – but it’s nowhere near the clash between MMA and boxing. It might be due to a mutual respect due to the fact that wrestling has such a small percentage that wrestled in college and then a very small fingernail of that who go on to wrestle on the Olympic stage, and then even those careers don’t last long. As wrestling fans, we’re very happy when our guys find an avenue. ‘We can’t wait to see that guy in MMA.’ We’ve never had a pro league so almost we feel like MMA is our biggest avenue for wrestlers.”
The king of hot takes does see slight odds of Bo Nickal’s pro debut as an outside chance that the two fanbases finally bump heads the way they never have before.
If the buzz around Nickal becomes too much too fast, it’s not out of the question for tensions to rise.
“You see some of that chatter,” Mineo said. “Someone may say some of these guys like Bo are getting fast-tracked because of the big name they’ve become in wrestling first. We may see that. Bo made quite the name for himself in wrestling and he opened that American Top Team and all that. Maybe guys will feel like due to his name he’s getting kind of fast-tracked off of something like that.”
The strictly MMA fans might hate it, but Nickal is a promoter’s dream. Mineo vouches for his stardom, and if he makes big enough waves to cause a divide in fanbases, it means there’s an army behind him the likes of which few have ever brought to the sport.
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The rivalry between MMA and wrestling is unlikely, but possible. Mineo predicts that Nickal’s debut will convert wrestling fans into MMA fans at a rate the fanbase hasn’t seen in quite some time.
“He’s a huge name in our sport, widely loved, praised and respected to the point where he’s being talked about, everything’s being shared and everybody’s talking about it,” Mineo said. “He’s going to help bridge the gap between fanbases and I feel like now every big-name wrestler, with the way mainstream media is, is going to transition to fans of the sport. It’s going to really mesh the fans together.”
Catch Bo Nickal’s MMA debut at iKon FC 3 LIVE on June 3, ONLY on UFC FIGHT PASS!
