Little Guy meet featured young wrestlers

If there can be a show about toddlers in beauty pageants or Pop Warner football, there may someday be a demand for a show featuring three year old grapplers.

Malta could’ve been the site for the series premiere as wrestlers from all over the highline, as young as three and as old as twelve wrestled in last Friday’s Malta Little Guy Wrestling event held in the Old Gym.

“We will see a bunch of kids three years old to fourteen years old wrestling tonight,” Malta Head Coach Jesse Schipman said before the event. “Each kid should get about three matches in depending on how many lids are in that age or weight group.”

He admitted that even though wrestlers may start young, they don’t know a lot about the sport from the jump.

“They don’t know what’s going on,” he said. “They are just there to maul each other around. That’s about it.”

All three of Schipman’s sons have wrestled in AAU and Little Guy events however they didn’t start until they were five years old.

There were close to sixty wrestlers representing Malta at the event, though many of those wrestlers will only make it to the Malta event this season.

The team that travels has been wrestling from about seven weeks.

“We probably have around twelve to twenty that travel and we’ve had some pretty good success so far this year,” Coach Schipman said.

His own son, eight-year-old Kohner, has done well this season as well.

“He doesn’t get beat very often but when he does, he takes it pretty tough,” Coach Schipman said.

Many that attend wrestling meets may not hear Kohner called by his birth name, but rather his nickname “Chaka”.

“The name came from that movie Land of the Lost, with Will Farrell,” Coach Schipman said. “His Uncle Matt started calling him Chaka and it stuck.”

Chaka wasn’t the only movie character either mentioned or seen at the meet. Three year old, Gunner Stenberg was decked out in a Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles singlet.

His father Jared Stenberg shed some light on why he let his son start wrestling so young.

“They’re having fun,” Jared said pointing to his son. “You see that smile?”

Gunner was glad to share his favorite part about wrestling.

“My singlet,” Gunner said.

His older brother, Oslo also started young.

“We got my first son started when he was four and they just loved it,” Jared said. “We go to all of the meets and it puts a smile on your face.”

Gunnar Cilz, age seven, picked up one of Malta’s first wins. Apparently luck had nothing to do with his victory.

“I just worked hard and that’s all,” Cilz said.

Cilz shared his favorite thing about wrestling.

“Just working hard and having fun,” Cilz said noting that he has been wrestling for three years.

His father Nick Cilz, shared his reasoning for starting Gunner at such a young age.

“I figured it was a good thing for him to learn early,” Nick said. “I think wrestling is all about discipline and why not start when they’re young.”

Six-year-old Luke Tatafu started wrestling when he was four as well. Tatafu’s favorite thing about wrestling came as a surprise.

“Playing cougars,” Tatafu said with a smile.

Cougars is a tackling game that wrestlers play after practices and meets.

“Some people are on the ground, some have to run and then you try to tackle them,” he said. “But at school we only have to tag because we can’t tackle at school.”

Tatafu gave himself a B+ for his tackling skills.

At the point he was interviewed, Tatafu had yet to get a win at the meet but he knew what he had to do to win a match.

“Stay off the mat,” Tatafu said.

He must have followed his own advice as Luke won his last match of the evening.