Coach to IOC: Don’t cut wrestling

>>> the olympics is making for strange bedfellows. the u.s., iran, cuba are all on the same page, they all want to keep wrestling in the olympics . the executive board voted last week to cut wrestling , one of the original sports in the anchle olympics . it's not over yet, at least not completely. the general assembly makes the final decision. joining me now is dan gable . thanks for coming in. they made this decision based on global population and popularity. ioc is also known for some political intrigue, what do you think that's what this is about? it's not popular enough anymore?

>> that's not true. we're in way more countries than most sports. so i think there's two committees, the international olympic committee and fila, our international governing body, i think there are issues there.

>> maybe some infighting?

>> well action i think that our organization needed to do more homework, and we're finding that out right now. maybe it's a scare, but hopefully that everybody will get what they want.

>> it has happened before , that only once before. it's bringing wrestling -- by that, i mean people are looking at this saying, wow that's injustice, but when they see me with wrestling on, they're like, man, you guys are getting the shaft.

>> so people just come up out of nowhere?

>> yeah, they don't know where i am, see me with wrestling . we have an opportunity to lift this up, straighten this out a bit bottom line , it's going to take a massive amount of work.

>> we talked about the politics of the ioc this is your competition, the things that would potential replace wrestling , karate, wakeboarding, baseball/ soft wall , squash, sport climbing . ultimately this is a business. the ioc thinks these are sports that people want to see. some of them have an x-games quality about them. how much of this do you think this is about money?

>> there's plenty of money out there, maybe wrestling hasn't done their part maybe it's a are the pa of a lot of different things, but i don't call it a wake-up call. it's more like you get zapped, and then you get back up and get zapped again. it's like electric shot more. we have a chance to do something now that we have never done before, so i'm looking forward to this battle.

>> so what's your strategy? i know there are representatives from ten countries there was a big meeting yesterday, but ongoing talks among those of you so intimately involved. what are you going to do?

>> iran, russia, india, cuba, north korea north korea , some of these places have good wrestling .

>> russia has --

>> they win the gold medals . they've really done a great job, but, you know, the strategy is the whole world to work together and the other people that can help to help us retain an olympic sport that is worldwide and doing well.

>> well, we wish you well, dan gable , olympic champion , whose medal he told me is over the firemace. good luck. keep us posted.

>> yeah. the bottom line is people all over are doing things like our hometown, the state. every week they're doing something, so we have support. it's just a matter of whether we can straighten out some of these relationships.