Gene Zannetti sits down with legendary wrestling coaches Ernie Monaco, Jeff Buxton, and Steve Rivera to discuss the biggest forces reshaping wrestling today, including why parents treating coaching as a transactional service undermines everything coaches build, how the club hopping epidemic creates gaps in wrestling IQ instead of linear development, why building champions starts with parents working on themselves first, the difference between coaching a boarding school environment versus a club where parents never fully let go, and why loyalty and long-term relationships are the foundation of every great wrestling career. Timestamps: 1:21- Interview begins 1:58 - How Ernie saw the club wrestling explosion coming decades ago 5:14 - The transfer portal is destroying team culture 15:02 - Parents treat coaching as transactional and miss what coaches actually invest 16:14 - The art metaphor: chipping away everything bad until beauty is revealed 34:34 - Blair's boarding environment built independence by removing parents from the equation 49:57 - Produce good people first 1:05:19 - Cam Sontz working with Wrestling Mindset coach 1:15:57 - Steve letting Sebastian take a year off in 8th grade and never questioning his commitment again 1:29:50 - How money entering the sport is eroding the integrity of youth wrestling 1:49:43 - The magic of coaching is always in the relationship, not the technique 2:09:36 - Club hopping creates gaps in wrestling IQ by skipping from page one to page 200 2:33:03 - Wrestling's evolution: how athletic and physical the sport has become compared to 30 years ago 2:48:48 - How to spot a toxic club environment 🎯 This episode is sponsored by: 🥗 Eat Clean Bro – eatcleanbro.com Use code MINDSET for 15% off your order 💪 Champion Athletes Sports Nutrition – champion-athletes.com Use code MINDSET25 for a special discount Please LIKE and SUBSCRIBE to the podcast and go through the archives to hear more great episodes. If you want to support the podcast, please leave a 5-star rating & review on Apple Podcasts. For all partnership and sponsorship inquiries, email mindset@wrestlingmindset.com 🎙Stay connected with Wrestling Mindset 🔗 Visit our website: https://www.wrestlingmindset.com/ 📞 Book a free consultation: https://www.wrestlingmindset.com/1-on-1-coaching/ Wrestling Mindset Social Media Instagram: / wrestlingmindset Facebook: / wrestlingmindset Twitter: / wrestlingmindse 🎧 Listen to our podcast Spotify: https://open.spotify.com/show/65xcqo9ZdPY36HeQOltPUI

Zach Tanelli breaks down his Mount Rushmore of American wrestling—Lee Kemp, Dave Schultz, Cael Sanderson, and Ernie Monaco—and explains how impact, mindset, and mentorship shape the sport far beyond wins and medals. This conversation goes deep into what truly defines greatness in wrestling. Listen to the full podcast 🎧 - https://bit.ly/athletor-spotify 🖥️ - https://bit.ly/athletor 📸 - @tonyrotundo.waw

This week, Wrestling Mindset founder Gene Zannetti sits down with two legends of the sport, Coach Jeff Buxton and Coach Ernie Monaco. Jeff Buxton is the head coach of the SKWC RTC, Team USA Mens Freestyle Coach, and owner/coach at Buxton Athletic Training Center. Previously he was the head coach of the Lehigh Valley Wrestling Club and built the nation's powerhouse program Blair Academy. Ernie Monaco is the founder and owner of the Edge School of Wrestling, the first amateur wrestling school in the United States. He was inducted into the National Wrestling Hall of Fame in 2022 and has coached some of the best wrestlers in America over the past 40 years. In this special mastermind, we discuss some of the most interesting and controversial topics in wrestling. What are the best wrestlers doing differently? How do you avoid burnout? Why you should avoid Club Jumping? The relationship between parents and coaches, how they can affect their wrestler's performance. They also get into more advanced topics like teaching wrestlers how to lose and how they can gain more from it than they think. How decades worth of Soviet research can benefit the American wrestler. And how to combat the biggest performance obstacles- self-doubt, perfectionism and anxiety. Edge Wrestling: Website- https://www.edgewrestling.com/ Facebook- https://www.facebook.com/EdgeWrestlingSchool/ Twitter- https://twitter.com/EdgeWrestling Instagram- https://www.instagram.com/edge_wrestling/ Ernie Monaco National Hall of Fame- https://nwhof.org/national-wrestling-hall-of-fame/bio/15475 Buxton Trained: Website- https://www.buxtonatc.com Instagram- https://www.instagram.com/jeffpbuxton/ Timestamps: 1:20 - Mastermind with two legends 11:02 - Revolve your training around match days 20:40 - Downside of club jumping 23:40 - To be a good student, put the time in 36:24 - Allowing the coach to do their job 1:02:22 - When should a kid get on the mat 1:11:09 - Learning more from your losses 1:27:40 - In wrestling, every individual is different 1:31:20 - Applying Soviet research to American wrestling 1:52:35 - Perfection and anxiety 2:11:43 - Teaching how to lose 2:25:20 - Keeping up with what's happening on the mat

Ernie Monaco is the founder and head coach of The Edge School of Wrestling, the nation’s first wrestling school. Ernie has coached a staggering 13 NCAA division one champions and 107 New Jersey state champions. Ernie has also coached 20 current college coaches.

Ernie Monaco, coach to over 100 New Jersey High School State Champions, 12 NCAA Champions and 2 Olympians shows you how to do a proper wrestling level change and it's progression into a double leg.