6-Year-Old Controversial Incident Resurfaces as Highly-Anticipated Ironman Wrestling Tournament Draws Close

Combat sports are known for heated battles both on and off the field, where the audience can literally see the sparks flying. However, things went horribly bad between an Iowa Hawkeyes and a Michigan Wolverines wrestling superstar, starting an aggressive conflict. The two wrestlers got entangled with each other during a previous iteration of the upcoming Ironman Wrestling Tournament.

A recent social media upload showcased a video of two wrestlers and their staff almost going to blows resurfacing the old conflict. In fact, the incident is still fresh in everyone’s minds despite six years of its passing.

When wrestling stars clashed after just two strikes

FloWrestling tweeted a video of the controversial incident that occurred at the 2017 iteration of the Ironman Wrestling Tournament. The tweet carried the caption, “Ironman finals get INTENSE. Relive the controversy back in 2017 when Real Woods and Joey Silva got involved in the infamous “Shoegate” incident.”

The video featured Iowa Hawkeyes’ 3x All-American wrestler Real Woods going against Michigan Wolverines’ Joey Silva in the final match of the Ironman Wrestling Tournament. The video captured Woods taking off Silva’s shoe, which made him and his staff furious. Notably, this wasn’t the first time Silva’s shoe had come off during the match.

The first instance occurred when Woods was leading by 1-0. While Silva didn’t mind the first instance at all, the second incident made him very furious. One faction of the wrestling community blames Woods for poor sportsmanship. While the other thinks Silva should have taped his shoes if they were so ill-fitting that they came off twice.

The 2017 incident, popularly known as the ‘Shoegate controversy’, has now resurfaced before the world as the 2023 iteration of the Ironman Tournament starts on 8 December. In fact, so much time has passed between then and now that Real Woods wrestles with a new team now, while Joey Silva has gone off-grid for over a year.

Where are the shoegate wrestlers now?

Real Woods previously used to wrestle for the Stanford Cardinal. However, he moved to the wrestling program of the Iowa Hawkeyes under Tom Brands in the 2022-23 season. He is a great addition to the Hawkeyes’ roster and recently picked up a 5-0 win against Pennsylvania in the 141lbs category. 

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As for Michigan’s Joey Silva, his last collegiate wrestling days date back to the 2019-20 season, when he stood eighth in the Big Ten Conference. The Ironman Wrestling Tournament will go on from 8th to 10th December and feature several collegiate wrestlers competing in 14 weight classes. Will the tournament have a peaceful run for the seventh consecutive year or will it see a new controversy this time?

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