Word today that the International Olympic Committee, in their typical wisdom, has decided to jettison wrestling as of the 2020 Summer Games. They can petition to get back in, which several other sports are trying to do already (such as baseball and softball). The decision was made to "streamline" the Games, which is kind of a funny rationale given the recent inclusion of golf and rugby. It's also odd that they'd try to streamline things by taking out one of the sports contested in the original Olympics. So much for tradition.

There are better ways to fix things. In fact, I can think of five things, which brings us to:

MAKING IT BETTER: THE SUMMER OLYMPICS

1. Give the IOC a line item veto for events. Part of the problem currently is that the IOC can't adjust events, they can only add or drop an entire sport. So instead of cutting down on the number of weight classes or something, they have to drop the entire thing. I'm sure there's some sort of political reason for this between the IOC and the governing bodies of each sport, but having the ability to cut some events rather than an entire sport makes more sense. Some humble suggestions:

• Race walking
• Trampoline
• Synchronized diving
• Duet synchronized swimming
• At least one weight class in men's weightlifting and boxing.

Granted, this would be an annual bloodbath, but at least it would give the IOC more flexibility and more opportunity to do what it does best: behind the scenes politicking and bribery.

2. Get rid of tennis and golf. I'm assuming that their inclusion in the Games is an attempt to draw some star power, as you can wedge the Olympics into the schedule every four years in a way that you can't with, say, baseball. Still, it hasn't worked quite so well for tennis, which has drawn some big names but seems to be just below Davis/Fed Cup in terms of excitement for players. I can't imagine this will work any better for golf, though maybe there's a groundswell of interest in it as we get closer. Still, neither has much Olympic pedigree and fans can just tune into any of the dozens of events that normally dot the tennis and golf calendar to see their favorites.

3. Move some stuff to winter. Rather than cut stuff entirely, let's load level and push some stuff that doesn't need to be held in the summer on to the Winter Games. Wrestling would work here, as would weightlifting, fencing, badminton, table tennis, volleyball (with beach staying in the summer, of course), judo, taekwondo, and shooting.

4. Use the LIFO method if you have to cut. If you have to cut something from the program, using a "last in, first out" method causes the least disruption, certainly in tradition if not in practice. The IOC would not be getting the negative reaction they're getting if they dropped taekwondo,which was only added as an official sport in 2000. Well, except from South Korea, who would likely take it personally.

5. Go for the one or two nation dominated sports first. Like any sport, wrestling has its dominant nations, but if you look at the 2012 results you see a pretty diverse group of countries. Russia won the most, but the top 10 includes countries like Uzbekistan, Azerbaijan, Georgia, and Hungary. Compare this to table tennis, which saw half of all medals go to China. In fact, half of all medals in the history of table tennis have gone to China.

Not that table tennis would get bumped, because who wants to piss off China? But the point remains, if half of your medals go to one or two countries, maybe you shouldn't be an Olympic sport quite yet. It's the same logic (sort of, and only in part with respect to baseball) that saw baseball and softball dropped.