College Wrestling...

[BrewerFan]

I see nobody mentioned this.

Just got back from the NCAA tournament and witnessed what MIGHT have been the biggest upset in the history of sports. Not hyperbole. It's arguably up there with the Miracle on Ice and almost certainly the biggest in NCAA History.

Gable Stevenson, coming back after 2 years off due to the Covid rule and some finessing of the system, he took a RS and then being a reigning Olympic Champ was eligible for and Olympic RS. He has been the greatest HWT Wrestler in College History. He'd spent those two years in WWE, got a tryout with the Buffalo Bills hoping he could be an Aaron Donald(Though at 5'11 265, despite Donald's quickness, he was already 24 and had never actually played Football, even in HS, but impressed during camp).

Youngest American to win an Olympic Gold Medal in the 2020 Olympic games in 2021. Dominated the field in both '21 and '22. Had two close losses as a Freshmen and then came back and the expected match-up, returning National Champ from Penn State, the 6'4 260LB Greg Kerkvvliet.

But then in the Semi-Finals, former Air Force Wrestler Wyatt Hendrickson upset Kerkvliet 7-2(the later was injured, but still, big upset).

 

And that set the stage for Gable to win his 3rd National Title having missed the 2020 Tournament. Wyatt Hendrickson who will be a commissioned officer and serve his 5 years in the Air Force was expected to go out and compete, but at best, keep it close. NOBODY expected Hendrickson to win.

He did a bit more;

Gable telling "Captain America," who was allowed to transfer to Oklahoma State to Wrestle the 5th year from 2021(obviously Military Academies you can only get 4 years, no injury red-shirt or anything else)...he and Gable had an interesting exchange pre-match as Gable used his Pro-Wrestling persona to let Hendrickson know "this is my mat." But, by the end of the night, it was Wyatt Hendrickson's!

 

[Samurai Bucky]

7 hours ago, BrewerFan said:

Just got back from the NCAA tournament and witnessed what MIGHT have been the biggest upset in the history of sports. Not hyperbole. It's arguably up there with the Miracle on Ice and almost certainly the biggest in NCAA History.

The Dan Gable loss in the last match of his college career might be the biggest in NCAA history.  😉

Another big wrestling moment was when Rulon Gardner beat the undefeated Aleksander Karelin (The Russian Bear) in the Olympics.  Gardner wrestled at Nebraska.

[kestrel79]

I don't really understand wrestling or how it's scored, but props to the announcers in this video for making it dramatic. That was pretty cool to hear and watch. 

[BrewerFan]

1 hour ago, Samurai Bucky said:

The Dan Gable loss in the last match of his college career might be the biggest in NCAA history.  😉

Another big wrestling moment was when Rulon Gardner beat the undefeated Aleksander Karelin (The Russian Bear) in the Olympics.  Gardner wrestled at Nebraska.

Gable's was first and...shocking, but  bigger? I don't know He was great and his legend only grew, but, he wasn't as good as THIS Gable(especially since it's two HWTs). Stevenson had won an Olympic Gold already was...so much more dominant. 

And then the thing I HATE about how NBC covers Wrestling, you had a bigger upset in that very tournament than Karelin vs Rulon. That's the match EVERYONE remembers. They made a huge deal out of it...and it was a HUGE deal...but I don't think it was the biggest one in that 2000 Olympics.

Buvaisar Saitiev is widly recognized as the greatest Wrestler of all-time.

He lost to Brandon Slay. Now...first of all, Freestyle is more difficult than Greco. It just is. You get a guy like Lopez(Cuba, just won his 5th) or Karelin and they're so big, it's just pushing...which also makes it boring.

But what made this even worse was they used to have these really lame rules where if you just didn't score 3 points, you went to the "clinch." So Rulon beat Karelin...just because of a rule change where you couldn't adjust your hands. No scoring, he didn't get in and take the Russian Bear down, he just had that size 52 chest and Karelin re-adjusted his grip. Soo anti-climatic.

 

Brandon Slay was never even a National Champion in College and here he is, beating the...greatest Wrestler ever in the very same Olympics and they didn't even show it. To be fair, it was also in the Semi-finals, not the finals, so...I guess that takes something away from it. 

 

But Stevenson losing to Greg Kerkvliet, the defending Champ who had only lost to Stevenson and Adam Coon(current Olympian) in the last 3 years, that would have been an all-time upset. 
Stevenson losing to Hendrickson who he'd tech-falled(beaten by 15 points or more) the only other time they Wrestled? That's bigger than Dan Gable or Rulon.

**Also, there are myths about Karelin. They're fun, but it's stuff like, "he hadn't been scored upon in 13 years, he hadn't lost in 16. It was just Rulon's coach trying to hype the match up for NBC to help Rulon. In reality, he'd lost in the World Championships in '97 to a Bulgarian and then in '98 he'd been scored on. 

Not that I don't still think he's amazing, but...the myths made it seem better. 

 

Those are some crazy upsets though. Watch Darion Caldwell vs Brent Metcalf if you want to watch a great one also!

 

Still, Barstool and some others were saying this was the BIGGEST of ALL-TIME.

[BrewerFan]

1 hour ago, Samurai Bucky said:

The Dan Gable loss in the last match of his college career might be the biggest in NCAA history.  😉

Another big wrestling moment was when Rulon Gardner beat the undefeated Aleksander Karelin (The Russian Bear) in the Olympics.  Gardner wrestled at Nebraska.

Oh, one more note you may or may not know. Lee Kemp, should have been the first 4X National Champ. Got cut from Basketball, went out for Wrestling. Was 11-8 as a Freshmen. Ended up winning two State Titles and then went to Wisconsin. 

Freshmen year, he's in the National Finals vs...Chuck Yagla from Iowa. Again, the old days of Wrestling, you Wrestled 7 minutes and if it was tied, you wrestled a 3 minute mini match. 1 minute neutral, Then you each got to pick, top or bottom.

AT the end of 10 minutes, it was tied...I think it was 4-4 and 1-1

Lee Kemp had the only TD.

The referees then just...pick the winner. Three of them, write a name down and put it in a hat. He lost on referees decision 2-1. 

The critera SHOULD have been more TDs, then more TD attempts, basically whoever was trying to score more. But what they actually ended up doing was giving it to the guy who was older figuring the underclassmen would have another chance. 

So Lee Kemp lost and the first 4X Champ would be Pat Smith almost 20 years later.

 

 

But, Dan Gable, the guy who dominated the Russians(and there were like 8 Russians just as there are today as they'd have a Russian wrestle for Bulgaria and Poland and whoever else). But he went through the Olympics and I believe he won like 38-1. Just dominated everyone.

1975 or 76 and he was thinking about making a comeback. So he's training and he enters the Northern Open at 150 pounds. Same weight there was this Freshmen from Ohio wrestling for Wisconsin. Lee Kemp would beat him...I believe 7-5 and that was when Gable decided he was good at this coaching thing and to keep doing that!

[BrewerFan]

54 minutes ago, kestrel79 said:

I don't really understand wrestling or how it's scored, but props to the announcers in this video for making it dramatic. That was pretty cool to hear and watch. 

IF you care, this was another HISTORIC match.

Because guys got that free 2021 season, there was a Wrestler for Penn State who had a chance to become a 5X National Champion. 

10X National Champion with the team titles included as Penn Sate is so insanely dominant.

The guy from Northern Iowa is a Wisconsin kid from Nicolet.

Keckiesen took 3rd, 3rd, 2nd, 1st. He lost twice to another Penn State Wrestler Aaron Brooks(also a 4X National Champ...and there are only 7 of them, so...it's pretty wild Parker had such bad luck). 

But Starocci is going for his FIFTH National Title

Not a ton of scoring, but it was exciting(at least to me, but I love good Wrestling). 

[igor67]

Seems a shame not to mention Wisconsin native Steve Buchanan's Win.

https://hawkeyesports.com/sports/wrestling/roster/player/stephen-buchanan

Lack of good coverage really torpedoed my ability to keep up with the shifts in wrestling in the last 25 years.

[BrewerFan]

12 minutes ago, igor67 said:

Seems a shame not to mention Wisconsin native Steve Buchanan's Win.

https://hawkeyesports.com/sports/wrestling/roster/player/stephen-buchanan

Lack of good coverage really torpedoed my ability to keep up with the shifts in wrestling in the last 25 years.

Well...if you want to talk about Wisconsin guys who won, 165, Mitchell Mesenbrink(his Dad was Ben Askren's HS coach and runs their Wrestling School together) and then at 174...from the same high school as Askren and Mitchell(and 2 other Wrestlers in the tournament) was Keegan O'Toole.

And at 184, the defending Champ was Parker Keckiesen.

 

Wisconsin has become one of the top...4-5 States for producing College Talent in the last 3-4 years and they've got some kids coming in the next couple years who are going to be absolute studs.

 

Mitchell Mesenbrink, he wrestles for Cael Sanderson, the only 4X undefeated National Champ. Last year, he was in what was by FAR the toughest weight class. He had to Wrestle a kid from Wisconsin in the B1G finals and the winner would be the #2 seed. 

On the other side of the Bracket was Arrowhead's Keegan O'Toole, the 3X National Champion who at that point was a 2X Champ and David Carr, a 1X Champ who'd taken 2 2nds. 

Mesenbrink was an undefeated Freshmen, he scored a TD late in the match to make it 8-8 and Mesenbrink has the best gas tank in Wrestling(literally probably the world, not hyperbole). So there's 30 seconds left, scoreboard shows 8-8, David Carr has a stalling, but he also has riding time. 

Mesenbrink lost track of the score. He'd just taken him down and gotten 2 stalling calls and he wasn't even tired, he just didn't force it. He ended up losing what will...almost certainly be his only Collegiate loss 9-8 to one of the better Wrestlers of our Era, a 6th year Sr as a Freshmen. 

 

 

But yeah, anyway, Wisconsin had a bunch of AA, but 165, 174, 197 were all Wisconsin guys. 

 

 

Edit-I take it back. Another huge upset for the night was Keegan O'Toole LOSING. He lost to Dean Hamiti from Okie State(he had Wrestled the last 3 years at Wisconsin). 

 

So Wisconsin won t 165, 197 and took 2nd at 174 and 184, but 184 was the guy who lost this year to the first ever 5X National Champ and then won it last year and lost the two years before that to the 6th ever 4X National Champ. 

[Samurai Bucky]

2 hours ago, BrewerFan said:

Oh, one more note you may or may not know. Lee Kemp, should have been the first 4X National Champ. Got cut from Basketball, went out for Wrestling. Was 11-8 as a Freshmen. Ended up winning two State Titles and then went to Wisconsin. 

I got to see him wrestle at the old gym in Marquette.  I got his autograph, too, but it is long gone.

My dad was a wrestling coach and he always talked about Dan Gable.  I was too young to remember Gable, but certainly remember Lee Kemp.  The Badger teams were solid.  Hellickson actually called our house once and asked for him -- for a story for the Crossface paper.  When I answered the phone, I thought he was joking. LOL

Funny story -- I had to have PT on my surgically repaired elbow when I was in high school.  My therapist was Jim Haines' sister.  Very cool.

[BrewerFan]

5 hours ago, Samurai Bucky said:

I got to see him wrestle at the old gym in Marquette.  I got his autograph, too, but it is long gone.

My dad was a wrestling coach and he always talked about Dan Gable.  I was too young to remember Gable, but certainly remember Lee Kemp.  The Badger teams were solid.  Hellickson actually called our house once and asked for him -- for a story for the Crossface paper.  When I answered the phone, I thought he was joking. LOL

Funny story -- I had to have PT on my surgically repaired elbow when I was in high school.  My therapist was Jim Haines' sister.  Very cool.

The Dan Gable-Larry Owings loss might be more...culturally significant because obviously VERY few Wrestlers are well known and everyone knew who Dan Gable was. I think it's like Cael Sanderson, but I'm not actually sure it is.

Gable was the most manically driven man, the stories of him are famous. Coming back to the Hotel after winning the World Championships, the guys are going to get some beer and play cards and...Gable is going for a 10 mile run because "the guy that's trying to beat me already started training."

He literally changed Wrestling in Russia, Japan. They don't have Folkstyle like we do(as I'm sure you know) so they have schools and they drill their techniques for years before ever even wrestling. It's weird, it's more like a job, but there were world champs who'd come off the mat and smoke! Back in the 60s, 70s. 

Gable just wore them down and gassed them so easily, even if they could wrestle with him, they were too gassed. American Wrestling as a whole did that.

 

And Lee Kemp is one of the most Regimented people I've ever seen in my life. Even now in his 60s(70s?) he looks like he's in shape to Wrestle and he's so intensely focused on things. I've got to meet him and know him a little bit through the Peterson brothers, Ben and John...and he's just an incredible man. 

 

Those are the guys who built the sport...

[Samurai Bucky]

2 hours ago, BrewerFan said:

And Lee Kemp is one of the most Regimented people I've ever seen in my life. Even now in his 60s(70s?) he looks like he's in shape to Wrestle and he's so intensely focused on things. I've got to meet him and know him a little bit through the Peterson brothers, Ben and John...and he's just an incredible man. 

Those are the guys who built the sport...

I literally cried when the USA boycotted the '80 Olympics simply for Lee Kemp.  I wish I had the opportunity to meet him now that I am much older. 

Ben Peterson came and spoke at our school.  Not too many people knew who he was, but it was awesome to have somebody of his stature came to podunk Wisconsin...  Those were the days.

[BrewerFan]

1 hour ago, Samurai Bucky said:

I literally cried when the USA boycotted the '80 Olympics simply for Lee Kemp.  I wish I had the opportunity to meet him now that I am much older. 

Ben Peterson came and spoke at our school.  Not too many people knew who he was, but it was awesome to have somebody of his stature came to podunk Wisconsin...  Those were the days.

Well, he's from Podunk Wisconsin! Cumberland.  Maranatha Baptist Bible in Watertown was where he was the coach for probably 30 years. 

He and my Uncle were close and I got to know Ben, not really John, but I went to his camp of Champs every year and he's just a good guy.

I don't know Kemp, but I've met him quite a few times. He is one helluva motivational speaker. I've seen him, he's offered advice when I was wrestling to me and teammates about getting ready and mental preparation(again, so meticulous), the importance of routine and then one thing a lot of College guys miss, he makes this analogy, your body is like a car. If you have a high performance vehicle, you're not going to put just anything in it, right? Same with your body, you can't put Twinkies and Sugar and expect to be able to perform at a high level.

I look at the dude now and...I'm pretty sure he hasn't had refined sugar since...ever. 

 

I'm not sure anyone got hurt more by the boycott in '80 than Kemp. In '84 when the Soviets boycotted, we had like 6 champs or something. You were missing most of the best Wrestlers in the field, but in 1980, Kemp had won the 1978, 1979 and 1981 World Titles...I think, and was the CLEAR favorite to win it in '80. 

Definitely a shame. Still, he's kinda up there with Dan Gable, John Smith, and Mark Schultz as the guys who helped grow the sport.  

His son, Adam Kemp, finished up his career from...Cal Poly I believe. 

[wildcat83]

SIX kids from Wisconsin ended up earning All-American status (Top 8) this year in D1.

Stephen Buchanan - Iowa (Loyal) Champion

Mitchell Mesenbrink - Penn State (Arrowhead) Champion

Keegan O'Toole - Missouri (Arrowhead) 2nd Place

Parker Keckeisen - Northern Iowa (Nicolet) 2nd Place

Matty Bianchi - Arkansas LR (Two Rivers) 7th Place

Gavin Drexler - NDSU (Stratford) 8th Place

 

Wisconsin had a few others lose one or two matches from placing as well.  The amount of really good college wrestlers that the state is producing is impressive!

[BrewerFan]

On 3/25/2025 at 5:16 PM, wildcat83 said:

SIX kids from Wisconsin ended up earning All-American status (Top 8) this year in D1.

Stephen Buchanan - Iowa (Loyal) Champion

Mitchell Mesenbrink - Penn State (Arrowhead) Champion

Keegan O'Toole - Missouri (Arrowhead) 2nd Place

Parker Keckeisen - Northern Iowa (Nicolet) 2nd Place

Matty Bianchi - Arkansas LR (Two Rivers) 7th Place

Gavin Drexler - NDSU (Stratford) 8th Place

 

Wisconsin had a few others lose one or two matches from placing as well.  The amount of really good college wrestlers that the state is producing is impressive!

It's impressive...but the class of kids that just graduated last year...that was the best class Wisconsin has ever had...by a lot.

Koy Hopke-HWT Minnesota

Aedon Sinclair-Missouri-He was the 2nd highest rated prospect, but he's the best Wrestler IMO. Problem is, he does not cut weight. It's like a 6'2 Power Forward. You CAN play it, but it's a lot tougher. He Wrestled 220 in HS so he could avoid Connor Mirasola, but he had to make sure his weight was high enough so he could. He was just that much better. But he's 5'7, 5'8. He should be 174 and he should be in the finals. 184, he should be top 5 in the Country next year, but there's a lot more talent there. 

Connor and Cole Mirasola-Penn State 197/HWT
Penn State is just comically talented and Connor is the more accomplished of the two and could probably be an All-American, but he has to make the lineup. They have a Freshmen who just took 2nd(against Buchanana from Loyal). 
 

Charlie Millard, Jake Stoefel, Braden Scholes(really good Freshmen, qualified this year for Nationals)...there are probably 15 more that I'm not going to be able to remember all of them, but...Wisconsin is producing as much talent as any state outside of Pennsylvania(which is like the Wrestling version of Florida, Texas and California combined), Ohio and California right now. At least on par with any others. 

 

Sadly, almost none that talent stays in-state due to...club coaches who don't get along with Bono after one...silly dispute.