57 & 61 kg
On this episode, Ben Askren and Matt talk about the UWW Junior Freestyle U.S. Open Wrestling Championships. They kick off the podcast by talking about the 57 kg weight class. Ohio State’s Malik Heinselman dominated his way all the way through this tournament. It’s great to see Heinselman competing and working to get on a world team. Moving to the 61 kg bracket brings one of the best matches of the whole tournament, Roman Bravo-Young vs Gabriel Tagg. After a close match, Tagg ends up getting the pin with 1:45 left in the second period. Dernlan talks about the dramatic improvements Tagg has made in the last year.

65 kg (7:33)
Yahya Thomas gets the win over Andrew Alirez 4-0 in the finals. Even though Thomas’s defensive style was able to get it done in the finals Askren and Dernlan were equally impressed with both wrestlers throughout the tournament.

70 kg (9:15)
Another Buckeye getting the finals win was Sam Sasso tech falling Brayton Lee in the finals 10-0. Ohio State has to be extremely happy with this considering Sasso has a huge task ahead of him in filling Micah Jordan’s roster spot. With a lot of schools graduating top ranked 157 lbs wrestlers there is a real opportunity for Sasso. One of the wildest matches of the bracket came in Lee’s semifinal match against Jacori Teemer ending 9-9 in Lee’s favor. Another incredible storyline from this bracket was Quincy Monday who was matched up against Sasso first round but battled all the way back 8 matches to take fourth place.

74 kg (14:44)
Iowa State’s David Carr beats Danny Braunagel in the finals 12-1.

79 kg (17:23)
Last years 79 kg junior world team member Aaron Brooks dominates this tournament yet again at no surprise to anyone. The debate gets brought up that if you medal as a junior why does that not give you a by to trials as it does for the seniors.

86 kg (21:00)
This was a stacked weight class and NC State’s Trent Hidlay beat Zachary Braunagel in the finals 10-3. Askren says he wouldn’t be surprised if Hidlay went up in weight for NC State.

92 kg (25:22)
Lucas Davison beat Jakob Woodley 6-3.

97 kg (23:18)
Two unknown guys to both Askren and Dernlan make it to the finals Sam Schuyler takes out Tanner Sloan 17-13.

125 kg (24:26)
Anthony Cassioppi dominated this bracket with a win over Seth Nevills in the finals 13-0. Askren talks about how when you look at this year’s overall potential team there isn’t a huge amount of confidence in getting a world team medal. There really isn’t any previous world medalist on the team besides Aaron Brooks.

Rule Change Proposals (27:00)
One proposal is counting medical forfeits as losses. Askren says this rule is hard to stick to when a seeding committee is looking at wrestlers records. Dernlan talks about how the seeding committees have already been doing this without an actual rule being in place. Medically forfeiting is run on the honor system and this rule poses to enforce it more strongly. Another rule being proposed that Dernlan is confident will get passed is allowing the use of sauna during the offseason. Originally this rule was put into place to protect wrestlers from unhealthy and unsafe weight cutting. In today’s age sauna would be used more for recovery than cutting water weight.