This year marks the 50th anniversary of the Pittsburgh Wrestling Classic, of course old time fans will remember it more fondly as The Dapper Dan.
Either way, it’s one of the most prominent all-star events in the sport – where a collective of nationally ranked seniors head to Western PA to take on a team of the Keystone State’s finest.
There is also an undercard of sorts featuring a New Jersey squad against a WPIAL team. The story there for me will be to see how Tyeler Hagensen follows up a massive state title run. And the best match looks to be at 121 Ty Kapusta vs Logan Brzozowski. Kapusta is committed to Bucknell with Brzozowski heading to Harvard.
Below is each match up of the main event, my predictions for each, and the reasoning for the pick.
Event begins at 4:00 PM Eastern with the main event scheduled for 6:00 PM. Streaming on Flo.
The Analysis: Smith is a multi-time PA state champion who also picked up a pair of wins over world champ Paul Kenny this season. His losses were to #1 Landon Sidun and #7 Davis Motyka. Cline is a multi-time CA medalist, finishing 3rd and 3rd these last two seasons. He didn’t pick up any ranked wins this season, and took 3 losses to CA runner up Edwin Sierra and OH D1 champ Ethan Timar. He does have a win over Dom Munaretto from the Fall which would indicate an ability to step up against top 5-10 competition. But, looking at what they’ve done this year and being in PA with Cline having to fly across the country, I like the Rutgers commit Smith to control this one.
The Analysis: At his best, Louie Gill can hang with, and beat, the best in the country. The reason he fell a bit to 14 to end the season is that he also – at times – takes some of the more head-scratching losses among the top 15. He was part of a top 10 trio in the 121 AA bracket this season with Aaron Seidel and Gauge Botero. Seidel would end up winning that state title, with Gill and Botero dropping to (at the time) unranked opponents, Gill doing so twice. Though he was able to double up on Botero having beat him during the season and then at Hershey. Jordan is a mainstay in the top 5 from Ohio and then moving to Oklahoma. He’ll be heading to Norman for the Sooners but first, he’ll look to add another high quality win to his HS resume. His only loss on the year was Leo DeLuca in the Ironman finals. His best win was Nate Desmond (finished as the prep champ). Ultimately, I think Jordan has earned the spot as the favorite in this one, and has shown a remarkable level of consistency to win the matches he’s supposed to. Gill should keep it close for PA but this should be where Team USA draws its first blood.
The Analysis: Vargo made huge news in the PA post-season defeating Jax Forrest in the regional finals. It was likely that he would face Forrest again in Hershey. And he did, and Forrest got revenge in that one. However, Vargo is definitely a national level kid who can go toe to toe with the best, even if he hasn’t yet strung together the elite wins to keep him in the top 10-15 range. He’ll have that chance here. McComas is similar to Jordan in that the guy just beats the people he should and it doesn’t matter the weight. His only losses were to Jax, Seth Mendoza, and Hunter Hollingsworth up at 138. His best wins were Gage Walker and Cole Evans, both of whom finishing in or right near the top 10. McComas is the favorite here, should go back-to-back with Jordan for Oklahoma wrestlers picking up wins for Team USA.
The Analysis: Gibson came onto the HS scene as a phenom and while he finishes the season just out of my top 25, he certainly has the pedigree to beat just about anyone in this weight. What hurt him most in the rankings was falling to 4th in the state with an unranked loss in the 3rd place match. As for Meza, he’s part of the Valiant Prep contingency that focuses so heavily on freestyle and doesn’t compete much during the HS season. They actually can’t in an official capacity but they did get a dual with Blair in this season. Meza fell to Matty Lopes in that one. Though it was close, 6-4 in sudden victory close in fact. This might be one of the biggest toss ups of the event in my opinion, but giving a slight edge to Meza coming into the weekend.
The Analysis: Hornack didn’t have the end to his HS career he was probably expecting. Having picked up a AA title last year, he finished 6th earlier this month. Not sure who you would say was the best win of the season for him, maybe Noah Doi. But he has a handful of unranked losses and then obviously Bo Bassett. Bassett is the only one on the schedule you’d favor over Larkin. In that same Blair dual, Larkin picked up a commanding 10-4 win over top 15 Billy Dekraker and just a week ago gave Jax a battle in Missouri at the Border Brawl. Needless to say, he’s a big favorite here.
The Analysis: If there were a world with no Pierson Manville, Consiglio’s outstanding season is even more dominant. He likely would have been Ironman and Powerade champ, to go with national prep champ, and a slew of elite wins. Take your pick of the best, either Logan Rozysnki or Melvin Miller. Both of whom he beat twice. As for Braun, he’s a legit top 5 kid in the country with a lone loss to national top 3 Landon Robideau in a battle of the two best from Minnesota. I would definitely put Consiglio as the favorite here and expected to get PA back on the winning side, but this is definitely going to be a battle.
The Analysis: This is the battle between two disappointed kids who I’m sure are ready to get after it this weekend. For Garvick is another in a long line of runner up finishes. For Estrada it was finishing 4th after back to back CA state titles. Now, to Estrada’s credit, that was the toughest bracket in the country with 4 in the top 12, but I’m sure he thought he’d at least get to the finals against #1 Brock Mantanona. Wasn’t meant to be. So now we get both of them coming in with their last matches being losses, who gets back on track to start the Spring season? I think Estrada is the favorite but we’ve seen highly regarded CA wrestlers make this trip and fall to lower ranked guys from PA. Most notably was Justin Mejia against Austin DeSanto. But even more recently, Richard Figueroa fell to Brett Ungar. Garvick could continue that trend, though I’m not calling for it.
The Analysis: Harer is a 3 time PA champ with one loss on his in-season resume in the last 152 matches. Though the season schedule wasn’t the toughest, he did pick up a pair of wins over top 15 Devon Magro. He also beat Collin Gaj in the pre-season PA Power event. He’s solidly in my top 5 at 157 and deservedly so. Charlie Millard has spent the entire season in the top 3, and nothing this year tells me any different. Similar to Harer, his schedule in Wisconsin isn’t littered with the best every week, but he did get a win over top 10 Aaron Stewart at Cheesehead. The key for both of them is to take advantage in the few elite matches they get. Both did just that. For my money this is the best match of the event. Flip a coin. If Garvick manages that upset and then Harer turns this one for PA, things start to get interesting for the host squad.
The Analysis: The unfortunate thing for Team PA’s hopes is that even if they manage to keep the match count close, like 7-5 – or even 6-6 – either way, Team USA has the two most likely to be bonus point wins, 139 and 172. Similar to 139, we’re looking at unranked PA medalist vs top 5 in the country. Now, this is the first rematch of the season among these matches (but not the only one, we’ll see a couple more one soon) and one that Wright won 9-3 at Powerade. If Hohman can keep it to that score this time that would be a moral victory of sorts. Wright is one of my favorites in these upperweights and I expect he’ll want to put on a show. Plus being from Parkersburg South, the trip isn’t that far for him. Some of the PA kids are traveling farther (Ayden Smith for example).
The Analysis: These two met twice this fall, at the Waterway Duals, where Hogan got the tech fall 18-2, and then at Super 32, where Hogan won 9-2 for 3rd. That trend line bodes well for Tompkins keeping it close, to a simple decision for example. However, having two tries against Hogan and coming away empty for takedowns doesn’t seem to indicate there’s a big threat to Hogan winning this. Of course we could dive into more of the season results for each, but it seems to me having this much recent history, until we see the gap close for Tompkins, the rest doesn’t matter.
The Analysis: This is the 3rd straight rematch from the Fall or during the season. This time, Lawrence and Shulaw met up in the Ironman semifinals. The final score between them was 10-5 – but the match wasn’t anywhere near that close. Rune built a 10-1 lead halfway through the 2nd period where he twisted his knee or ankle. Then he couldn’t prevent a reversal for Shulaw which made it 10-3. And then Shulaw got 2 points on stalling calls against Lawrence who – by the end – was just hanging on for dear life, unable to move on the leg at all and that was that. And Lawrence would forfeit out of the Ironman finals. In any case, similar to 189, this might not be as close as the ranking would indicate – in favor of the PA kid. We shall see.
The Analysis: Kinney is among the nation’s best heavyweights. But if he wants to go out among the absolute top tier, here’s his chance. Hopke entered the season atop the weight class coming off a world gold medal. He did pick up a pair of losses, one more surprising at the time, Navarro Schunke, and then to Dillan Johnson who finishes the season #1 at the weight. Schunke wasn’t considered quite in that very top tier, and then he beat Hopke and announced his presence. Kinney could do the same here. Definitely give the nod to Hopke to get this done but wouldn’t be surprised by the upset at all.
Based in Western PA. Right in the heart of WPIAL country, Todd brings an insider’s view from the country’s epicenter of wrestling. He’s excited to build on the TKDWN tradition of starting with the story first. The athletes, the coaches, their families and supporters, there is no shortage of stories to tell. And Todd will bring his unique perspective to help us continue to deliver top notch content for the world’s greatest sport!
