2016 Open Wrestling Championships

Top Potential Open Championship Matches

Top Potential Open Championship Matches

We may not have seen the brackets yet, but who the hell cares. Have you seen the list of absolute studs coming to Vegas? It's way too hard not to speculate

Apr 28, 2016 by Ryan Holmes
Top Potential Open Championship Matches
We may not have seen the brackets yet, but who the hell cares. Have you seen the list of absolute studs coming to Vegas? It's way too hard not to speculate and anxiously discuss the potential matches that could go down during the UWW Junior Freestyle tournament.

So let's dig right in. Watch every match live here this weekend

55kg
Daton Fix returns to the scene where it all went down for him a year ago. Last year, Fix defeated college wrestlers Stevan Micic and Ronnie Bresser in back-to-back matches to claim the title at 55kg. This year Micic is up at 60kg, but there are plenty others making the trip this year.

Daton Fix vs Austin Assad: Assad has had a year of college competition so we will see how it all works out for him. As we all know, Fix has a tendency to knock off college guys so it will be fun to see Assad up against the high school Junior.

Gavin Teasdale vs Austin Gomez: These guys have pretty similar styles; slickness on high and great pace. Gomez and Teasdale could give us a very high scoring bout. Teasdale is making his junior debut and is looking for a good introduction to this level so seeing him against Gomez will be great to watch.

Fix vs Nick Piccininni: Pretty sure these guys have crossed each other's paths before so seeing them go live is sure to be a treat.



60kg
CP already gave us a pretty good glimpse at the cast of characters coming, but it's not going to hurt to take another look. There are a ton of guys in this weight class so the potential explosiveness is very high.

nullJaydin Eierman vs Yiannia Diakomihals: After causing some international controversy at the CK/Journeymen Freestyle tournament, Yianni D filled us in on his plans to make both World Teams. Well, that could be tough with Missouri redshirt freshman Jaydin Eierman here. This one could get interesting and like most of Yianni's matches, I'm predicting a lot of scrambles.

Mitch McKee vs Taylor LaMont: For the pure fact that these guys have so much history, I feel like this one will be a great one to keep an eye on.

Like I said in the beginning, the star power at this weight is so enticing that I could go on and on about the potential match-ups here. Other guys to look out for are Seth Gross, Kaden Gfeller, Scott Parker, Nick Lee and Josh Terao. Honestly, the most intriguing thing here is seeing the young and talented high schoolers take on the guys that have moved on to the college level.


66kg
The trend of high powered talent continues here. We will see some great scraps here as the field is loaded with guys who had a redshirt season last year. Here are a few potential match-ups to whet your appetite. But don't forget to keep an eye out for Tristen Moran, Alec Panteleo, Vince Turk, Joe Lee, Dom Demas and Ben Brancale.

Matt Kolodzik vs Sam Krivus
Fredy Stroker vs Griffin Parriott
Jarod Verkleeren vs Boo Lewallen



70kg
Josh Maruca vs Michael Kemerer: High School teammates could see each other on the mat this weekend. Kemerer has the Hawkeyes hopes very high after a pretty dominant redshirt year so we will see if his old friend has anything in store for him.

Evan Wick vs Zander Wick: Nothing like a battle between brothers. I wouldn't mind seeing what happens when the California brothers toe the line against one another.

Quentin Hovis vs Isaiah Hokit: This is another one of those intriguing college vs high school match-ups. Seeing if Hovis can contend against the Hokit is the most interesting piece to look at, especially because Hovis will be coming from the Western Regional Greco tournament. Will all the competition affect him at all?


74kg
Instead of listing some potential match-ups here I'm just going to through out some names and let you guys do the speculating yourselves. The mixture of talent here is just straight nasty.

Larry Early III
Mark Hall
Vincenzo Joseph
Anthony Valencia
Fox Baldwin
Jordan Kutler
Logan Massa
Joe Smith

We have already seen Hall take on Massa at the Olympic Trials which resulted in a delightfully high flying match that lit up the scoreboard. And there's not much to say about the potential of seeing Hall vs Valencia again. Just when we thought we had seen everything these guys had in their bag-o-tricks they gave us even more at the last chance qualifier so there's really no telling what we could see if they meet again.



But throwing Larry Early, Vincenzo Joseph, Fox Baldwin and Joe Smith into the mix just makes it all so much more intriguing. So get your popcorn ready because this weight class might be the sickest one of the weekend.



84kg
Zahid Valencia vs Myles Martin: So much history here between these two. The only difference now is that MyMart is now an NCAA Champ and the #1-ranked wrestler in the country. So we will see what happens this time around.