The NCAA Championships in Philadelphia are just around the corner and 165-pounds figures to be in the news, either with a Hodge Trophy caliber season by the favorite Mitchell Mesenbrink or with a historic upset of Hodge Trophy contender Mitchell Mesenbrink!

NCAA Rankings - 165 Pounds

More NCAA weight class previews: 125 | 133 | 141 | 149 | 157 | 174 | 184 | 197 | 285

Every article about the 2025 NCAA Wrestling Championships

Brackets

CP's take:

2025 Top Eight Seeds (Name, School, Season Record)

1) Mitchell Mesenbrink, Penn State, 22-0

2) Peyton Hall, West Virginia, 30-1

3) Michael Caliendo, Iowa, 20-2

4) Terrell Barraclough, Utah Valley, 27-2

5) Julian Ramirez, Cornell, 20-1

6) Beau Mantanona, Michigan, 15-4

7) Hunter Garvin, Stanford, 19-6

8) Cameron Amine, Oklahoma State, 16-7

2024 All-Americans

1st: David Carr, Iowa State

2nd: Mitchell Mesenbink, Penn State

3rd: Keegan O'Toole, Missouri

4th: Michael Caliendo, Iowa

5th: Izzak Olejnik, Oklahoma State

6th: Hunter Garvin, Stanford

7th: Peyton Hall, West Virginia

8th: Antrell Taylor, Nebraska

Last 10 165lb NCAA Champs

2024: David Carr, Iowa State

2023: Keegan O'Toole, Missouri

2022: Keegan O'Toole, Missouri

2021: Shane Griffith, Stanford

2019: Mekhi Lewis, Virginia Tech

2018: Vincenzo Joseph, Penn State

2017: Vincenzo Joseph, Penn State

2016: Alex Dieringer, Oklahoma State

2015: Alex Dieringer, Oklahoma State

2014: David Taylor, Penn State

The Favorite

*Rank/Seed

#1/#1 Mitchell Mesenbrink, Penn State

Mesenbrink is currently third in FloWrestling's Hodge Trophy Rankings, which are mostly determined by 'dominance'. And dominant is the way by which most of Mesenbrink's wins come. 

Mesenbrink's reputation as one of the most dominant wrestlers in the NCAA started last season, when he went undefeated all the way to the NCAA finals where he lost to David Carr 9-8. Mesenbrink also amassed 17 bonus wins along the way. 

Mitchell's sophomore campaign picked up where he left off, only with more tech-falls. The Wisconsin native's first 12 bouts were tech-fall victories. Mesenbrink is also 2-0 against the #2 ranked Michael Caliendo, including a 19-4 tech-fall in the PSU Iowa dual at the end of January. 

Caliendo, though, proved that Mesenbrink was still mortal in the Big Ten finals. Mitchell still got the dub but had to settle for 'just' a 4-1 win. 

Watch Calideno and Mesenrbink's Big Ten finals bout:

Mesenbrink also has two wins over #11 Beau Mantanona, including a 25-8 tech at Big Tens. 

If there's a knock on Mesenbrink it's that he hasn't wrestled most of the other contenders in his field this season, although he did beat Cam Amine, Terrell Barraclough (back when they were teammates), Brevin Cassella (who's now up at 174), Dean Hamiti (who's now at 174 and wrestling for Oklahoma State) and Caleb Fish (who's now at 157 and also wrestling at Oklahoma State) last season. 

The Contenders

#2/#3 Michael Caleiendo, Iowa

#3/#2 Peyton Hall, West Virginia

#4/#4 Terrell Barraclough, Utah Valley

#5/#5 Julian Ramirez, Cornell

#6/#9 Cam Steed, Missouri

#7/#15 Nicco Ruiz, Arizona State

#8/#8 Cameron Amine, Oklahoma State

#9/#7 Hunter Garvin, Stanford

#10/#11 Drake Rhodes, South Dakota State

#11/#6 Beau Mantanona, Michigan

#12/#10 Andrew Sparks, Minnesota

The aforementioned Caliendo has only lost to Mesenbrink this year.  The Illinois native, who spent his first two collegiate seasons at North Dakota State, has 5 losses over the last two years to his Penn State rival. Of Caleindo's 13 varsity losses over three seasons, five are to Mitchell and six are to NCAA champs. 

Caliendo has never wrestled Big 12 champ and All-Star Classic winner Peyton Hall before, and those two will be favored to meet in the semifinals. Hall's one loss on the season is to the #4 seed Terrell Barraclough. Barraclough spent the last five seasons in State College, PA but used his last year of eligibility to move back to his home state and wrestle for Utah Valley. Barraclough has just two losses on the season and wins over the likes of Hall, Cam Amine and Hunter Garvin.

Watch highlights of Hall and Steed's match from Big 12s:

Cam Steed's sudden victory win over Barraclough may have vaulted him into the #6 ranking but he got the #9 seed so he'll have to likely go through Cam Amine in the round of 16 in a classic Cam vs Cam Slam. Amine beat Steed in a late-season dual meet, 2-1. 

Cornell's Julian Ramirez has the five seed and the Florida native will probably be able to earn his first All-American honors by beating Barraclough in the quarters. Ramirez could only wrestle attached in the second semester so his season was somewhat limited. He's 20-1 but hasn't faced off with any of the other contenders this season and did drop an early season match to Lehigh's Max Brignola, who is redshirting. 

Injuries forced ASU's Nicco Ruiz to default out of two matches at Big 12s and he also defaulted out of a match with Cam Steed at a dual. Ruiz's two wins over Cam Amine, however, helped him earn the #7 seed. 

Hunter Garvin had a tough Cliff Keen Las Vegas Invitational but has had a better second semester. He hasn't dropped a bout since Midlands and won a tough ACC tournament. 

Iowa transfer Drake Rhodes has quietly had an excellent season, which includes wins over Garvin and Ruiz. Injuries forced Rhodes to injury default out of the Big 12 Championships so questions remain about his health, but he'll be a podium threat if he's even close to 100%. 

BeauMan is now 3-0 over Andrew Sparks this season, thanks to hitting him twice at Big Tens. That likely bumped Sparks' seed down and will force him to go through Garvin in the second round. 

Sleepers & Landmines

#13/#26 Paddy Gallagher, Ohio State

#20/#20 Gunner Filipowicz, Army

Injuries and shifting weight classes didn't help Gallagher's seed, but it's hard to find a wrestler with a higher potential to bust his bracket than Paddy at the #26 seed. 

The appropriately named Gunner Filipowicz had to injury default out of the EIWAs, but the Georgia native has been a consistent performer for the Black Knights, as evidenced by his Southern Scuffle title. 

Watch Filipowicz win a Scuff title: 

Unlock this video, live events, and more with a subscription!

Sign Up

Already a subscriber? Log In

Predictions

1st: Mesenbrink, PSU

2nd: Caliendo, Iowa

3rd: Hall, WVU

4th: Barraclough, UVU

5th: Mantanona, Michigan

6th: Steed, Mizzou

7th: Sparks, Minnesota

8th: Garvin, Stanford

R12: Ramirez, Cornell

R12: Rhodes, SDSU

R12: Miller, App State

R12: Amine, OKST

I would be very surprised if anyone other than Mesenbrink won this weight class. Beyond that I don't have a ton of confidence in these picks, though I feel good about Caliendo, Hall and Barraclough finishing in the top four. 

I'm picking young BeauMan to go on a run and for Steed and Sparks to outperform their seeds, which includes a minor upset of Sparks over Garvin on the front and back side of the bracket. 

I also hope I am proven extremely wrong by Julian Ramirez and we see the Cornell senior on the podium for the first time in his last year of eligibility.