Kyle Dake fully intended to finish his college career at 157 pounds. 

He felt comfortable at the weight. It’s where he won his third NCAA title, where he completed his first undefeated season, and where he had his most dominant national tournament performance. 

It’s where he planned to wrestle his final college season — until National Wrestling Coaches Association executive director Mike Moyer checked in with Dake and Cornell coach Rob Koll as the organization began outlining matches for the 2012 NWCA All-Star Classic.  

“They wanted to make it a big event,” Dake said, “and they asked if I’d wrestle David.”

At the time, there was no better way to make a big event than to pit Dake and his lockdown defense against Taylor and his wide-open, high-scoring style. A senior bidding for his fourth NCAA title versus the reigning Hodge Trophy winner from Penn State. 

Wrestling fans got a preview of the matchup that April at Olympic Trials when Dake pinned Taylor on the backside of the 74-kilogram bracket. But there was still plenty of intrigue about how a college folkstyle bout between the two would play out. 

Dake said there was talk about setting up a catch weight bout for the All-Star Classic, but he figured he’d already wrestled Taylor at 163 pounds. Going up a couple more pounds wouldn’t be an issue. 

“I talked to coach Koll, left his office, came back and he was thinking about it and he just thought, ‘Well, if you go 165, our team is probably a little bit stronger with you there. Why don’t we just plan on you doing that and go do it?’” Dake said. “It was never a question of if I’d drop back down. It was a lot of playing up the legacy and (Koll saying) ‘How cool would it be for you to win your fourth national title at four different weight classes?”

Nobody had ever won NCAA championships at three different weight classes before Dake took home titles in his first three seasons at 141, 149 and 157. Suddenly, he began pondering the possibility of taking the crown at a fourth weight, which ultimately put him in the 165-pound mix for the Flowrestling All-Quarter Century Team presented by Defense Soap.  

There were other appealing factors about making the jump to 165. Koll sold Dake on not having to worry about cutting weight and being able to devote more attention to getting bigger and stronger and focusing on wrestling. And Dake figured the move up to 165 would accelerate his transition to the Senior level at 74 kilograms. 

“At the All-Star, we had a really close match,” Dake said of the 2-1 victory he pulled out with a tiebreaker rideout. “I didn’t want the match to be that close, I wanted to whup David. I was like, ‘I’ll get another crack at him and try to go do it.’ 

“I think if I would’ve whupped him, I probably would’ve just gone down to 157 again. I don’t know what would’ve gone into that. But after we wrestled, I for sure was going 165. I thought it was going to be really cool. I think the biggest reasons we decided to go there was just to mainly focus on wrestling, have fun, create a legacy, better for the team.”

Division I wrestling’s four-time NCAA champion club had two members at that point. Oklahoma State’s Pat Smith was the first. Iowa State’s Cael Sanderson made his indelible mark by going 159-0. Dake’s chance to carve a unique place as a four-timer rested on winning titles at four different weights, which hinged on beating a guy who was beginning to forge his own path as one of the sport’s all-time greats. 

Taylor took a 38-0 record with 34 bonus-point victories into the 2011 NCAA finals as a freshman. He was leading 1-0 midway through the second period of the 157-pound title bout and was in on a shot when Arizona State’s Bubba Jenkins locked up a cradle and pinned the Penn State phenom. 

The following year Taylor went 32-0 with 30 bonus-point victories at 165. He pinned his way into the NCAA finals and then beat Brandon Hatchett 22-7 for the title. 

“We wrestled (at the Olympic Trials) and I felt really good wrestling him and I was like, ‘I know I can wrestle with this guy,’” Dake said. “It would be interesting to go back in time and hear what everybody was saying. People were saying David got caught his freshman year and he was undefeated, he’s going to be the next Cael and it was just like, ‘Well, he just got caught and if that didn’t happen, he’d be an undefeated four-time national champ just like his coach.’ 

“There was so much hype about it and it was well-deserved because he earned it. He was going out, dominating and scoring a lot of points and that was pretty cool. Then that next year he did the same thing — he was dominating everybody. Going into that (2013) year, me putting it on the line, there was a lot of hype about it and it ended up being a really cool process for me.”

Dake ran into Taylor again midway through the season in the finals of the Southern Scuffle. Taylor was leading 2-1 in the final minute and was seconds away from locking up a riding-time point when Dake reversed him and held him down for the final 40 seconds to pull out a 3-2 win. 

The two down-to-the-wire Dake victories heightened the anticipation for a third meeting with a national title riding on the outcome. For the first time in tournament history, the NCAA shifted the match order for the finals to put the 165-pound match and Dake’s quest for a fourth title at the end of the night in Des Moines. 

Yet again, Dake found a way to pull out a one-point victory. Taylor struck first with a takedown 16 seconds into the match, but Dake countered with one of his own late in the period and finished the frame on top. 

Ultimately, the difference-maker once again was Dake’s ability to keep Taylor down when it mattered most. He rode Taylor for the first 1:38 of the second period to build a riding time point that proved to be the difference in a 5-4 victory. 

“I think mentally rehearsing a lot of different situations helped me a lot,” Dake said. “And then having confidence like, ‘Well, I feel like I’m the best on the mat, he can’t take me down and I’m going to make it happen.’ I was really confident in my ability and confident in my training and I knew I could do it, so why not do it again?”

It was the finishing touch on a 137-4 college career that ended with a 77-match winning streak and it helped solidify Dake as the 2013 Hodge Trophy winner. 

The Results Are In 

The Flowrestling team started with every NCAA champion from the last 25 years and pared the list down to four at every weight after tabulating the results of a staff vote. We let wrestling fans weigh in with a social media vote, and the fan vote ultimately proved to be the deciding factor at 165 pounds. Here are the final results: 

1. Cornell’s Kyle Dake

2. Nebraska’s Jordan Burroughs

3. Penn State’s David Taylor

4. Oklahoma State’s Alex Dieringer 

The First-Teamers

125 — Iowa’s Spencer Lee

133 — Ohio State’s Logan Stieber

141 — Cornell’s Yianni Diakomihalis 

149 — Penn State’s Zain Retherford 

157 — Penn State’s Jason Nolf 

165 — Cornell’s Kyle Dake 

Facts, Figures And Those Who Missed The Final Cut At 165

— The last quarter century has produced 18 different NCAA champions at 165 pounds. 

— There were six multi-time champs at the weight during that 25-year stretch — Johny Hendricks, Mark Perry, David Taylor, Alex Dieringer, Vincenzo Joseph and Keegan O’Toole. 

— Earlier this week we broke down the star-studded 165-pound history since 2001.

— The Hodge Trophy winner came from the 165-pound weight class five times during the quarter century. All five were won between 2011 and 2016. 

— Thirteen different schools won a 165-pound NCAA title during the last 25 years, led by Penn State’s five. Oklahoma State was second with four, followed by Iowa, Iowa State, Missouri and Wisconsin with two each. 

— Penn State led the field with nine finals appearances at 165 during the last 25 years. Oklahoma State was second with seven. Illinois, Iowa, Iowa State and Wisconsin tied for third with four each. 

— Seniors collected nine of the 24 titles at 165 pounds since 2001. Sophomores were second with eight. Three freshmen won titles — Penn State’s Vincenzo Joseph, Virginia Tech’s Mekhi Lewis and Missouri’s Keegan O’Toole.