Friday night’s match between #2 Austin DeSanto and #4 Roman Bravo-Young is going to be one of the most important and could be one of the most exciting matches of the dual.

These two have wrestled twice and DeSanto has won both. However, the second match was much closer, and if you exclude the first period of match #1 and the last 20 seconds of match #2, the score is 7-7. Now, obviously you can’t just exclude 3:20 of wrestling because those 3.33 minutes of wrestling played a huge role. However, outside of that first period it really has been very different. That is because DeSanto scored FOUR takedowns in the first 2:10 and then rode RBY out the remainder of the period.

Now, halfway through the second period is when RBY made a huge in-match change. Stevan Micic famously gave his gameplan to beat DeSanto as “don’t grab his right arm.” Well, RBY took that one step further, and fully put his arm behind his back not only not grabbing DeSanto's arm, but also not allowing DeSanto to grab his arm.

In the first period of match #1, DeSanto scored twice off of his signature outside carry/dump and once of a fireman’s. RBY not allowing DeSanto to grab his left arm completely took those attacks away from him. 

Now, in the second match RBY didn’t go full behind the back, but he did do a phenomenal job of keeping that left arm and wrist back. You can see it briefly in the highlight video below.

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Once RBY started keeping that arm back, DeSanto never took him back down in the first and only took him down off of poor shot attempts while DeSanto had a two-on-one in the second. So…

Keys To Victory For RBY

• Don’t let DeSanto grab your left arm

• Don’t give up a stalling point

• Make DeSanto pay if he takes a poor outside shot with a quick reattack

• Use quickness and explosiveness on a double

Keys To Victory For DeSanto

• Control center mat, get RBY to the edge, and get him called for stalling

• Use pressure to make RBY break his game plan

• Find a way to score not carry/fireman’s (two-on-one?)

• When you shoot don’t allow RBY to be able to reattack (at least get to a leg)

• Ride the Carver momentum