In just over a year, Anthony Echemendia has become a phenomenon in American wrestling. He was a highly sought-after prospect after just a few months of high school wrestling, and is now the subject of our next FloFilm. How exactly did we get here?

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We wanted to take you through the timeline of Echemendia’s wrestling, and a little bit of his recruiting, since he came to America. There will be forthcoming articles dealing with some of the other intrigue around his last approximately 18 months, but we’re focusing on his wrestling and recruiting right now.

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It took a while for him to burst onto the national scene, but coaches around Arizona quickly took notice of Echemendia. Once he made it to the state, he settled in Tucson and enrolled at Sunnyside High School. He wrestled just one semester for the Blue Devils, the same program that produced Roman Bravo-Young and Jesse Ybarra, among others. But he left an indelible mark in that one semester.

Dominating In Arizona (February 2019)

He went 22-0 and won a D2 state title at 152 pounds in what had to have been the first folkstyle matches he’d ever wrestled in his life. Echemendia made his debut at the Mile High Challenge at the very end of 2018 with four pins and a 21-10 major. That put coaches in the state on notice, and then he won the Flowing Wells Invitational, Arizona’s toughest tournament, by defeating former Fargo Cadet Greco champ Dawon Andrews in the final.

His Brief Appearance In Vegas (April 2019)

At that point, some people around the country knew who he was because they had come across him during his travel throughout America, but he was mostly just this supernova within Arizona. Then he wrestled at the Junior Open in Las Vegas, at which time he came on a few more people’s radars.

Echemendia wrestled just two matches there, beating Jake Ryan and Peter Ogunsanya. It is not 100% clear why he didn’t wrestle his next match and injury defaulted out of the tournament, but it seems as though some people began questioning his age. It is unclear if Echemendia and his coaches were able to produce a birth certificate at that time, but his tournament was over.

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He could have just been a flash in the pan and his story might’ve ended there. But a few weeks after the Open, he wrestled at, and won, the Arizona USA Wrestling state freestyle tournament. No one outside of the state may have noticed that, but it qualified him to wrestle in Fargo, and it was there at the Junior Nationals that he became a household name.

Fargo Domination (July 2019)

He ripped through Fargo, teching his way into the semis, including an 11-0 win over Akron finalist Derek Fields. That was a huge win over a top-15 guy in the country. Echemendia closed out his tournament with a 10-2 victory over Oklahoma State commit Chance McLane in the semis and then beat one of the top 2021 prospects in Victor Voinovich 10-4 in the finals.

Once again his age was a frequent topic of conversation, though USA Wrestling had documentation of his passport at this event. It ultimately led to us doing an interview with Anthony and his high school head coach in between the days for freestyle and Greco. He was even more dominant in Greco, with five techs and two pins, not giving up a single point along the way.

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Rumors kept swirling about his age, but at some point the narrative shifted toward his college eligibility and whether he was willing to wrestle folkstyle, as he had indicated he wanted to join the Army WCAP.

Committing To Iowa State (September 2019)

Fargo was in mid-July, and not soon after college coaches began reaching out to him. It was still unclear if he would (or could) wrestle in the NCAA, but programs were still trying.

About two months after winning stop signs in both styles, he announced his commitment to wrestle for Iowa State. It appeared he even signed a National Letter of Intent, but it turned out to not be an NLI.

Just a few weeks later, he would compete in what appeared to be his future home state, but at Carver-Hawkeye Arena.

Wrestling At Who's #1 (October 2019)

Prior to his commitment to ISU, while his recruitment was still going on, we were setting up a match for him at WNO. While it is a high school event, a special exception was made for this bout. Since Echemendia came on the scene so quickly but was out of high school eligibility, we had to find an opponent that was slightly outside of the regular high school competitors.

Josh Saunders would be spending his senior year at the Olympic and Paralympic Training Center and not wrestling his scholastic schedule. Additionally, a Twitter account linked to Saunders publicly announced his desire to face Echemendia in freestyle. Both parties echoed that desire privately, and the match was set.

Echemendia arrived at CHA in Cyclone gear, and warmed up the next day in ISU sweats. Current Iowa State assistant Brent Metcalf was there to coach him, and he completely dominated Saunders, taking him down four times to tech him early in the second period.

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After this, anyone who didn't know who Echemendia was quickly found out. His domination of Saunders, one of the top recruits in the 2020 class, opened the eyes of many, including several high-profile college coaches.

A Second Recruitment (November 2019)

The WNO match put him on the map, and the college wrestling world quickly realized that the paper he signed was not an NLI. A whirlwind recruitment began after that, with his first visit (after ISU) being to Ohio State.

That confused a few people, so he clarified in a tweet: "I am doing what everyone does, visiting the schools that are interested in me before making a decision, I love iowa state and its people. I want to live this experience that is new to me because in Cuba there is a different system. There are a lot of opportunities In USA."

He then visited Arizona State, which made sense not just because he went to high school in Arizona, but because he met Zeke Jones and some of the Sun Devils when they had visited Cuba a few years prior.

Last came a trip back to Iowa City to visit the Hawkeyes, where his teammate Jesse Ybarra was going. He had taken four official visits, meaning he had one left to go, but it seems he never took it.

I have another visit to make my decision on November 20. Really good offers, I'm excited ??
1-Iowa State?,
2- Ohio State⭕,
3- Arizona State?,
4- Iowa City?,
5- ???????? pic.twitter.com/mSOmZz1MST

— Anthony Echemendia (@AnthonyEchemen1) November 9, 2019

On November 13, he posted that he would be a Buckeye, and with the official Ohio State account acknowledging it, as well as Tom Ryan saying his name the next day in an interview, it was clear he had officially signed his NLI. But he was not in school just yet.

Getting Him To Columbus (March 2020)

They initially indicated he would be enrolled for the second semester, but at some point that was pushed back. There were NCAA clearinghouse issues for a myriad of reasons stemming from the fact that English is his second language, as well as acquiring documentation of his transcript. As a refugee, it's clear there were some concerns with his transcript from his first three years of high school in Cuba.

But it wasn't until March, the day before Big Tens in fact, that everything went through. Tom Ryan put out the tweet below, putting the rest of college wrestling on notice.

Coming to Buckeye Nation May, 2020. pic.twitter.com/kTBWZeCKKR

— Thomas Ryan (@Buckeye158) March 6, 2020

If next season goes on as expected, it will be Echemendia's first full year of folkstyle. He's slated to start at 141 for the Buckeyes and should be considered a national title threat right away.

The Echemendia Timeline

August 2018: Arrives in America

December 2018: Wrestles first match for Sunnyside

February 2019: Wins Arizona state title

April 2019: Wrestles two matches at the Junior Open

May 2019: Qualifies For Fargo

July 2019: Wins Fargo in both styles

September 2019: Commits to Iowa State

October 2019: Wrestles in Who's #1, visits Ohio State and Arizona State

November 2019: Visits Iowa, signs National Letter of Intent to Ohio State

March 2020: Accepted into Ohio State