Southern Scuffle vs South Beach Duals
Ben and Matt waste no time and start discussing the Southern Scuffle that took place January 1-2. Historically an action-packed tournament, this year many teams opted to compete at South Beach Duals. This created some lackluster early matchups and depth at the Scuffle. South Beach Duals, on the other hand, had some exciting matches overlooked by the wrestling community. One big matchup at South Beach was returning NCAA champ Yianni Diakomihalis vs Jaydin Eierman. Diakomihalis was able to pull off the rubber match with a 3-1 victory. Transitioning back to the Southern Scuffle, Matt explains while Penn State has holes in their lineup their other weight classes are able to more than compensate.
Transparency in Wrestling
Discussions turned to a hot topic the Southern Scuffle, Gavin Teasdale. Teasdale didn’t wrestle at the Scuffle. Penn State didn’t publicly address why. Ben believes by telling the public what is going on behind closed doors it ends the public speculation. Matt believes it is not the fans business and Coach Cael Sanderson doesn’t owe the public complete transparency.
125 lbs & 133 lbs
Nick Piccininni protects his undefeated record this season with a win over 7-2 Rico Montoya in the finals. Piccininni will face another test January 12 where he is posed to match up against Patrick Glory. Later in February, he’ll meet Spencer Lee before the Big 12 Tournament. Roman Bravo-Young falls to 133 Austin Gomez of Iowa State in the semi-finals. As much as Askren and Dernlan like to compliment RBY they give credit where it’s due. Gomez was undefeated his redshirt season and made the World Team, but unfortunately got injured and didn’t compete at the Junior World Championships. He was undefeated up until his loss in the finals to Daton Fix. The pair liked what they saw from Fix in the finals but weren’t surprised. Fix’s performance against Gomez was more of what we expect from Fix, wrestling versatile, mature and dominant.
Injury Time Rule
Askren says that wrestlers aren’t always one hundred percent honest about injuries during matches. This can lead to a change in the match. Wrestlers are given downtime if an injury occurs and this can change the outcome of a match. Matt thinks that by and large most of the time wrestlers are actually hurt although some take advantage of the rule just to catch their breath. Ben would be curious to see how many injury timeouts there were a few seasons ago compared to now. Ben thinks it was way smaller than it is now. For most athletes, when they get hurt they don’t call injury time because they know in critical moments it can change the match.
165 lbs
Vincenzo Joseph gets a close 6-5 decision over Lock Haven’s Chance Marsteller. Matt believes this match is bigger than some people see. Both guys being 4x State Champs out of Pennsylvania this match was for bragging rights. Matt brings up the fact that Marsteller won’t have the same opportunities to wrestle high ranked opponents as Joseph will. This makes these type of match-ups crucial for Marsteller.
Big Announcements
With Matt Dernlan traveling for a week, it leaves an opening in the podcast schedule for Ben Askren to have an exclusive interview with Kyle Snyder. This will be a two-part podcast where Ben and Kyle talk about all the exciting upcoming events in both of their professional lives. Matt also drops the announcement that him and Cary Kolat will be releasing the first episode of their new podcast “The Way | A RUDIS Wrestling Podcast”. On top of all this, Ben Askren is releasing a “Funky Fight Camp” video series. An all-access look at how Ben is training on the lead up to his UFC debut vs Robbie Lawler.
Where to find the RUDIS Wrestling Podcast:
Ben Askren and Matt Dernlan host the RUDIS Wrestling Podcast. Ben Askren, World Champion, and Olympic wrestler joins RUDIS from the T-Row & Funky Show in an official partnership as a content provider for all things RUDIS. Matt Dernlan joins from a D1 college coaching background with family roots grounded in Ohio wrestling with a collective 10 state titles on the shelf.
