Tag: Joey McKenna

Three former Ohio State wrestlers in Olympic trial finals

Kyle Snyder headlines three former Ohio State wrestlers competing for a spot in the Olympics at the U.S. Olympic trial finals on Saturday.

The USA wrestling Olympic trials has had a significant Ohio State flavor to it. The program had six wrestlers competing for a spot in Tokyo when it all started, and now there are three left in the finals, the most of any school in the country.

And that’s not all.

OSU is assured a spot in all the fun this summer as well because two of those Buckeye alum’s are facing off with one another in the 97kg weight class with Kyle Snyder taking on Kollin Moore. Snyder is of course an Olympic veteran and former World Champion and is the heavy favorite.

The other former Ohio State wrestler competing for a trip to the summer games is Joey McKenna at 65kg. He will face Oklahoma State alum, Jordan Oliver. The winner of that match will still have to qualify the weight for the Olympics at the World Olympic Qualifier in Sofia, Bulgaria, May 6-9.

All of the Final X Championship Series will be best-of-three bouts. The finals will begin at 7:30 p.m. and streamed on NBCSports.com and the NBC Sports app.

Good luck to these former Buckeyes on the mat!

OSU Wrestling Twitter is hosting a best Buckeye wrestler ever tournament

There are no NCAA Championships in Wrestling this year, but we can still enjoy a pretend tournament for the best Buckeye ever.

There are no NCAA Championships in Wrestling (or any other Winter and Spring sport) this year, but that doesn’t mean that we can’t still enjoy a pretend tournament.

The official Twitter account of Ohio State Wrestling (@wrestlingbucks) made a 33-person bracket–just like the NCAA Championships have–and has opened up the voting for who is the best Ohio State wrestler ever. In each match the account lists a 280-character-or-less description of the wrestler’s accolades, so you can learn about some Buckeye history while you vote.

The tournament has just completed its second round, and there have been some pretty good upsets so far. Recent wrestlers seem to overperform, which makes sense–since the voting is on Twitter, more Twitter users have likely seen recent wrestlers, while we are limited to just highlights or stat sheets for those who competed in previous decades. An excellent example of this is Joey McKenna’s first-round upset over Rex Holman. McKenna is a fan favorite, even though on paper Holman has a far superior resume.

Logan Stieber–one of the only four wrestlers in NCAA history to win four National Championships–is a prohibitive favorite to take home the title, and he definitely deserves it. Of course, the bracket has a tremendous mix of all-time greats like Kevin Randleman and Tommy Rowlands, along with recent fan favorites (and great wrestlers in their own rights) like Kollin Moore, Luke Pletcher, Myles Martin, and Micah Jordan, to name a few. And, of course, there are guys like Kyle Snyder and Nathan Tomasello–who are both recent wrestlers and all-time Buckeye greats.

The best part is that the account is treating this like a real tournament. It’s not single elimination–there are full wrestlebacks. This bracket also shows some recency bias, like Luke Pletcher’s stunning first-round upset of Dave Reinbolt.

Follow this bracket and tournament all week. We might be stuck at home, but we can have plenty of fun voting on wrestlers from our computers or phones. So make sure to check out the Twitter account, follow the tournament, and vote!