Sebastian Rivera Is What Wrestling Needs

Northwestern's Sebastian Rivera is the #1 ranked guy at 125 pounds this year. He has dominated most of his competition and decisively beat the former #1 ranked guy, Spencer Lee from Iowa so there is no doubt that he deserves his ranking. This past weekend, Northwestern took on the Michigan Wolverines, and Rivera could have made the easy choice and taken on a solid opponent in Drew Mattin. But Rivera didn't make the easy choice; he made the hard one.

A weight class above Rivera, at 133 pounds, Michigan has the #1 ranked wrestler in Stevan Micic, who has dominated everyone he has faced so far this season. Rivera passed on the chance to pad his record by taking out Mattin and instead decided to challenge himself and move up a weight class to take on Stevan Micic.

I love college wrestling, but even I have to admit that there are issues, and one of the most aggravating ones is that wrestlers "protect" their record by skipping dual meets against tough opponents. The most egregious example comes from the best wrestler on my favorite team, Spencer Lee of the Iowa Hawkeyes, who after losing to Rivera at Midlands did not wrestle in the Northwestern dual meet to delay the rematch. Now I don't want this to come across as me blaming Lee, as I think the decision almost certainly came from the coaching staff, but for a sport that needs to do anything it can to attract fans, it is very stupid that they go out of their way to avoid putting on the best matches.

But Rivera, possibly inspired by last year's decision of then #1 at 133 pounds, Seth Gross, going up to 141 to face off against #1, Bryce Meredith, decided to take on Micic to find out how good he really was. Before I spoil the match, here's a chance to watch it.

Rivera, making the tough decision to move up a weight class, was rewarded with an ass kicking from Stevan Micic. Micic controlled the match from the opening whistle and nearly got a major decision but had to settle for a 10-4 victory. Rivera's only points were off escapes, and he never came close to scoring on offense. He got handled by a clearly superior wrestler.

But that's okay. In fact, it's still great. Instead of asking, "What if Rivera moved up a weight class to take on Micic?" Now we know. Yeah, it didn't turn out how Rivera wanted, but he's in the same place he would have been had he taken the easy route and beaten Mattin. He'll still rightly be ranked #1 in the nation, but he provided the most exciting moment of the wrestling weekend by going up a weight class and challenging himself.

As much as I hate to admit it, the regular season really doesn't matter in college wrestling. I love watching it, and my heart believes it matters, but my brain knows that as long as you make the NCAA Tournament, nothing that happened before means anything. So it's on the coaches and the wrestlers to make the most exciting matches throughout the season. Let's hope more people follow the lead that Seth Gross and Sebastian Rivera have set forward, because setting up the most exciting matches shouldn't be such a surprising decision.