‘He Has Great Scoring Potential’: David Taylor Discusses Blue-Chip Prospect Jax Forrest’s Early Arrival

STILLWATER — A few weeks ago, Jax Forrest was wrestling high schoolers, and in the next few weeks, he could start wrestling college guys.

Forrest, the reigning U23 world champion at 61 kg (about 134 pounds), announced a the end of last month that he would forego his final semester of high school to get an early jump on life in Stillwater.

OSU coach David Taylor met with the media for the first time since that announcement on Tuesday, where the Cowboy coach made it seem as if Forrest could don the orange singlet at some point this season.

Forrest could wrestle at five events this spring semester and maintain a redshirt

“Jax, he’s enrolling early and just like our other guys, he’s got five dates to utilize,” Taylor said. “We’ll see how things go and how those dates are used.

“… I think with all those freshman, you’ve got five dates. You gotta use them, and you gotta evaluate. He’s got a lot of things going on with the transition. He was in high school a couple weeks ago, and now he’s got some transition. Just gotta work through things.”

Oh hey, @JaxForrest6 #GoPokes pic.twitter.com/pQGvOsz9Se

— OSU Cowboy Wrestling (@CowboyWrestling) December 14, 2025

Forrest is every bit of a blue-chip recruit. He made the United States Senior World Team this summer and came fifth while wrestling grown men at the World Championships — the same event Taylor wrestled in just 2024.

Forrest got to that point by winning the U.S. Open, beating a pair of former NCAA champs in the process. He also beat Ohio State freshman Ben Davino at that event. Davino currently ranks second nationally at 133 pounds.

Winning the Open qualified Forrest for Final X, where he bested Vito Arujau two matches to none in a best of three series. Arujau is a two-time NCAA champ and 2023 world champ.

For what it’s worth, all of that was in freestyle as opposed to the college folkstyle, but it’s pretty evident that no matter the style, Forrest is bursting with potential.

He joins an already youthful room. OSU has true freshmen wrestling at 133 (Ronnie Ramirez), 141 (Sergio Vega), 157 (Landon Robideau) and 165 (Dee Lockett). Then Taylor is starting redshirt freshmen at 184 (Zack Ryder) and 197 (Cody Merrill).

“I think he could look to the other freshmen that are on the team and the areas that they have had to improve in,” Taylor said. “I think it’s similar. You go from being a great high school wrestler to this next jump. He has a great scoring potential, and there’s some things in his wrestling that he’s gonna have to clean up, get a little more disciplined. He’s wrestled at a really high level for a long time, but just like everyone, everyone’s got things they need to improve on.

“There’s really no better way to make the changes and improvements, you gotta just start wrestling and be willing to do those things. I think he’s got the mentality that just like a lot of other guys that we have on our team that he’s hungry to get better.”

So, while NCAA basketball teams are adding NBA Draft picks in the middle of their season, Taylor is going the opposite direction in adding a high schooler, but the circumstances are rather unique with Forrest.

“In wrestling, you see things maybe sort of this reclassifying in football, and in wrestling it really hasn’t happened,” Taylor said. “He just is a unique kid at the right time. He’s a great student. His wrestling ability is pretty special, so it was kinda the right time, right fit for him. But yeah, he’s gonna kind of be treading things, and we’ll all work through those things.”