Daton Fix vs. Spencer Lee Could Be the Next Big Rivalry in Wrestling

The first chapter in what could be the best rivalry in wrestling over the next few years should happen at the World Team Trials May 18-20 and a Cowboy will be on one side of it.

Comin’ in hot. @_Greatest_Ever1 pic.twitter.com/iz6O9ZseX8

— Holmes (@Mr_RHolmes) April 27, 2018

Daton Fix fell to Tony Ramos in the final US Open. With that result he’ll almost surely face off with Spencer Lee in the World Team Trials to decide who wrestles Ramos in the best-of-three final.

Daton Fix vs Spencer Lee at WTT Challenge tournament anyone?

Winner gets Tony Ramos.

— Christian Pyles (@CPyles8) April 29, 2018

When Flo came out with their final 2017 recruit rankings these were the top three.

Fix redshirted this year while the other two wrestled as true freshman and both won NCAA titles. Lee took the 125 pound crown and Diakomihalis won 141. That’s the kind of expectations Fix comes in with. He was rated above two guys that won NCAA titles as true freshman!

It’s no certainty, but the expectation is both Fix and Lee will be wrestling at 125 next season. The third- and fifth-place finisher from this year graduate and it’s expected that the runner up and fourth-place finisher will be bumping up to 133. This sets up for a near certainty that this is a freestyle preview of next year’s NCAA tournament final at 125, if that’s the weight where both wrestle. If they continue to remain at the same weight for the next two years it will almost certainly be the final in both of those years as well.

Just that in itself makes quite the storyline set up for the Fix-Lee match-up, but did I mention that Lee wrestles for Iowa? The biggest team rivalry in the sport will very likely have the best individual rivalry in the sport.

Both these guys are World Champs and at their age level they’re better than most of the rest. Fix steamrolled his way to a Junior World Championship last year and tech’d everyone he wrestled. With that their World/Olympic team trial matches in the future could very often be de facto matches to decide World/Olympic gold medalists.

They wrestled a few times in high school. Most recently 2015 when Fix beat Lee twice to make the Cadet World team. This should be a tremendous matchup and definitely could be the start of one of if not the best rivalries in the sport over the next few years.

Add on to it that OSU has Travis Wittlake Jr. and Daniel Kerkvliet Jr. coming in and the Cowboys could feature three of the biggest rivalries in the sport with Wittlake and future PSU wrestler Aaron Brooks and Kerkvliet and future Minnesota heavyweight Gable Steveson.