David Taylor Reveals that Dean Hamiti ‘Likely’ Won 2025 NCAA Title on Torn ACL

This is not a #ad, but if you’re an Oklahoma State wrestling fan who hasn’t been keeping up with the Stilly Boys YouTube, you’re missing out.

On Monday, Stilly Boys released a behind-the-scenes documentary of the Cowboy RTC’s journey at last month’s U.S. Open.

There were ups — like Wyatt Hendrickson and Landon Robideau dominating their brackets. But there were also some down.

Wearing a compression sleeve on his knee, 2025 NCAA champ Dean Hamiti dropped his quarterfinal bout in the 79 kg bracket, which out of context was a somewhat surprising loss. But with the context of that documentary, that sleeve wasn’t there for good looks.

“DJ kinda tweaked his knee — I don’t know what it’s been — maybe a month and a half ago,” Taylor said. “Wasn’t thinking much about it, went and got it looked at and realized his ACL is torn and had been torn for a long time. So, really likely that he won the nationals on a torn ACL a year ago. It’s always bugged him but never really thought much about it.”

Taylor is a big believer in wrestling the backside of brackets. It’s something he not only preaches but practiced. Taylor wrestled at the 2024 World Championships when he was somewhat already retired having taken the OSU job. He got matched up against six-time world champ and two-time Olympic champ Abdulrashid Sadulaev in the first round and fell 3-1. But Taylor still wrestled the backside of that bracket and left with a bronze medal.

All that is to say that Taylor is big on finishing out a tournament, but with Hamiti clearly being compromised with that knee, Taylor made it clear to Hamiti that he didn’t have to keep wrestling.

“I would never tell somebody to medical out of a tournament,” Taylor said. “It’s just not something we believe in, but you’re thinking about the long-term future there. There was no real upside. There was no team that he could make at that point. It’s just the way it was.”

But Hamiti wanted to finish on the podium, so he went out for one more match at the Open, pinned his foe and took eighth.

It’s impossible to know when the tear occurred, but if Hamiti did, in fact, win that 2025 NCAA title minus an ACL, it makes the already impressive feat all the more impressive.

To get to that title, Hamiti beat Iowa’s Patrick Kennedy in the quarters. Kennedy would go on to finish fourth and took third this most recent season.

Then the Cowboy matched up with Penn State’s Levi Haines in the semis. Haines finished third that year. He just wrapped up his college career with a second national title — going second, first, third, first in his four NCAA Championships.

Hamiti won his final against Missouri’s Keegan O’Toole. O’Toole was also quite banged up in that match, so shoutout to his toughness, as well. But O’Toole wrestled at five NCAA Tournaments and went third, first, first, third, second.

That’s an incredible run from Hamiti regardless of circumstance, but it turns out, it might’ve been even more incredible than we initially thought.