Final X Preview: Hendrickson, Valencia, McKenna Set to Battle for Spot at World Championships

One former Cowboy and another two Cowboy RTC members will take to the mat this weekend in hopes of clinching their spot in representing the United States at the World Championships.

Wyatt Hendrickson, Zahid Valencia and Joey McKenna are set to wrestle at Final X, where they’ll each look to win a best-of-three series for a spot at the World Championships. OSU commit Jax Forrest also has a best-of-three series upcoming, but his has been delayed.

Hendrickson, the reigning NCAA heavyweight champ and Hodge Trophy winner, will take on Trent Hillger at 125 kg. Hendrickson beat Hillger 10-4 on his way to winning the U.S. Open at the end of April before Hillger won the World Team Trials to clinch his spot. Captain America enters the series as a heavy favorite.

“It is a bigger event, but I don’t want to make it a bigger event because all that does is put more pressure, more stress on me,” Hendrickson said Friday. “I wrestle the best in the practice room when I’m going about my day, I’m going about my life, wake up, have a good breakfast with the guys, go hang out, go wrestle a match and I wrestle great. So, there’s no need to change the equation. There’s no need to try to put this on a pedestal and change my routine for a big tournament like this because if you let it get to you, you will wrestle different, you will make more mistakes here and there. So I like to be comfortable. I want to go out there and have fun. It’s just another match — or two matches. So it’s just another couple matches. I’m not gonna change everything for something like this.”

Hillger was an All-American at Wisconsin in 2019, 2021 and 2023. To make it to Final X, Hillger beat Demetrius Thomas 10-4 at the World Team Trails last month.

Should Hendrickson win Saturday, it would be the first time he represented his country at the Senior World Championships, but he won gold for the United States at the U23 World Championships in 2023 in Albania.

Hendrickson also took home gold for the U.S. at the Pan-American Championships last month and did so in style with a big throw and pin in the final.

WOW!! 😱 Wyatt Hendrickson ends Pan-Ams with a bang!

Massive 5-point throw and secures the pin over Canada to win gold at 125kg. 🥇🇺🇸 pic.twitter.com/wQQSB9xR7g

— Saturday Night Lights (@WrestlingSNL) May 12, 2025

Moves like that are apparently a reason Hendrickson likes freestyle.

“I love throwing people — I throwing people,” Hendrickson said. “When you shoot a double leg and it’s folkstyle, you just gotta keep driving, but my body loves the freedom. Half the time when I slam people, I’m not thinking that. My body is just like, ‘Go for it.’ … I love freestyle. I love turning people. I love my gut wrench — it just gets tighter and tighter.”

Although Hendrickson is a heavy favorite, Valencia’s and McKenna’s series are expected to be much tighter.

McKenna, who wrestled collegiately at Stanford and Ohio State, will take on Real Woods, who wrestled at Stanford and Iowa, at 65 kg. McKenna clinched his Final X spot first by winning the Open. Woods was also in that bracket but lost in the quarterfinals — a bout before he would’ve met McKenna. But Woods had an excellent showing at the World Team Trials, beating Open finalist Jesse Mendez in the semis and Brock Hardy in the finals to clinch his spot. A win here would mark McKenna’s first spot at the Senior World Championships, but he took home U23 bronze in 2017.

Valencia’s series against Kyle Dake is Final X’s main event.

Valencia beat Dake 8-4 in the U.S. Open final before Dake won the World Team Trails. Dake is a four-time world champion, but two of those came at 79 kg and the other two came at 74 kg. Meanwhile Valencia took home bronze at the 2023 World Championships at 92 kg. This series will be contested at 86 kg.

Although Valencia got the better of Dake in Vegas, Dake is a hard wrestler to count out, even accounting for him moving up in weight and Valencia moving down. Dake won four national titles at Cornell and all of them came at different weights (141, 149, 157 and 165).

The two wrestled at Final X back in 2018 at 79 kg, where Dake won 2-0.

Valencia wrestled collegiately at Arizona State, where he won two national titles at 174 pounds. He was a big addition for the Cowboy RTC last year, and on Friday, he spoke glowingly about his first year in Stillwater.

“Coming from Arizona State, I did feel very supported, but it’s different,” Valencia said. “It’s a big city, lots of things to do, so wrestling can kind of get watered down throughout the city and people and donors and stuff. Stillwater, there’s probably nothing to do, but the wrestling is freaking amazing.

“You can feel that support, even walking into brunch, breakfast, dinner spots, just everyone loves wrestling. Everyone knows wrestling. I go get a haircut, and they’re like, ‘Oh, you’re a wrestler? I see your ears.’ You just feel the support from the whole town, the whole city. It’s great to feel that you’re supported, you’re backed up and they want to see you achieve your dreams and have that success.”

Final X

When: 1 p.m. Saturday
Where: Prudential Center in Newark, New Jersey
Stream: Flo