Jax Forrest Advances to World Team Trials Final

About two months ago, Jax Forrest and Ben Davino wrestled for an NCAA title, and now they’ll have another high-profile bout on Friday.

Forrest and Davino each advanced to the World Team Trials 61 kg finals on Thursday. To get there, the Cowboy national champ had to defeat rival Aaron Seidel (Virginia Tech) in the semis.

Forrest beat Seidel 9-4 in Thursday’s semi. The Cowboy got a takedown about 30 seconds into the bout and worked hard on a gut wrench to take a 4-0 lead. Seidel got a takedown about a minute later but was unable to turn Forrest, cutting his lead to 4-2 going into the break.

Forrest picked up three step-out points in the second, pushing his lead to 7-2. Seidel got aggressive late, needing some big points, where Forrest was able to secure a takedown on the edge of the mat to go up 9-2 before Seidel got a takedown as time expired.

Seidel and Forrest can’t stop wrestling each other. They wrestled for a state title at the end of last season when they were both in high school. Then they wrestled in the OSU-Virginia Tech dual and in the NCAA semifinal during this past season before meeting again Thursday. All of those bouts have been competitive, but Forrest has seen his hand raised each time.

As for Davino, Forrest beat him 5-2 in the NCAA final, but Davino beat Forrest at the U.S. Open at the end of last month.

Forrest and Davino will wrestle for the right to wrestle Marcus Blaze (Penn State) at Final X for the United States’ 61 kg World Team spot. Blaze took fourth at the NCAA Championships behind Forrest, Davino and Seidel, but won the U.S. Open to secure his spot at Final X, beating Davino to do so. It’s a big game of rock-paper-scissors between those four, all of whom were freshman this past college season.

The World Team Trials finals get started at 12:30 p.m. Friday and will be streamed on Flo.

Elsewhere at the United States World Team Trials

Two other Cowboy RTC athletes competed Thursday.

Reigning NCAA champ Landon Robideau dropped a tight match in the 70 kg semis to Zain Retherford, with Retherford winning 3-2. Retherford is 30 and won a world title in 2023 and a world silver in 2022. He did his college wrestling at Penn State, winning NCAA titles in 2016, 2017 and 2018. So, not too shabby a performance from Robideau in his first taste of senior-level competition.

Robideau won the U20 U.S. Open last month, meaning he still has a chance to represent the U.S. at his age level.

He’s still alive for third at this event, as well. To get to that match with Retherford, Robideau beat former Cowboy Jordan Williams 6-0. Robideau then beat Ian Parker 8-1 on the backside of the bracket and will wrestle Williams again on Friday for third. The third-place matches start at 11 a.m. Friday on Flo.

Cam Amine, a 2025 All-American Cowboy, wrestled in the 74 kg bracket. He lost a tight match to Quincy Monday, the son of OSU great Kenny Monday, 6-4 before falling to Penn State’s Joe Sealey on the backside.