Are Suriano And Spencer Destined To Collide At The US Open?
Are Suriano And Spencer Destined To Collide At The US Open?
Nick Suriano and Spencer Lee are both registered for the 57kg division of the men's freestyle tournament at the 2023 US Open. Here's what that means.
Two of the biggest names in American wrestling, Nick Suriano and Spencer Lee, are both registered for the 57kg bracket in men's freestyle at the 2023 US Open. That's a big deal, for reasons that I will explain.
Suriano and Spencer Could Wrestle Each Other
Very much a big 'no duh' but still worth pointing out. Highlighting even.
Spencer and Nick have been big deals in the wrestling world since middle school -- that's going back to 2012! -- and yet they've wrestled just three times before and not since the 2018 NCAA finals.
That's not a lot of matches from two gargantuan names that have been about the same weight class for the last ten years.
Suriano beat Spencer in the Super 32 finals of 2012 when Lee was in 8th grade and Nick was a high school freshman. Spencer flipped the script a year later and beat Suriano in the 2013 Super 32 finals.
They didn't meet again until the 2018 NCAA finals, when Lee won his first NCAA title.
Watch highlights of that match:
Suriano would win two NCAA titles after that, while Lee would win one more, but the two never again locked horns in a collegiate match.
They came close to wrestling at the 2017 Midlands, but an upset by Oregon State's Ronnie Bresser over Lee in the semifinals squashed that possibility.
Nick & Spencer Are Starting Their Olympic Runs
This may also sound like a 'no duh' headline but both competitors have been wrestling mostly folkstyle for the majority of the last seven years.
Spencer is a three-time age-level world gold medalist (one U17 and two U20 gols), but his last world championship was in the summer of 2016. Injuries hampered Lee's freestyle aspirations, as the only other significant freestyle tournament for Spencer since then was 2019's Senior Nationals, which he won.
We had another near-miss at those 2019 Senior Nationals, as Vito Arujau defeated Suriano 2-2 in the quarterfinals of that tourney's 57kg bracket.
Nick Suriano never wrestled in an age-level world championship but has been wrestling in one or two freestyle events since 2019, where he's found some success. Nicky Freestyle won the Henri Deglane in 2021 and 2023. He also won a match at the 2022 World Cup. Suriano was prevented from making a run at the Tokyo Olympic Team Trials in 2021 due to stupid covid.
All of that is prelude to this upcoming U.S. Open, which is a very significant step in the 2024 Olympic Team Trials process.
Win the Open and you are in Final X with a three-match series with Gilman. Defeat Gilman at Final X and you are in the 2023 World Championships with a chance to both qualify the weight for the Olympics for Team USA and also guarantee yourself a spot in the finals of the Olympic Team Trials by earning a medal.
That last paragraph is crucial to understanding why the Open is so important this year. If you want to compete in Paris in 2024, you really want to be in Vegas at the end of April.
Thus the stakes for this U.S. Open, and the level of commitment to freestyle implied for both Nick and Spencer, have never been higher.
The 57kg Bracket At The Open Will be No Walk In The Park
Another entry for our 'no duh' file, but it's worth a closer look into just how brutal this bracket is going to be.
Chief among the rivals in this 57kg weight class will be Pat Glory, who you may remember from such hits as winning the dang 2023 NCAA Championships.
You also can't forget one of the most underrated wrestlers on the senior circuit right now, Zane Richards, who trains at the similarly underrated Illinois RTC under the expert tutelage of Mike Poeta, Bryan Medlin and Jeremy Hunter.
Richards has been just a couple of rungs away from a starting spot on Team USA for the last four years. Richards also picked up a big-time win over 2021 world bronze medalist Zanabazar Zandanbud of Mongolia at the 2022 World Cup.
Watch Richards win a big one for America:
There's also a slew of dangerous young wrestlers who are in the midst of, or have just finished, their collegiate careers, such as NC State's Jakob Camacho, Northern Colorado's Stevo Poulin, UPenn's Ryan Miller, App State's Caleb Smith (Smith is in the portal btw), and Chattanooga's Fabian Gutierrez.
Registration for the 2023 Open hasn't closed yet, by the way. So there is a possibility we see even more hammers enter. However, as they have not yet entered, they are not included in this blog. Such are the perils of writing previews.
People Are Saying This Is Going To Be The Best U.S. Open In Recent Memory, And They Are Correct
It's not just that Spencer Lee and Nick Suriano are on a collision course for the 57kg finals, with the winner getting a bid to Final X for a wrestle-off with Thomas Gilman, though that is a big part of it.
It's that storylines like that are happening in every weight class, across multiple styles. Plus there are the U17 world team trials and the U20 tournaments to enjoy.
But also 57kg has a particularly striking storyline. Spencer Lee and Nick Suriano have been monopolizing headlines for the better part of the last decade. They've won five NCAA titles between them and generated countless takes that could drown a Reddit message board (or a Discord server, if you prefer that metaphor).
But neither has made a senior world team. Thomas Gilman, meanwhile, never won an NCAA title, yet has made four world teams and the Tokyo Olympic team, winning medals at four of those five events.
To unseat Thomas and even begin to craft a freestyle legacy as illustrious as Gilman's, Suriano and Lee first have to run the gauntlet in Vegas.
Truly, this U.S. Open will be a feast for wrestling fans. And let me be the first to say, bon appetit!