It's finally here. We're just hours away from the 2019 Southern Scuffle, the best sporting event happening this New Year's Day.

Watch the 2019 Southern Scuffle Live on Flo

Jan. 1-2 | 10 a.m. ET

Now that brackets are live in FloArena, it's time to start analyzing them and giving you all those sweet, sweet matchups you desire.

Southern Scuffle Previews: Lightweight | Middleweight | Upperweight

125 Pounds

Pre-seeds held. Lot of intrigue about Penn State’s two freshmen in this bracket. Gavin Teasdale winds up on the bottom side and should hit Iowa State starter Alex Mackall in the second round. After that, he’d see #18 Gabe Townsell in the quarters, though the Stanford junior has a sneaky tough matchup against Jersey native Joe Manchio in the second round.

Brody Teske’s got a tough road as he starts with Paxton Rosen of Campbell, followed by five-seed Shakur Laney. More than likely, Teske’s going to have to do some work on the backside if he wants to place in his collegiate debut.

Junior world Greco silver medalist Cevion Severado, currently redshirting for Missouri, gets a tough draw as he’ll hit Nick Piccininni in the second round. Right below them is another stud redshirt in Jakob Camacho of NC State. Camacho gets his third match of the year against Steven Bulzomi, who gave Camacho his only loss of the season. National Collegiate Open champ Sidney Flores should hit NCAA qualifier Alonzo Allen in the second round.

Best Matches By Round

R32: Jakob Camacho (NC State) vs. Steven Bulzomi (Binghamton)

R16: Brody Teske (Penn State) vs. Shakur Laney (Ohio)

133 Pounds

Pre-seed held. I was looking forward to seeing how Rider freshman Chris Wright could do, but he's got Daton Fix right away. Probably my favorite first round matchup though is 12-1 NC State redshirt Jarrett Trombley against two-time PA state placer Dalton Rohrbaugh of Lock Haven.

My upset special involves the troops: Casey Cobb of Navy over seven-seed Anthony DeCesare of Air Force. A similar situation to up top, Ty Smith has a barrel of tricks and could fare well here but sees Austin Gomez in the second round.

R32: Jarrett Trombley (NC State) vs. Dalton Rohrbaugh (Lock Haven)

R16: Casy Cobb (Navy) vs. Anthony DeCesare (Air Force)

141 Pounds

Pre-seeds held. We've got some round-of-64 pigtails, though nothing particularly intriguing. Before we get into the juicy matchups, I just want to say I love Real Woods' draw. The Stanford redshirt has a great path to the quarters where he'll get his hands on Kaid Brock.

The best looking round-of-32 match features two Chrises, Debien of UTC and Sandoval of Northern Colorado. The senior Moc is 9-5 on the year, while Sandoval is just 0-2 but should fare better now that he is coming up to 141.

There are a couple matches in the third round we'd like to see. Lock Haven tech machine Kyle Shoop will get Josh Finesilver of Duke in both wrestlers' second matches. But the marquee match to get to the quarters features Cam Kelly, making his season debut, taking on stud redshirt Cole Matthews of Pittsburgh.

R32: Chris Debien (Chattanooga) vs. Chris Sandoval (Northern Colorado)

R16: Cam Kelly (Ohio) vs. Cole Matthews (Pittsburgh)

149 Pounds

Jarod Verkleeren and Russell Rohlfing swapped the six and seven pre-seed. A dozen round-of-64 matches and the one that we've got circled is Frankie Gissendanner against Brady Berge. Until late in his senior year, the former Fargo champ was considered a major blue chip, and Gissendanner still has excellent leg attacks, which presents a fun matchup with the go-behind heavy Berge.

Also in the round of 64, we like Tanner Smith of UTC against Evan Fidelibus of Rider, with the winner getting EIWA bracket buster Frankie Garcia of Binghamton. That whole grouping is very fun, with whoever comes out getting Kaden Gfeller.

Apparently all I want to do this weight is see Rider though, which reminds me, set up your FloArena alerts! Gary Dinmore will take on Requir van der Merwe in an excellent round-of-32 match. Van der Merwe is exactly the kind of wrestler you need to watch wrestle more than just judging him solely on his results.

R64: Frankie Gissendanner (Rider) vs. Brady Berge (Penn State)

R32: Require van der Merwe (Stanford) vs. Gary Dinmore (Rider)

157 Pounds

Whoever did the 157 lb bracket did too good of a job separating the talent, because there's nothing jumping off the page until the round of 16. The two most interesting bouts in that round are Jonce Blaylock against eight-seed Alex Klucker and George Mason freshman Kolby Ho against Angel Najar of App State, who had a big win over John Van Brill to start the year.

R16: Jonce Blaylock (Oklahoma State) vs. Alex Klucker (Lock Haven)

165 Pounds

This weight is a nearly full 32-man bracket, but there isn't anything mind blowing coming from that round. However, the round of 16 starts heating up with FloNats champ Colt Yinger taking on Chandler Rogers; we approve of Yinger hitting the L emote again if he upsets Rogers.

In terms of pure intrigue, you'd be hard pressed to find one with more name recognition than Mason Manville against Chance Marsteller. A matchup featuring those two would've drawn huge interest just a few years ago, but we haven't seen much of Manville on the folkstyle scene since he graduated high school.

I'm not foolish enough to call it an upset special, but I hope as many people are curious to see if Shane Griffith's go-go-Gadget arms can create any matchup problems whatsoever for Vincenzo Joseph in the quarters.

R16: Chandler Rogers (Oklahoma State) vs. Colt Yinger (Ohio)

QF: Chance Marsteller (Lock Haven) vs. Mason Manville (Penn State)

174 Pounds

Let's start off by looking straight ahead to the quarterfinals. The Hoagie himself, Trent Hidlay, is on a collision course with two-time All-American Joseph Smith. Based on his results this spring against some quality competition at UWW Juniors, Hidlay is a decided underdog. But that was before getting in the Wolfpack room, and he hasn't lost a match yet in college.

I think Matt Finesilver has a pretty tough draw working against him. Obviously, he's the five seed so he can make it through, but Rico Stormer beat Ethan Smith at CKLV and is an interesting character who started his career at Harvard at 149, made his way up to 197 last year and is now a 74 for the Cardinal.

He follows up that match with one against under the radar freshman Jeremiah Kent of Missouri. The Mizzou freshman is 10-2 and constantly used his height to create matchup problems and upsets in high school. Speaking of upsets, my upset special is Drexel redshirt Michael O'Malley knocking off eight-seed Marcus Coleman in the second round.

R16: Michael O'Malley (Drexel) vs. Marcus Coleman (Iowa State).

QF: Joseph Smith (Oklahoma State) vs. Trent Hidlay (NC State)

184 Pounds

The juice on day one is concentrated in the round of 16 and quarters. If you read my preview, you know I think Joel Shapiro has an opportunity to place, and possibly place high. He'll have to win two matches to get there, but if so, he's looking at cradle machine and reigning Scuffle OW Shakur Rasheed.

The reports out of the Virginia Tech room are that Hunter Bolen is an absolute bear right now. He's redshirting right now to let Zack Zavatsky finish out his career, but that hasn't stopped him from beating AA Chip Ness and bonusing everyone else he's wrestled. That sounds exactly like the type of person who could cause Jacobe Smith, just recently coming up from 174, major fits in the quarterfinals. 

R16: Shakur Rasheed (Penn State) vs. Joel Shapiro (Iowa State)

QF: Jacobe Smith (Oklahoma State) vs. Hunter Bolen (Virginia Tech)

197 Pounds

A 31-man bracket got hurt a bit by Willie Miklus being held out, but it's still got a number of ranked guys. I'm setting my FloArena alerts for the potential SoCon finals preview between Sawyer Root of the Citadel and Randall Diabe of App State in the second round.

R16: Randall Diabe (App State) vs. Sawyer Root (Citadel)

285 Pounds

A lot of good battles between potential qualifier types coming on day one. The only quarterfinal is between #13 Matt Voss of George Mason and Ohio redshirt Jordan Earnest. Voss should win, but he's already lost to one true freshman this year and Coach Greenlee thinks Earnest could be a real difference maker for the Bobcats.

In the round of 32, we're hoping for good matches between Haydn Maley of Stanford and Jon Spaulding of Edinboro, as well as Robert Winters of Northern Colorado against Cary Miller of App State.

Last but not least, UWW Junior Open champ Gannon Gremmel should see eighth-seeded true freshman Colin Lawler, out of Texas but now at NC State, in the round of 16.

R64: Matt Voss (George Mason) vs. Jordan Earnest (Ohio)

R32: Haydn Maley (Stanford) vs. Jon Spaulding (Edinboro)

R16: Colin Lawler (NC State) vs. Gannon Gremmel (Iowa State)