With Jordan Burroughs and David Taylor slated to clash live on FloWrestling, January 13th, wrestling fans around the world will be treated to an epic bout between two of the biggest stars in the modern era of American wrestling.

Watch FloWrestling: Burroughs vs Taylor LIVE

Saturday, January 13, 2021 | 8 PM EST

Anyone who has followed both Burroughs and Taylor throughout their careers knows that the two took drastically different paths along the way to wrestling glory. Taylor’s success in the sport was immediate, while Burroughs’ career was more of a slow burn. Burroughs youth career didn’t consist of traveling halfway across the country to seek out the best wrestlers like the young David Taylor’s did. He didn’t have to. In New Jersey, he was living among the best.

Forced to prove himself at every step along the way, there’s something to be said about the environment that bred Burroughs into the wrestler he is today. The Olympic champ couldn’t have grown up during a better time to be a wrestler in New Jersey. More specifically, South Jersey.  Competing out of Winslow – a small school in Region 8 – at a time when South Jersey wrestling was at its peak, it felt almost inevitable that an all-time great would emerge. Nobody could have predicted that Burroughs, the once under-sized 103lb freshman, would grow into a giant in the sport and carry USA Wrestling’s proverbial torch for the next decade. 

Dirty (South) Jersey

When Damion Hahn won his third state title in four finals appearances in 1999, he ushered in a new age of New Jersey wrestling. Wrestlers were getting better at a younger age and each year it seemed a new face would emerge looking to etch his own name into the history books.

At the turn of the century, South Jersey really began to take over the spotlight. 

For those unfamiliar with the Jersey wrestling landscape, the lines between North and South are clear. Regions 7 and 8, the southernmost regions in the state, occupy what most of us Garden Staters would define as South Jersey. In recent years, region re-alignment ran rampant through the state and some of those lines got blurred when a few Shore Conference powers moved out of Region 6 and into the South Jersey regions. But none of that was happening yet at the start of 2000.

Back then, dual meets among the respective SJ powers were must-watch events on weeknights in the winter. Fans arriving late would be turned away at the door. If you weren’t prepared to endure a full JV dual meet in the hour before the main event, you weren’t getting a seat.

By 2002, the power had officially shifted when nine of the fourteen state champs hailed from South Jersey. The next year, (Burroughs’ freshman year) there were eight SJ champs. 

The talent across the area was vast. Sterling phenom, Mark Manchio, graduated the year before Burroughs entered high school and was thought to be the state’s newest transcendent star since the aforementioned Hahn. Gary Papa took over as coach at Camden Catholic and with his innovative approach built what essentially became a South Jersey all-star team that included champs like Mike Booth and Ed Giosa. Absegami was a force down the shore with the pairs of brothers, Bridge and Black, to go along with Ryan Goodman. Paul Morina and Paulsboro continued years of domination across the region highlighted by upperweights Tom Curl and Isaac Redman. Future NCAA All-Americans Scott Giffin and Don Fisch were other local stars who won titles out of Eastern and Delsea, respectively. 

Let’s not forget, we were also in the midst of Blair’s continued dominance as a national wrestling powerhouse. 

This was Jersey at its dirtiest.

Forgive the cliché, but there’s no denying iron sharpens iron. And this is where the young Burroughs sharpened his skills.

By the time Burroughs was a senior, the South Jersey regions had cooled off a bit making way for the North Jersey and Shore Conference schools to take over before the privates emerged more recently. In 2006, Burroughs was South Jersey’s only state champion. Maybe it was a sign of things to come.

This photo of the 2006 New Jersey state championship class might just belong in the wrestling Hall of Fame. It’s a group that consists of three Olympic teams, five NCAA titles & 15 All-American finishes. 

(photo by nj.com)

At the time, Molinaro and Caldwell were three-time champs and budding superstars in their own right, while Grey was busy making history as New Jersey’s first ever four-time state champ. Many expected Grey to continue on as the state’s poster boy. Instead, it is and will always be Burroughs.

Jordan’s Path to Jersey Glory

Before winning state and NCAA titles, most of these Garden State standouts spent most of their careers stockpiling district, region, and Beast of the East championships.

Burroughs path was a bit different.

I caught up with 2020 FloWrestling Hometown Hero winner and Collingswood head coach Dechlin Moody who was an assistant at Winslow during Burroughs’ time there.

"He was quiet. He had a baby face," Moody recalled. "But he always had those long arms. His hands were freakishly big. He was mild-mannered, poised, and so coachable… we always said he could be something."

I’m just not sure they anticipated this.

Still only a boy, Burroughs was small as a freshman. He lost Friday night of districts to Washington Township’s Brandon O’Hara, that first year. He was the only starter on the Winslow team eliminated on night one of the postseason.

In true champion fashion, though, he would go on to beat O’Hara in the district finals the following year.

To further emphasize South Jersey’s depth at the time, Burroughs would then face off against 2016 Olympian for Puerto Rico, Franklin Gomez in the Region 8 bracket as a sophomore. It was a match Burroughs would win, but a tournament he wouldn’t, falling to Egg Harbor’s Jimmy Garrett in the final. Gomez, who wrestled for St Augustine at the time, would transfer to Brandon, Florida, the next year putting the rivalry with Burroughs temporarily on hold.

By the time he was a junior, those in South Jersey were familiar with Burroughs and his glaring potential. Outside of Regions 7 and 8, though, not so much. There was no shortage of studs statewide, and he was just part of the mix. Even on his own team, Burroughs spent much of his high school career in the shadow of two-time state champ and eventual NCAA All-American, Vince Jones. 

Jones was more built for the spotlight, at the time. He was brash and confident. Burroughs was mild-mannered and coy. Burroughs let his wrestling - and Vince - do most of his talking.

The pair were neighbors and best friends. Jones’ dad would drive him and Burroughs to clubs and private workouts. When Jones was at Nebraska, he made his coaches consider the younger Burroughs.

Still, while Jones was busy winning region and state titles, Burroughs had to prove himself.

His breakout performance came in a win over Kittatinny’s Will Livingston at the state tournament his junior year. Burroughs had shown plenty of flashes up until that point, but this was his first big-time win. Livingston was a four-time state placer and eventual state champion during his career. 

According to Moody, “he turned a corner that match.”

He would go on to lose an overtime nail-biter to Molinaro in the finals but it was a statement to the rest of New Jersey that Winslow had another star in the making.

All of the sudden his double leg started clicking and he was unstoppable on his feet. Then it was on.

After that state finals run, with Vince Jones off at Nebraska, Burroughs returned his senior year as the guy in South Jersey. He had grown into his body and had a new swagger to him.

Burroughs frequently acknowledges the lack of interest he still received from potential college coaches. He remained unsigned late into his senior year. By March, not many schools had scholarship money left available. 

He still had more to prove.

In the 2006 state finals, Burroughs was able to come out on top after a wild scramble in the closing seconds of the third period to defeat Dave Greenwald of St Mary’s and capture the state title that had eluded him until that point. 

Moody remembers the importance of that match all too well. If Burroughs hadn’t survived that late scramble, who knows if he would become the champion he is today.

“The last, like, 20 seconds of that match was the most insane flurry of all-time…It was so crazy. When the match ended, nobody knew who won.”

It was that state title that arguably catapulted him on his path to glory. It allowed him to punch a ticket to Senior Nationals later that spring. He would go on to win that tournament convincingly and sign his national letter of intent to Nebraska only shortly after. From there, we all know story.

The King vs The Magic Man

It’s fun to look at Burroughs’ early career in contrast to that of his January 9th opponent, David Taylor.

Taylor was a phenom since his youth days. He was a four-time Ohio state champ and the first ever four-time Ironman champ. In his youth, he won Tulsa titles and collected Fargo stop signs. I’m not sure that the Magic Man ever saw a loser’s bracket in his high school career - maybe ever. At this point, no one is really surprised to see him near the top of the American wrestling landscape. 

Burroughs’ path, meanwhile, showed us that there is more than one way to the top. It’s a valuable lesson to learn from the champ, especially in a sport where its common to see pressure being put on young kids to perform at a high level. 

Legacy isn’t built at the youth level and Burroughs stretch of dominance at the World level for the last decade is proof of that.

The five-time World and Olympic Champion has valiantly held down the 74kg spot in America since 2011, forcing Kyle Dake and David Taylor to retreat from the weight class. Both are now world champions in their own right, at 79kg and 86kg. 74kg belongs to the king.

American wrestling fans everywhere are anxiously anticipating Burroughs inevitable matchup with Kyle Dake at the Olympic Team Trials in April. But first, Burroughs is coming for Taylor. Once again, taking on a size disadvantage by accepting the match at 86kg where DT is the reigning World Champ.

There’s nothing but pride on the line this Saturday for what is probably the biggest freestyle match on American soil since the 2017 World Team Trials.

Not only will the showdown be a treat for fans at home, but it’s also the type of competition that will prove beneficial for both wrestlers as they prepare for the upcoming Olympic Trials in just a few months.

After all, iron sharpens iron.