Guest Column, by James Gumina

One of life’s joys is being introduced to something new. This past weekend, that joy came in the form of professional wrestling, as I attended the FinalX and Beat the Streets World Championships qualifier at the Prudential Center in Newark.

I was on hand for both the full slate of wrestling on Saturday and the press conference on Friday morning. As I helped athletes, media, and coaches check in for the press conference, I started to get a feel for the event. The word ‘community’ is often overused, but it truly captured what I felt when interacting with everyone on Friday. The athletes and coaches were friendly with us and one another, and the media members were all extremely passionate about the sport.

The press conference featured some of the athletes with the biggest names and resumes competing in the event, though not always the ones who found the most success on Saturday. They all stressed the importance of growing interest in the sport and being role models for the next generation of wrestling athletes.

“I particularly admired Wyatt Hendrickson’s viewpoint about how his life has changed since upsetting Gable Stevenson in “the biggest upset in NCAA history” this past March.”

However intriguing the press conference was, it paled in comparison to the event itself.

The bouts started at 12:30pm (EDT) with third-place matches, and went all the way through 8:00pm. A raucous crowd of six thousand packed the lower bowl of the Prudential Center from the first bout to the final minute of the last match.

Chatting with people as I walked through the concourse, and noting the massive forearms and slightly cauliflower ears of the fans, it was clear this event pulled in wrestlers, young and old, from across the New York/New Jersey/Connecticut tri-state area. The crowd brought energy, and the wrestlers fed into it, each one of them signing innumerable autographs and filling camera rolls with selfies. I even saw a few wrestlers giving away their shoes to some of the kids in the audience.

It was clear the crowd had some favorites, but the thing they were most loyal to was exciting takedowns. One of the crowd favorites was Yianni Diakomihalis, who cruised to a 10-0 victory in the first round of his best-of-three versus PJ Duke.

The favoritism turned out to be a fickle thing, however, when Duke upset Diakomihalis with a last-second throw in round two and then a pin in round three to elicit two of the loudest crowd pops of the event.

Hendrickson continued his run of greatness with a dominant win in round one, followed by a hard-fought victory in round two. Explaining his strategy after the match, he talked about how he wanted to be aggressive and put on a good show, following it up by saying, “I just love wrestling, I was born for this.”

Some familiar names fell short of qualifying for the world team. After moving to a new weight class, 34-year-old Kyle Dake lost to Zahid Valencia in an exciting match. Kayla Miracle, the 2017 and 2018 US Open champion and current high school teacher, also fell to Adaugo Nwachukwu.

On the other hand, there were a handful of teenagers and high schoolers with outstanding performances. The aforementioned PJ Duke upset Yianni and qualified for the world team, and 19-year-old Audrey Jimenez won her match to qualify for the worlds in Croatia as well.

It was not all wins for the youngsters, however, as 17-year-old Everest Leydecker, a student at the school Kayla teaches, lost in her match to Cristelle Rodriguez, and will now miss out on the chance to celebrate her 18th birthday in Croatia.

But the event wasn’t just about competition. It was also a fundraiser for Beat the Streets, and a successful one at that, raising nearly a million dollars. Beat the Streets is an organization that provides wrestling and educational opportunities to underserved students in the New York City area. It boasts a 100% graduation rate and enrollment rate into college or the military.

Throughout the event, different Beat the Streets students gave their testimonies about how the organization has supported them and will continue to do so. The conjunction of elite-level wrestling and charitable outreach symbolized the true community-first aspect of wrestling.

While I did not walk into the event with any wrestling experience under my belt, I walked out with a newfound appreciation for the athletes, fans, and, ultimately, the sport. It is a tight-knit community that loves the sport and has created a wonderful atmosphere and an impressive, world class event. I am looking forward to seeing the winner compete at worlds in September, and to following many of them on their path to the LA Olympics in 2028.

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NEWARK – (Staff Report from Official News Release) Beat the Streets (New York) and USA Wrestling will stage its annual wrestling competition, Final X, presented by Tezos, on Saturday, June 10 at Prudential Center in Newark, New Jersey.  Final X will determine the 2023 U.S. Senior World Teams in all three Olympic disciplines: men’s and women’s freestyle and Greco-Roman. There will be 30 weight classes contested, 10 in each Olympic discipline.

The top two U.S. athletes in each weight class will compete in a best-of-three series in Final X to determine who will wrestle at the 2023 Senior World Championships in Belgrade, Serbia. The medalists and the fifth-place wrestler in each weight at the 2023 Senior World Championships will qualify the United States for their weight class at the 2024 Summer Olympics in Paris.

This will be the first time that Final X will be held in one location, as previous Final X competitions were held in either two or three cities. It will also be the first time Final X will be contested on three mats. It is the second time Final X will be hosted in New Jersey, as Final X Rutgers was held in 2019 in Piscataway.

“USA Wrestling will provide the nation’s greatest athletes with the stage to compete for the right to represent Team USA at the 2023 Senior World Championships, as well as an opportunity to qualify our nation for the 2024 Olympic Games in Paris,” said USA Wrestling Executive Director Rich Bender. “Final X will once again be intense and exciting, as our elite men and women wrestlers put it all on the line in Prudential Center, a world-class facility. Make plans to join us in Newark,” 

The event is the second consecutive year that Final X will serve as the Beat the Streets Annual Benefit. In 2022, BTSNY hosted Final X New York at the Hulu Theater at Madison Square Garden in New York City. This year’s event will be the 13^th BTSNY Annual Benefit.

Session times will be 2 p.m. and 6 p.m. Eastern time, with the Beat the Streets after party to immediately follow. Ticket information for Final X will be available on Ticketmaster at a later date, while tickets for the BTSNY Annual Benefit after party can be purchased at btsny.org.

“This event is our largest fundraiser of the year and will support 75 percent of our annual expenses, so we can continue to make a lifelong impact on the 2,500 boys and girls in New York City that rely on us. We are looking forward to hosting this event at Prudential Center in Newark, New Jersey, a state filled with rich wrestling traditions. We have no doubt this year’s event will add to that tradition and provide exciting moments for some of the World’s greatest men and women athletes who are looking to earn a spot on Team USA at the 2023 World Championships,” added Bender.

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