photo courtesy of Richard Immel

It’s almost here! Saturday, 30 of the top men and women in the country will descend upon Rutgers University in New Jersey for the first of two weekends worth of action at Final X. This will be the second year in a row, where the Senior men’s and women’s freestyle team will be determined by a wrestle-off at a predetermined site, rather than under one roof at the World Team Trials. This year we have the Greco-Roman team aboard, as well, so all our Senior teams in all three styles will be determined over the next two weeks. Since there are two different dates, rather than the three in 2018, both sites were scheduled to have 15 matches apiece. That meant that each day’s worth of Final X would be broken up into two sessions. Session one will start at 12pm and a second session will begin at 6pm. Each best-of-three wrestle-off will be held during their scheduled session.

Now Final X Rutgers will only have 13 matches since David Taylor pulled out of the entire world team process for 2019, and just today, Kyle Dake asked for his wrestle-off to be moved back due to an injury (Since Dake is a returning world medalist, he can make such a request).

Here are the matches that will be taking place in women’s freestyle, a preview of the action, and predictions for all five matches.

Session One

Match Two: (72 kg) Alyvia Fiske - Titan Mercury WC vs. Victoria Francis - Titan Mercury WC

How they qualified for Final X:

Fiske: US Open Champion

Francis: World Team Trials Champion