Dake and Dieringer to battle for 79 kg World Team spot tomorrow in Final X special wrestle-off

What: Final X Special Wrestle-Off at 79 kg in men’s freestyle
Who: Kyle Dake vs. Alex Dieringer
When: Saturday, Aug. 17, 1 p.m. CT
Where: Round Rock HS in Round Rock, Texas
Watch: FloWrestling.org

The 2019 men’s freestyle World Team member at 79 kg will be determined this weekend in Round Rock, Texas, as Kyle Dake and Alex Dieringer face off in a special wrestle-off.

Dake, who qualified for Final X after winning a 2018 World medal, requested and received a delay of his championship series in Final X: Rutgers on June 8 due to injury. Dake was able to do so by meeting all the requirements set in the 2019 General World Team Trials Procedures.

This best-of-three series will be held at Round Rock High School in Round Rock, Texas, on Saturday, August 17, starting at 1:00 p.m. CT. Fans can watch live on Flowrestling.org or buy tickets at the door: $10 for adults, $5 for youth.

The USA is in for a treat as two of the best wrestlers in the world will clash on Saturday afternoon.

Dake is the returning World champion at 79 kg, winning World gold in his first attempt. Prior to that, Dake was a multiple-time National Team member, earning spots at 74 kg and 86 kg behind Olympic medalists and World champions Jordan Burroughs and J’den Cox.

In 2018, United World Wrestling introduced the 79 kg weight class, making way for Dake to earn a spot on his first Senior World Team. To get there, he won the 2018 U.S. Open and 2018 Final X: Penn State.

In his World Championships debut, Dake was impressive, going unscored upon and outscoring his opponents 37-0 for the gold medal.

Since winning a World title last October, Dake has only competed once, taking gold at the Grand Prix of Spain in July.

On the other side, Dieringer has wrestled multiple times this year and has found a lot of success domestically and internationally.

Since last year’s World Team Trials, Dieringer has won international gold medals at the Alexander Medved International, Dan Kolov Tournament and Yasar Dogu. He also secured a bronze medal at the Ivan Yarygin Grand Prix. The Kolov, Yarygin and Yasar Dogu are UWW Ranking Series events.

Domestically, Dieringer won the 2019 U.S. Open in April and the 2019 World Team Trials Challenge Tournament in May, securing him a spot in Final X.

This is Dieringer’s first trip to Final X as he fell short of earning a bid in 2018, losing in the Challenge Tournament finals to Zahid Valencia, who Dake eventually beat, 4-0 and 4-3, at Final X.

Dieringer avenged those losses to Valencia at this year’s Challenge Tournament finals, recording 12-1 and 12-2 victories.

Both wrestlers have major college accomplishments as Dake was a four-time NCAA champion for Cornell and Dieringer was a three-time NCAA champion for Oklahoma State.

The last time Dake and Dieringer wrestled was in the 2018 U.S. Open finals. It was a tightly contested bout with a nail-biting finish. Dake eventually won the bout, 5-5 on criteria. 

The winner of this Final X Special Wrestle-off will represent the United States at the 2019 World Wrestling Championships in Nur-Sultan, Kazakhstan. The 79 kg World Championships competition in men’s freestyle will be on Saturday, Sept. 21 and Sunday, Sept. 22.