Parris into finals, Garrett, Henderson up for bronze at Polyak Imre and Varga Janos Memorial

America’s leading man at heavyweight, Mason Parris, surged to the 125 kg gold medal match with two dominant wins, spearheading the U.S. men’s freestyle effort at the Polyak Imre and Varga Janos Memorial on Thursday morning in Budapest, Hungary.

Parris began his run with a significant test on paper in the form of Georgia’s Givi Matcharashvili, who has won back-to-back bronze medals at the World Championships and is the two-time reigning European champion at 97 kg. He passed with impressive ease, 9-2.

The momentum continued for Parris with a 10-0 technical fall over Puerto Rico’s Jonovan Smith in a rematch of this year's Pan American Championships gold medal match also won by Parris.

Like Parris, both Matcharashvili and Smith are pegged to represent their nations at the upcoming Olympic Games in Paris, France. It should be noted Matcharashvili will slot in at 97 kg for Georgia with two-time Olympic medalist Geno Petriashvili holding the 125 kg spot.

In a somewhat surprising result, it will be 2019 U23 World bronze medalist and Tokyo Olympian Yusup Batirmurzaev of Kazakhstan taking on Parris for the gold medal in Budapest. Batirmurzaev, who holds no Senior-level World or Olympic medals, pinned Petriashvili in 31-seconds in the semifinals.

Two Americans in non-Olympic weight classes will wrestle for a bronze medal—Nahshon Garrett at 61 kg and Evan Henderson at 70 kg.

Garrett posted a 1-1 record in the preliminary rounds of his bracket, receiving a win by forfeit from Tokyo Olympian Abdelhak Kherbache of Algeria before being pinned by World bronze medalist and Asian champion Taiyrbek Zhumashbek Uulu of Kyrgyzstan in the semifinals. He will face Nika Zakashvili of Georgia for bronze.

Henderson dropped his only match of the morning session to eventual finalist Arman Andreasyan of Armenia, 9-2. Andreasyan was a World bronze medalist last year and holds the 2024 European title. Henderson is matched against European silver medalist Akaki Kemertelidze of Georgia in the bronze medal bout.

The medal matches are scheduled to begin at 5 p.m. local time. Budapest is located six hours ahead of U.S. Eastern Time. The event is streaming live to the U.S. audience on FloWrestling.com. Updated brackets and results are available on UWW Arena.

The Polyak Imre and Varga Janos Memorial is the last UWW Ranking Series event of the season, giving athletes a final chance to up their rankings prior to the Olympic Games. For a complete breakdown of how the ranking points are awarded, visit UWW.org.