165 pounds by far has been one of the more interesting weights in the country. With some crazy upsets that have gone down already such as Julian Ramirez vs Shane Griffith and national finalist Jake Wentzel dropping multiple matches.
There has been a lot of speculation around this weight class on who the top guy is, and who should be considered the favorite for nationals at the moment. This will be our top ten at the weight (purely opinion) and let us get into it.
#10 Travis Wittlake (Oklahoma St)
#9 Cameron Amine (Michigan)
#8 Dean Hamiti (Wisconsin)
#7 Julian Ramirez (Cornell)
#6 Carson Kharchla (Ohio St)
#5 Alex Marinelli (Iowa)
Marinelli has been one of the staples at 165 for as long as he has been in college. He has been very impressive defeating multiple time NCAA Champion Vincenzo Joseph multiple times in his career. Although he has done a lot in his career, he has also come up short a good amount of times and that moves him back a bit on this list because we did not see the level of dominance that we would have liked from him so far. He could very well end up at the top of the podium in March but it will take a good bit more than what he has been showing this season.
#4 Shane Griffith (Stanford)
Defending national champion Shane Griffith came out the gates stumbling is kind of the only way to put it. He took an early loss to Julian Ramirez of Cornell, which honestly is not too bad of a loss for anyone that has seen Ramirez wrestle throughout highschool.
He also has a loss to Evan Wick of Cal Poly which honestly we do not think will matter too much as it just looked like Wick was the better wrestler on that day. Overall he could very well make a push to the top of the podium in March but he will have his work cut out for him with some of these guys.
#3 Anthony Valencia (Arizona St)
If he is healthy he might just dominate everyone. We have yet to see Valencia against a good opponent this season which we may have seen against Michigan where he may have faced Cameron Amine. That match was essentially chalked when they announced that it would be down to four matches which did not include Valencia.
Valencia defeated Griffith last season in the conference finals but he also has a bad loss to Keegan O’Toole after he tried to wrestle out the national tournament while injured losing to guys he wouldn’t have had competitive matches with.
The biggest question is can Valencia come back just as strong as he was last season. If he can do that then he can very well close out his collegiate wrestling career with a natty, but there are other guys looking to do the same in their farewell tour as well.
#2 Keegan O’Toole (Mizzou)
Will he end up at number one soon? Probably but we will not put him at number one until we see a match against one of these top guys with a dominant performance or until we see a win over the top guy on this list.
O’Toole has by far been the most dominant wrestler at 165 this season just cruising through brackets and picking up near fall points and pins like nothing. He picked up bonus points in 4 out of 5 of his matches at the Southern Scuffle.
He is coming for the top and that is obvious the question is can he get there this season, and that is yet to be answered. He is definitely a threat for the title and it will be very interesting to watch him for the rest of the season.
#1 Evan Wick (Cal Poly)
He has seemed to not be able to put it together in his prior seasons being so close but to no avail. This is seeming like his year based on what we saw at the CKLV as he defeated All American Cameron Amine of Michigan and National Champion Shane Griffith of Stanford in the finals 6-2.
Wick is by far the most decorated wrestler in the field except for Shane Griffith who he already has a win over so it should be very interesting to see where he ends up this season and if anyone can beat him.
