How Cael Hughes Pinned Kai Orine (#7) | Oklahoma State Vs NC State 2025

So Cael Hughes, unranked freshman from Oklahoma State pinned Kai Orine yesterday, who is the 7th ranked wrestler from NC State. This is a pretty interesting turn of events, let’s see if we can learn anything from it.

There was no scoring in the match, so we can just jump to the pin itself. 3rd period, Hughes stands up with the common tripod standup, controls hands. Kai lifts, Cael finds his base and starts to stand up again. This is a super common drill by the way, bottom guy stands up, top guy lifts, bottom guy pulls his knees to his chest which makes you bottom heavy and allows you to find your base easier as you land, then you pop back up. The goal being to try to be on your feet often. One way to break them down better when you lift is to try to pull the hips down after they get airborne. This slams their hips on the mat, hurts a bit, and makes it tough for them to land on their knees to stand up again, they land on their hip and so you’re able to go to a breakdown shortly after. This doesn’t happen obviously, Cael is able to pop right back up.

Kai steps over the near leg and goes to a deep claw. This position is sketchy for sure, Cael could try to reach over the head, grab an overhook, push the hips away or use both overhooks for an inside trip, polish, or some other kind of throw. Doing that is dangerous, your opponent could always transition to a bear hug or something and put you back down, so it’s not something that’s tried too often unless you’re super confident in it. The fact that Kai is hooking the near leg and pulling pressure down does make it a safer bet, but still Cael doesn’t bite.

Kai then tries to trip on the right and pull pressure down. And this a bit of a head scratcher for me. Getting a claw ride in this position isn’t a crazy idea, a lot of times wrestlers will go claw ride, then with their opposite arm they’ll grab between the legs just under the crotch, lift, and try to place their opponent on their back. Doing that does a good job of getting them back down to the mat and it’s pretty low risk, usually just puts them back down, and at worst your opponent gets their hips away, sprawls a bit, and gets the escape. Kai doesn’t do this, instead he goes to trip on the right and hangs his body weight. I wouldn’t recommend you do this, hang your body weight when your opponent is in a stand-up and you’re on top, it’s not that difficult to step out of this trip, and you’ll find yourself in a worse position. Cael does fall however and so Kai is able to hold him still, at least for a time. Kai isn’t able to get his body weight all the way to the far side to secure his position, nor does he try to throw two legs in and hip pressure, which could do the same. Instead he’s holding tight as Cael arches his back and kicks over. Through the process, Cael finds himself a cement job or cow catcher, does a great job of putting pressure forward, and secures the pin. The grip he has on the head is to thank for this, you can see how deep the wrap around the neck is based on the position of the elbow, he’s definitely going past the chin with this one, which allows you to wrap your arm all the way up the chest and gives you insane control of the head, not to mention Kai was probably getting choked out here. He goes to roll across his back but is just plain stuck. This is super tight, the pin was quick, but it wasn’t going anywhere. Super cool to see someone get this good of a cement job. Bravo.