How Tyler Kasak Beat Alex Facundo | Black Knight Invitational 2024

First minute was spent doing some hand-fighting and poking at shots, but at about the one minute mark Tyler does a super slick pass-by. This is prompted by Alex doing a hard collar tie with his right arm, and then pushing Tyler away a little, so Ty passes that left elbow to the right and catches the high crotch which turns into a single. This is only possible because of the penetration step that Tyler does, which allows him to close the gap and continue moving, even when Alex starts to react and circle away. Tyler wraps the hip, mostly because Alex is still low and he has a really good angle with the single, and so wrapping that far hip and applying pressure in that direction will be a fine choice, otherwise you shouldn’t wrap the hip, you should be attacking that far leg, reaching across. If he didn’t have a good angle on that hip wrap then he easily could have gotten whizzered and thrown back out in front. There’s not much Alex can do to the angle that Tyler has, it’s a pretty easy takedown. 3-0 Tyler.

Alex does get an escape before the period is out, he gets up to his feet, starts posting a wrist, as Tyler loses control he starts to drop to a leg, which is common at this level, you circle out front, try to drop to a double to extend your time on top, but Alex sprawls as he cuts, which allows him to get his legs away. This is also common at this level, college wrestlers drill this exact motion, and it works pretty flawlessly here, 3-1 Alex right before the period goes out which is huge. Being the last person to score in each period is definitely an advantage, so getting that escape here will be pretty important to the rest of the match.

2nd period, Tyler chooses bottom. Tyler gets up to his feet, doesn’t look like Alex is going to try to ride him at all, so it’s an easy escape for Ty, within 10 seconds. Score is 4-1 Tyler

The rest of the period is spent with some heavy hand-fighting, no shot attempts or anything.

Alex takes bottom, gets out by the 30 second mark, which allows Tyler to get over a minute of riding time and so a point at the end of the match. No scoring happens for the rest of the time. Alex makes a ton of attempts but each one is down-blocked and stopped.

This match will help determine who gets the starting spot at 157 this year, though rumors abound that Alex beat Tyler 8-3 in the room, Tyler has always been more of a gamer, he shows up big for matches when everything is on the line. You’d be surprised how often wrestlers are the opposite. I coached Tyler in state finals in 7th grade when he pinned Connor Harer, who is and was a multiple time state champion, it was a crazy event. Tyler’s dad and I kind of just looked at each other and shrugged. This is exactly why in-room wrestle-offs aren’t 100% telling of who is going to fit better in a lineup, you have to test them in the field and see how they do in real match scenarios against different wrestlers. Being that Tyler just beat the #5 2 weekends ago at the all-star event and then beat Alex here, it makes his case pretty solid.