Elite 8 - Ones to Watch
The Elite 8 Duals in 2020 was a banger with top-level talent coming in from around the country. Many ranked wrestlers descended on Atlanta that fall and we enjoyed some outstanding competition. Many of those top wrestlers have now moved onto wrestle at the collegiate level, but there were several young guns that used that 2020 duals as a showcase for why they should be ranked (or ranked higher than they were then).
If you recall, POWA’s Matthew Moore beat #2 Chase Horne of Minions 10-7, Pierson Manville of JK Squad downed #8 Jacob Frost of Cali (Frost wrestled for Cali Customs but is from Louisiana/Iowa) 7-2, and #20 Grigor Cholakyan of Cali downed #9 Nick Corday, #5 Christian Forbes, and #13 Drew Heethuis. Moore is back to lead POWA once again and he is now ranked #3, Manville is on Spartan RTC and is ranked either 6th or 8th depending on who you ask, and Cholakyan joins Team Carnage this time around and he is currently ranked #4.
The question to ask yourself is … who is unranked that has an opportunity to make a name for themselves this weekend with a big win? We take a look at one individual from each team that could make that jump. So here are a few ones to watch this weekend:
Arsenal – Max Norman (Tennessee)
Beast Coast – Conner McCloskey (Georgia)
Black Mambas – Gage Howard (Utah)
Carnage – Vincent Lee (New Jersey)
Combat Athletics – Nathan Carnes (North Carolina)
Dynasty – Giovanni Scafidi (New Jersey)
Empire – Rocklin Zinkin (California)
Indiana Outlaws – Gunner Henry (Indiana)
Minion Legends – Latrell Scahfer (Georgia)
Oklahoma – Beau Hickman (Oklahoma)
POWA – Alex Rozas (Louisiana)
Spartan RTC – Matthew Dolan (West Virginia)
The latest rosters came out and both Scafidi and Vincent Lee are no longer listed … that said, Lucas and I talked through our ones to watch before those rosters were revealed and as a result we keep it the same way it was before the rosters were released. Lucas takes a shot at one name from each squad as well … check out our full conversation below.