RBY's Greatest Hits
RBY's Greatest Hits
Take a trip down memory-lane with some of the most memorable matches of Roman Bravo-Young's wrestling career.
Roman Bravo-Young is currently one of the best pound-for-pound wrestlers in the NCAA. With his upcoming film that takes a deep dive into his enthralling upbringing, “Straight Outta Tucson” set to be released on January 31st, I thought it would be a great idea also to take a look at some of his biggest moments on the mat.
Below are some of the biggest moments of Bravo-Young’s competitive career with individual match archives attached for your viewing pleasure.
2014 Fargo vs Max Murin
RBY’s first freestyle Fargo title. He won Greco a couple of days earlier, but backed it up where it counts with a freestyle stop sign as well against one of the best from the best wrestling state in the country. With a final score of 9-0, this is the match that RBY on the national radar for a lot of folks.
2016 Cadet World Team Trials vs Jordan Decatur
RBY’s first and only World Team. After a big win over Nick Raimo in the semis, Roman kept it rolling against Ohio’s Jordan Decatur in the finals. Despite the fact that Decatur had beaten Bravo-Young at Cadet Nationals the year before, RBY got it done by tech in match one (above) and 8-2 in match two.
2016 Who’s Number One vs Nick Raimo
This one was a little closer than the two’s match at World Team Trials where RBY won 11-0. However, this proved that RBY wasn’t just a freestyle specialist, but could get the job done in folkstyle too. He committed to Penn State shortly after this.
2019 Dual vs Luke Pletcher
No redshirt, no problem. This was the match that proved Roman was going to a problem right away as a true freshman. He showed a lot of promise early in his true freshman season with a major decision over Ryan Millhof but then was pinned by Austin Gomez at Southern Scuffle. This win over Pletcher, who was ranked in the top eight at the time, was a foreshadowing of RBY’s podium finish as a true freshman.
2019 NCAA Bloodround vs Micky Phillippi
Bravo-Young capped off his true freshman season with 8th-place finish at the national tournament. You can see the expression of pure joy in his celebration after the final seconds run off the clock.
2020 Big Ten Semis vs Austin Desanto
After Desanto was forced to medical forfiet out of their match in the dual, this is where Roman truly got to show how much better he’d gotten since the 2019 season. RBY’s freshman year, Desanto was 2-0 against him winning by a combined nine points. This time, however, RBY came out, got the first takedown, and never let Desanto secure a takedown.
2020 Dake vs Chamizo Card vs Jack Mueller
Four months after the cancellation of the NCAA tournament, Roman couldn’t pass up on an opportunity to showcase his furthered skill improvement. Jack Mueller was coming off a 14-1 season and was the fourth seed at the NCAA championships and Roman blew right through him 8-1.
2021 Big Ten Finals vs Austin Desanto
RBY’s first Big Ten title. After falling to Sebastian Rivera in the finals as a sophomore, Bravo-Young got it done against Desanto as a junior. He even widened the gap scoring two takedowns to Desanto’s zero, and proved that he now had the upper hand in the rivalry.
2021 NCAA Finals vs Daton Fix
After going undefeated through the regular season and Big Tens, Roman met his biggest adversary of the year in the NCAA finals - Daton Fix. Keeping composed after a late stall call that sent it into overtime, Bravo-Young even looked surprised himself when he got the takedown in overtime to give him his first NCAA title.
2022 Dual vs Austin Desanto
RBY and Desanto were now split 2-2 in matches that had gone the entire 7 minutes and with Desanto injury defaulting out of the 2020 dual, this was where Roman got to both prove he was never going to lose to Desanto again whether a tournament or dual and help Penn State defeat the returning champion Hawkeyes and set the Nittany Lions up to make it back to the top.
2022 NCAA Finals vs Daton Fix
Sure, Bravo-Young did it the year before, but could he get it done again? This is the question a lot of wrestling fans were asking, and it was truly almost a 50-50 split on who fans were picking. But once again, RBY won the takedown battle 1-0 and capped off his second straight undefeated national champion season.