All six Penn State-affiliated wrestlers who competed at this weekend’s Senior World Championships in Astana, Kazakhstan, came home with some hardware.

Three gold medals were won in an incredible weekend for the Nittany Lion Wrestling Club and Team USA.

Levi Haines avenged his loss in last year’s gold medal match by winning his first World title, while Kyle Snyder and Kyle Dake each won their fifth gold medal at the event.

Marcus Blaze and Zain Retherford both took home bronze after fighting through repechage, and Roman Bravo-Young, representing Mexico, made history for his country by taking silver.

How It Happened

Roman Bravo-Young

The lone wrestler with Penn State ties not to represent the Stars and Stripes, two-time national champion Bravo-Young competed at 57 kilograms for Mexico.

He began against Kazakhstan’s Meirambek Kartbay in the Round of 32.

Bravo-Young led 3-0 after one period thanks to a late takedown. Two step-outs would complicate things late, but he held off the Kazakh to win 4-2.

Mauritius’s John Leopold would await in the Round of 16.

Leopold took the first shot just over a minute in, but got locked in a cradle mid-scramble by Bravo-Young, who scored four points on the subsequent move to take the lead. Two more takedowns and a gut wrench ended the match 10-0 via technical superiority in the first period.

Bravo-Young then drew Munkh Batkhuyag of Mongolia in the quarterfinals.

He trailed 3-2 in the final minute after conceding a late takedown, but a late flurry led to a match-winning go-behind takedown with 8 seconds remaining, and he won 4-3.

In the semifinal, he faced North Korea’s Chong Song Han, the reigning World champion who defeated Bravo-Young at last year’s World Championships.

Han led 1-0 after one period, but Bravo-Young finished a pair of takedowns early in the second to take a 4-1 lead.

Han desperately fired shot after shot in the final two minutes, but was unsuccessful, as Bravo-Young advanced to his first-ever World final.

At that final, he’d rekindle an old rivalry with Team USA wrestler and Iowa legend Spencer Lee, who had previously faced Bravo-Young in freestyle.

Despite an inspiring run to get here, Bravo-Young’s quest for gold would be short-lived. Lee scored a takedown 15 seconds in and pulled out four consecutive leg laces in 11 seconds to win the World title via technical superiority in 26 seconds.

Despite the ending, Bravo-Young made history as the first Mexican wrestler to make a World final, earning silver.

Marcus Blaze

The only active Penn State wrestler to make the world team, Blaze kicked off his journey at 61 kilograms in the first round against Turkey’s Emrah Ormanoglu.

Blaze struck first with a takedown, but conceded one of his own later in the period, ultimately leading 3-2 after one after a step-out point.

He went right back to work in the second with a quick takedown, but ended this match early by locking in a cradle and securing the fall at 3:37.

Blaze then drew Leomid Colesnic of Moldova in the Round of 16.

The pace was just relentless from the start. Four takedowns and a gut wrench ended it in the first period, as Blaze dominated to a 10-0 win via technical superiority at 2:28.

In his final match of the session, Blaze drew Iran’s Ahmad Mohammadnezhadjavan, the reigning World silver medalist.

An even first period saw Blaze get dinged for inactivity, but then tie the match late on a step-out point. Blaze took a 2-1 lead but conceded a match-tying step-out in the final two minutes, giving Iran the lead on criteria.

The action reached a fever pitch in the final 30 seconds, with Blaze getting deep on a shot and looking to score a match-winning takedown, but a left whizzer by the Iranian narrowly avoided conceding the two points as time expired. A challenge was unsuccessful, giving Mohammadnezhadjavan a 3-2 win.

After his quest for gold ended, he was drawn back into repechage when the Iranian won his way into the gold medal match, where he’d wrestle India’s Nikhil Nikhil for a spot in the bronze medal match.

Blaze took a commanding 5-0 lead in just two minutes via takedown, gut wrench, and step-out. He conceded one on a step-out of his own, but two second-period takedowns let him cruise to a 9-1 victory and into the bronze medal match.

In a bid for his first career World medal, Blaze wrestled Kazakhstan’s two-time U23 medalist Assyl Aitakyn for bronze.

The first two minutes of the match went as expected, with little action, as the American was dinged for passivity and conceded the opening point. Off the restart, a low shot from Blaze connected and he finished it for a takedown at 2:00 before pulling off a gut wrench to go up 4-1.

The slow pace of the match favored Blaze, but he got in trouble after a caution at 4:04 slimmed the lead to 4-2. Still, his superb defense kept the Kazakhs at bay, and the home crowd couldn’t will Aitakyn to victory, with Blaze taking home his first career senior World medal.

Zain Retherford

Two-time Hodge Trophy winner and three-time NCAA champion Retherford was making his grand return to the World Championships at 70 kilograms for the first time since winning them in 2023.

He opened his tournament by drawing Muhammad Abdurachmanov of Belgium in the first round.

Retherford needed just a single double-leg takedown and a brutal slow turn to expose the back and earn the fall in just 66 seconds.

Next, he got Hungary’s Iszmail Muszukajev, a former world champion at 65 kilograms, in the Round of 16.

The Hungarian’s inactivity let Retherford go up 2-0 early, but he couldn’t create separation, and it cost him when Muszukajev fought back to take a 3-2 lead.

The Nittany Lion went up 5-3 entering the final 90 seconds, but didn’t settle for running the clock out. After getting a takedown on the edge, Muszukajev exposed his back and never got up, as Retherford stuck him at 4:54 for a second straight fall.

Next, Retherford would wrestle Kanan Heybatov of Azerbaijan in the quarterfinal.

The Nittany Lion took an early four-point lead on a takedown, fleeing, and unsuccessful challenge sequence and was never threatened from there. An early takedown in the second and a later step-out secured a 7-0 victory.

The semifinals brought him up against Kyrgyzstan’s Ernazar Akmataliev, a three-time World medalist and former U23 World Champion.

Retherford opened the match with a double-leg that drove Akmataliev out of bounds at 1:15, but made a crucial error midway through the opening period when he was cautioned, which awarded a point to his opponent and took him off the shot clock. Instead of 2-0, it was 1-1 after one.

Early in the second, Retherford picked the ankle and spent the next 15 seconds trying to collect the other, but Akmataliev slipped out the back and countered for a back-breaking takedown at 3:38.

With 1:35 to go, Retherford got in deep again on a single-leg and came extremely close to tying the match, but couldn’t pull him back in bounds to get both, settling for one.

This was not challenged despite looking like a takedown, ultimately proving costly as the Nittany Lion couldn’t find more offense and lost 3-2.

After losing in the semifinal, he got a bye to the bronze medal match, where he faced Canada’s Lachlan McNeil, a folkstyle wrestler for Michigan.

Retherford opened the match with a takedown at 1:26 on a double-leg shot that was switched off to a single-leg. He did it again at 2:23 to double the lead, which held at 4-0 after two.

McNeil never got close to threatening Retherford, as the Nittany Lion held him off to win 4-0 and take his third career World medal and first since 2023.

Levi Haines

After concluding his collegiate career with a second national championship in March, Haines looked to build on his 2025 World silver medal at 79 kilograms, beginning with a first-round bout against Morocco’s Mohammed Bouazouni.

Haines opened his tournament with a takedown just 46 seconds in and went to work, tilting the Moroccan to his back and eventually earning the fall at 1:30.

Next, Haines drew Szymon Wojtkowski of Poland in the Round of 16.

Two takedowns in the first 90 seconds, followed by a gut wrench, made it 6-0 quickly. A four-point move at 2:36 sealed a quick win by technical superiority, 10-0.

Awaiting him in the quarterfinals was Russia’s Ismail Khaniev, the reigning back-to-back U20 World champion.

Haines was put on the shot clock early and conceded the opening point, but finished a pair of takedowns late in the period to go up 4-1 after one.

Khaniev took a shot early in the second, but Haines scrambled out and wound up on top for another takedown at 3:58. Another mad scramble off a Khaniev shot led to two more for Haines at 5:01 to finish the match, 8-1.

He wrestled Mongolia’s Suldkhuu Olonbayar in the semifinal.

With extremely limited offense in the first five minutes, the pair locked into a 1-1 battle, but Olonbayar countered a double-leg attempt from Haines to go up 3-1 with 57 seconds left.

Feeling the pressure, the reigning silver medalist executed a needed single-leg for a takedown with 41 seconds to go to tie the match. In the final 40 seconds, Haines fought off attacks to survive, winning 3-3 on criteria to advance.

Looking for redemption from last year, Haines wrestled Iran’s Mohammad Nokhodilarimi, a five-time World medalist and three-time silver medalist, for gold.

Nokhodilarimi struck first a minute in, driving Haines to the boundary and scoring a step-out point at 1:08.

Not long after, the Nittany Lion grabbed the Iranian’s left leg and finished with a go-ahead takedown at 1:48. An attempted gut wrench ended poorly as Nokhodilarimi slipped out and scored a reversal to go up 3-2, which remained the score for the rest of the period.

Facing a late deficit, Haines finished a single-leg for the lead at 3:57 and spent the next two minutes staying off the boundary and limiting the Iranian’s attacks to take home his first World title.

Kyle Dake

A four-time national champion at Cornell, Dake was also making a grand return to the World Championships for the first time in three years at 86 kilograms.

His first-round foe was Mongolia’s Batbilguun Naadambat.

Dake conceded the opening point for passivity, but he held a 2-1 lead after one thanks to a late takedown.

Disaster struck early in the second as Dake was stuck on his back, narrowly avoiding the pin while conceding a four-point move. Now down 5-2, he went to work and out-scrambled Naadambat at 3:50 to cut it to 5-4.

In a similar situation, Blaze faced a whizzer in a critical late scramble; Dake had more time to work and slipped his left arm out to score the go-ahead, match-winning takedown with 30 seconds left to go up 6-5.

After that tough battle, Dake drew Paulius Lescauskas of Lithuania in the Round of 32.

Lescauskas quickly scored a takedown in the first 15 seconds, but the rest of the match wouldn’t go kindly.

Dake used a front headlock to drive the Lithuanian out of bounds at 0:57. A re-attack on the restart got him the go-ahead takedown at 1:03. From there, the merry-go-round began with five brutal gut wrenches to finish a staggering 12-point sequence in 36 seconds for a win via technical superiority, 13-2.

Next was Bolat Sakayev of Kazakhstan in the Round of 16.

Dake opened the scoring with an ankle pick 50 seconds in, then hit a pair of gut wrenches to go up 6-0 just 90 seconds in.

A few attacks from Sakayev never scored. Dake built on the 6-0 lead with a step-out point, takedown, and gut wrench in short order to win via technical superiority, 11-0, in five minutes.

Malik Shavaev of Kyrgyzstan awaited him in the quarterfinals.

Dake trailed 1-0 after one due to the passivity timer, but early in the second, he wore out Shavaev with shot after shot and eventually landed a double-leg for the lead at 3:09.

A pair of gut wrenches opened a 6-1 cushion that he held onto, conceding only a second passivity point in the final minute.

In his fifth match of the day, Dake took on Russia’s Ibragim Kadiev, a two-time U20 World champion and reigning European champion in the semifinals.

A minute in, Kadiev got deep on a shot, but Dake rolled him through a headlock to score two after exposing his opponent’s back. Off the restart, the Russian came right back with a double-leg to tie the match at two at 1:36.

Kadiev threw shot after shot at Dake, but couldn’t extend his lead. After taking everything thrown at him in the last three minutes, the American successfully re-attacked an ill-advised shot to take the lead at 4:30 on a takedown.

An incidental eye-poke cut the lead to 4-3, but a mad dash late ended with Dake once again countering to clinch the match with another takedown, winning 6-3.

He then wrestled for gold on Saturday against Azerbaijan’s Arsenii Dzhioev, the reigning World bronze medalist.

In what’s been a trend, inactivity in the opening period led to the shot clock being put on Dzhioev, giving Dake a 1-0 lead after one.

15 seconds into the second, Dake drove the Azerbaijani to the boundary and got to a leg on the edge, driving Dzhioev out of bounds to score a huge two points at 3:30 to go up 3-0.

Feeling the pressure, Dzhioev took his first big shot of the match and nearly took Dake down on the edge, but the American slipped out and only conceded the one point for a step-out at 3:44.

A passivity point narrowed Dake’s lead to 3-2 with 37 seconds left. Off a restart with 11 seconds left, Dzhioev got to Dake’s left leg, but the American scrambled long enough to hold on.

Dake, known for winning four national championships at four different weights at Cornell, captured his fifth career World title at his third different weight class.

Kyle Snyder

A three-time national champion at Ohio State, a 2016 Olympic gold medalist, and a four-time World champion, Kyle Snyder was the top overall seed, received a first-round bye, and drew Alperen Tokgoz of Turkey in the Round of 16.

After early inactivity and a late takedown, Snyder took a 4-0 lead in the first. The pace wore Tokgoz down, as Snyder finished two takedowns and notched a pair of step-outs early in the second to win via technical superiority, 10-0, in 4:14.

In the quarterfinals, Snyder drew a heavy hitter in Russia’s two-time Olympic gold medalist Abdulrashid Sadulaev, continuing a rivalry that has defined 97 kilograms through a decade of world competitions.

As in the last match, both wrestlers spent much of the first period hand-fighting, with Snyder taking the opening point after Sadulaev was put on the clock. The Russian got in deep on a single leg late in the period but earned only a single point on a step-out, tying the match at one.

The inactivity clock came for Snyder in the second period, which he almost negated by driving Sadulaev to the boundary, but the Russian scrambled out of it and somehow managed to score a takedown, an essential three-point move to lead 4-1 with 1:32 to go.

Snyder went on the attack and muscled Sadualev out to the boundary. While applying pressure for a potential step-out point, he landed a sweet double-leg to get a much-needed takedown with 1:09 to go. He drove the Russian out of bounds 21 seconds later to tie it at four.

Snyder won the heavyweight bout by fall in the first period, scoring a sweet double-leg to get a much-needed takedown with 1:09 to go.

In the semifinals, Snyder would face Poland’s Zbigniew Baranowski.

He led 4-0 in the first period on a passivity point, takedown, and step-out. Baranowski never came close to generating offense, and Snyder routinely pushed him to the boundary, earning him another step-out point at 5:11 to finish the match with a 5-0 win.

Snyder had to beat Japan’s Arash Yoshida to win his second straight world title. Yoshida, who took bronze at last year’s World Championships, lost to Snyder 9-1 in that year’s semifinals.

This time, his Japanese foe put up a much stiffer challenge. An early passivity point put Snyder behind, but Yoshida was also driven off the mat at 2:07 to go down 2-0.

His first real shot came early in the second when he tried to pick the right ankle, but Yoshida countered and nearly scored a takedown of his own if not for Snyder’s elusiveness. The American eventually ceded a point at 3:20 after being driven out of bounds again.

The match reached a slog until the final minute, when Snyder ramped up his attacks. A scramble on the edge with under a minute to go nearly scored for Snyder, but the referee blew the action dead. A challenge from his corner was unsuccessful, putting him in a 4-0 hole.

Snyder wouldn’t go down without a fight, driving Yoshida to the mat on the edge for two points with 25 seconds to go. At this point, he clearly had more left in the tank.

The laboring Yoshida was sluggish off the restart, allowing Snyder to drive him to the mat and go behind for a stunning, match-winning takedown with 20 seconds to go, completing an incredible comeback to win a second straight World title via criteria, 4-4.

What’s Next?

The offseason freestyle circuit has concluded, which means it’s time for Penn State wrestling, folks.

The Nittany Lions open the 2026-27 season and hang yet another championship banner at Rec Hall at 7 p.m. on Thursday, November 12, against Bloomsburg. The match will be streamed on Big Ten Plus.

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