Wyatt Hendrickson is set to defend his RAF unlimited championship, which transpires at RAF 7 on March 28th. The man who famously bested Gable Steveson finds himself in an intriguing matchup as Trent Hillger takes on the RAF champ, Wyatt Hendrickson. Touching upon how he is doing heading into this high-stakes contest for Real American Freestyle, Wyatt Hendrickson said [via Bowks Talking Bouts],
“Yeah, life is good. As we talked about, getting that training in. Right now is a big training cycle for us. Obviously, Trent Hillger is a great wrestler. Not only do I wrestle him in RAF, but also at the US Open, I’ll see him, which is in a couple more months. So, in a big training cycle right now. So, little bit more sore than usual, but it feels good. Putting in the work is good because when it’s competition time, the work’s put in, the hay is in the barn, and then it’s time to have fun.”
There are quite a few chapters in the story so far, with this being the fifth chapter in the overall tale between Wyatt Hendrickson and Trent Hillger on the mats. When speaking to the well-entrenched competitive history between the two, Wyatt Hendrickson stated [via Bowks Talking Bouts],
“Yes. Trent and I actually wrestled for the first time when I was a freshman in college and he beat me in the blood rounds to become an all-American. So that was the very first time we ever wrestled. Then we’ve wrestled a couple times here and there on the world stage, but in the past couple times, especially at Final X, man, that’s the best two out of three.”
“We had some crazy good matches. In one of those matches, I think it was over 34 points total. As heavyweights, that’s just unheard of. So Trent and I obviously love getting after it, and we love putting on a show for everybody.”
The aforementioned Gable Steveson victory obviously was a massive win that had a certain cache that got outside of the specific localized wrestling bubble. But it seems like considering the history with Hillger, securing his ideal outcome in this one would almost have more individual importance just because of what their competitive history has represented.
When asking if that was a fair way to describe the mindset heading into this one, Wyatt Hendrickson quipped [via Bowks Talking Bouts],
“I would agree. Trent has been climbing the ladder and you can see that. I mean, we are number one and two right now representing the USA. So, as the two best wrestlers, obviously, I’m not just going to walk in here and expect to win. Trent’s walking in here, he wants to win this, too. I got to remember that every day I train because even though like the last match I beat him, if I find myself being complacent, well, that’s when I might start to see less success.”
“So keeping that mindset of I want to work hard, I want to train hard because like we both want to be the best, but it’s really whoever believes it and who trains for that believing it in their training. So I got to remember that every single day when I’m training to wrestle the best guys in the country and the world.”
With NCAA champion accolades, being a Hodge Trophy winner, as well as being the RAF champion heading into this card, when asked how he stays the course and continues improving when he has such a ledger in the sport, Wyatt Hendrickson said [via Bowks Talking Bouts],
“That’s a great question and I’ve learned the hard way that it’s really important to continuously stay humble. Just have that humility as a wrestler. I learned this the hard way after I wrestled Gable. I was caught up on my high horse for a little bit too long and I assumed I was still a great wrestler even though I wasn’t training as hard as I was before. At one of the big tournaments, the World Championships, I had a good first match and I lost.”
“I really was able to look back and be like, man, all these times I thought that I was training hard, I was doing this, I was really being a little bit lazy. So after an experience like that, I know what it takes to compete at the highest level, but then more importantly train to continuously stay at that highest level. So learning the hard way, I just got to remember about how much that hurt.”
“Right after I walked off the mat at World Championships, losing that first round, I sat to myself and I was like, I need to remember how I feel right now. Whenever I’m having a hard practice or I’m feeling sorry for myself, I want to remember how I feel in that moment and be like, you know what? This might suck, but it’s worth it. I need to do this to be a champion.”
“That’s what I do whenever I have those bad days. I give my coaches permission like, “Hey, remind me of how I felt after that match cuz that’s what motivates me to keep pushing every day is I don’t want to relive that moment again. Cuz it was one of the worst feelings in your chest, in your heart after having such a big high.”
“Then you have those expectations and you don’t compete to the level of your expectations that you wanted to compete at. Because you don’t rise to the level of your expectations, you fall to the level of your training. So, that’s kind of what keeps me going every single day.”
Wyatt Hendrickson: Olympic Aspirations and RAF presentation-style
When asked if those lower moments competing have more of an impactful importance piece insofar as maintaining the routine than maybe even the big victories and whatnot, Wyatt Hendrickson stated [via Bowks Talking Bouts],
“Yeah, the big victories are awesome and it feels great, but as far as a motivational factor, it does serve as motivation because you want to be like, “Hey, this feels good.” But whenever you’re finding that motivation through like a loss or something that wasn’t a good experience, for me personally, it has more of just more of that drive aspect.”
“It has a little bit more meaning because I mean just like at the casino, the way your brain works, yeah, it’s fun winning, but as soon as you win, you don’t care. You want to keep pulling the machine because you want to get that again, but you don’t realize at the end of the day, oh, I lost all my money.”
“So it’s like it’s kind of the same way in wrestling. Like after you walk away it’s like man, I won big but it doesn’t feel like it because I lost so much money there. So the same thing in wrestling like yeah it’s fun to win but those losses I remember and I feel those a little bit more.”
While this Real American Freeestyle contest is squarely in his focus, Wyatt Hendrickson is also working towards an Olympic run at the next games and is pushing forward in that direction. Considering these moving parts, when it was mentioned it would presumably behoove his path towards that goal, Wyatt Hendrickson quipped [via Bowks Talking Bouts],
“Yes, the RAF is awesome because we want to have matches as often as possible. It’s not good to go months without a competition and RAF allows us to get some of those matches in where we need them most. This is one of those perfect situations where if there wasn’t RAF, I would be going like two, two and a half months of no competition before the US Open.”
“So, it’s definitely one of those things that I’m grateful to have it in place because I can make it a cool show. I can wrestle some great opponents, but also it serves as a really good; like RAF is a full there’s no like really season so far as I’ve seen.”
“It’s just all wrestling. So, that’s nice to have because there’s always a competition we can look forward to or schedule a match to wrestle when it might be a so-called off season for the Olympics or the world team timeline.”
RAF also utilizes more of a superfight structure to use more of a jiu-jitsu parlance, with the specific two competitors being highlighted in more of an accented way.
In a contrasting way that exists outside of a broader tournament framework which wrestling has historically presented, and when asked how much the RAF way serves to spotlight and market the individual wrestlers, a more with that superfight presentation piece, Wyatt Hendrickson said [via Bowks Talking Bouts],
“Yes, and with that; that’s really unique is you really get to take an inside peak of the wrestlers and what their life is like, their training. That’s something that no one else does. I got to applaud Real American Freestyle for doing that. Cuz whenever you watch a match, if you just see two guys shake hands, start wrestling, there’s no really emotions attached to it. You’re just seeing two people wrestling.”
“But if you get to there’s like a whole little mini documentary before they wrestle and it explains their life, what they’ve been through, all this and that, then there’s a lot more emotion attached to it. Then you can; you see both the wrestlers and you can be like, “Oh man, like this guy’s; I want to go for this guy.” Like there’s a lot more behind the scenes that it allows you to see which you wouldn’t see in traditional, just a regular wrestling match.”
“So I got to applaud RAF for the amazing work they do on the back end to present that to athletes competing every single match.”