Hardly 36 hours after posterizing the NCAA tournament record books, Penn State Wrestling picked up one of the most both unlikely and impressive recruiting commitments imaginable.
A 20 year old Masanosuke Ono was the poster child of a resurgent and dominant performance by the Japanese last October at the Senior Freestyle World Championships in Albania—taking out former Olympic Champion Zavur Uguev, and defending world champ, USA’s Vito Arujau with a combination of explosive athleticism and a wide variety of crisp technique enroute to the 61Kg World Title. After winning, Ono gave interviews where in broken English, he told the world he planned to train “at Penn State.”
This turned to a several month stay in Happy Valley training with the Nittany Lion Wrestling Club, as Ono prepared for a match (he would win) against former Iowa standout and 57Kg Olympic Silver Medalist Spencer Lee, and the wrestling commentariat pondered any possibility of Ono joining the NLWC longer term or—seemingly in jest—that he might end up wrestling for the collegiate Folkstyle team.
That rumor now appears to be coming to pass as Ono revealed on FloWrestling Radio Live and later confirmed on his Instagram, that he will in fact be joining the Folksytle team. For how long? Ono doesn’t seem to know for sure. At what weight? He joked on the podcast that he’s good anywhere from 125lbs to 157lb, but I think most see 133 or 141 most likely.
This commit is pretty unprecedented. Ono is considered by many to be one of the very best Freestyle wrestlers of any size/age on planet Earth. And now he’s preparing to train for Folkstyle wresting for the very first time and fit into the well oiled machine at the height of its powers that is Penn State Wresting. An explosive combination, to be sure. There are unknowns: Will he be able to learn effective bottom wrestling? Will his considerable par terre abilities in Freestyle translate into the controlled turns of Folksytle? There are obviously a large number of lineup questions to ponder as well—with or without this explosive addition. Much to consider and discuss in the long off season ahead.
AloJapan.com