Wisconsin wrestlers find unique opportunity to compete at home as pros

Keegan O’Toole didn’t expect to get another chance to wrestle in Wisconsin after he graduated from Arrowhead High School.

Lo and behold he did. And he made the most of his opportunity.

The four-time WIAA champion and two-time NCAA champion at Missouri won his match and caught up with old friends when Real American Freestyle brought unscripted professional wrestling to the UWM Panther Arena for the first time July 18.

While RAF 11 served as a proper sendoff for legend Ben Askren, it also was a surprise opportunity for other competitors such as O’Toole.

“To be back here in Milwaukee and to be here with Ben and Aeoden [Sinclair], I did not care about anything other than the experience of it,” O’Toole said. “I was like, I’m just gonna wrestle hard. That’s it. I’m not worried about the outcome.

“I’m just so happy that I had the coach that was so influential to me alive, for one, and I get to watch him wrestle. I’m in the locker room hanging out with them.”

The event was sold out, drawing about 7,000 people, organizers said, the largest crowd RAF has had since it debuted late last summer.

A sizable percentage came to see Askren, the Hartland native who made a one-match return to the mat on his 42^nd birthday a year after undergoing double lung transplant surgery. But the Wisconsin partisans had three other home favorites for whom to cheer.

O’Toole, who is now an assistant coach at Missouri, came back to defeat Christopher Minto of the University of Nebraska 14-9.

University of Wisconsin associate head wrestling coach Tony Cassioppi came out bloodied from his heavyweight match with Egyptian Mostafa Elders but was a 6-2 winner.

Sinclair, a Mizzou junior and Milton native, suffered a 6-3 defeat to Bulgarian Magomed Ramazanov.

Having wrestlers with local connections to an event goes beyond selling tickets for RAF.

“It goes back to the vision of the organization,” said Izzy Martinez, the longtime wrestling and MMA coach who serves as Real American Freestyle’s chief operating officer and primary matchmaker.  “We’re growing a sport and we want to help a lot of kids along the way.

“We want them to be able to say, hey, I’m going to wrestle in RAF after college and not always have to go into other fighting sports. … They need to see the kids that grew up in the same neighborhood, ate at the same pizza restaurant … and that’s why it’s so important to have those guys on these cards.”

A Real American Freestyle show has some of the feel of other combat sports with swirling lights, pyrotechnics and a dance beat. It was co-founded by the late Hulk Hogan, and longtime WWE figure Eric Bischoff leads production as RAF’s chief media officer.

As much as college champions and Olympians are the core of the league, it benefits from crossover athletes from the mixed martial arts who bring name recognition as well as some style and trash talk.

In the live-streamed news conference a day before the matches, Colby Covington had so much to say about opponent Arman Tsarukyan and Askren’s opponent, Belal Muhammad, the moderator cut him off twice. Then Covington went after Muhammad on the podium during the final session after both had won.

Most of the night wasn’t like that though, as current collegians battled their predecessors and international champions and Olympians squared off.

“We’ve learned a lot from them, and UFC set the bar,” CEO Chad Bronstein said. “But for us, I don’t think I’ve never heard Izzy or anybody talk about, ‘We need to be like that.’ That’s why I think we’re being successful.”

Bronstein said he believes there is room in the combat sports space for WWE, UFC and RAF to thrive and complement one another more than compete.

Real American Freestyle’s goal is to provide professional opportunities for freestyle wrestlers to continue in their natural form of competition and help the sport escape the niche label. In conjunction with USA Wrestling, RAF hosts youth competitions along with its shows, including its first one Sunday at the Arena.

“[Freestyle wrestling] was a niche, but it was super powerful in that niche to multimillions of people,” Bronstein said. “I don’t think we’re niche anymore. We’re a mainstream sport.

“We are making wrestling impact more people’s lives. People come to our events and their kids are leaving tour events and maybe now they’re a football guy but he’s like, ah, I want to be a wrestler too.”

O’Toole isn’t ashamed to admit a traditional wrestling meet isn’t particularly interesting to people who don’t know a lot about the sport, but said the RAF formula of a card with some familiar names and the right vibe changes everything. O’Toole had some fun while wrestling Minto, flashing a quick thumbs-up to his old college roommate and teammate Peyton Mocco while the clock was still running.

“Seeing him mat-side, and then having Ben at the bottom [of the steps], giving him a hug, [former Arrowhead] coach [John] Mesenbrink, Max [Askren], all those guys, it was an experience that I’ll never get again in my entire life,” O’Toole said. “And so I had to take advantage of it.”

With his sights set on graduate school and becoming a certified public accountant, O’Toole is nearing the end of his days as a competitive wrestler, days he was fortunate to be able to extend.

“I’m not gonna remember whether I won or lost,” he said. “I’m gonna remember who I was there with.”

This article originally appeared on Milwaukee Journal Sentinel: Wisconsin wrestlers find unique opportunity to compete at home as pros