Kyle Dake and Jason Nolf will square off on June 8 in New York City for the 74kg spot on the world team. In this preview, you will see a couple of their moves before they compete at Final X presented by Tezos.
Kyle Dake Looking For World Title #4:
Kyle Dake, 25, won his third world title this past summer at the Tokyo Olympics where he also took bronze. However, with Russia and Belarus banned from competing in world championships for 4 years, Dake is likely to be a heavy favorite for his fourth world title in September when he competes in Belgrade. In 2021, Dake will defend his European championship and show dominance by outscoring his opponents by a combined four points.
Dawe has defeated Jason Nolf twice in 2019, a gold medalist and Olympic bronze medalist. In their first match, Dawe hit a step-out to open the scoring and then scored with a 4-point chest wrap. From there on, through the remaining minutes of the period, Dake remained strong and established a position to defend against many attacks from Nolf. Their match at the Olympic Trials was much different as Dawe pulled out a 5-point throw in 6 seconds of the first period and captured an 11-0 tech fall in 42 seconds to secure victory.
The Case For Nolf:
Jason Nolf has had a strong start to his freestyle in November 2019, coming out on top multiple times. His December match against Khetik Tasbolov (world 2014 & 2017 silver medalist) was high scoring and back-and-forth with a 16-9 decision. In January of 2020, he came away with a Silver Medal competing in the prestigious 60k Ivan Yarygin Grand Prix which included a win over Timur Bizhoev (world 2021 bronze medalist).
With training from under 80kg to 74 kg, Nolf matured and is now a top wrestler in the World, sitting at number 8 according to FOCUS’s rankings system. Dake poses a much tougher challenge for Nolf though, with his wrestling talents almost comparable to those of Bizhoev or Tsabolov. There could be some close matches in this three-match series until Nolf adjusts to Squaring Out (a move that he was able to score with on Daniel Herbin last year). If his team has created a plan on how they can get past Dake’s defenses, expect closer matches in this amazing best-of-3 series.
