Askren vs. Wright highlights Agon I event in Las Vegas

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Updated: October 16, 2013

Ben Askren, the former four-time NCAA finalist, two-time champion and two-time Hodge Trophy winner from Missouri, will return to the mat, Oct. 27, when the current MMA champion will take on Quentin Wright, the former two-time NCAA titlist from Penn State, in the Agon I Wrestling Championships at the Rio Hotel in Las Vegas.agonwc art

Created by Mike DiSabato and the United Wrestling Group, LLC, this event — as part of the Las Vegas Freak Show tournament — will actually feature four different match-ups in a setting that will feature rules similar to college folkstyle. Matches would last nine minutes (with three, three-minute periods) instead of seven minutes as in college, wrestled on a hexagonal-shaped mat, without a cage. Competitors would vie for title belts.

In the other match-ups, former Ohio State All-American Lance Palmer will face Jordan Oliver, the former two-time NCAA champion from Oklahoma State; former Michigan State All-American Nick Simmons will take on Stephen Abas, the former Fresno State national champion and 2004 Olympic silver medalist; and a meeting between Jay Borschel, the former NCAA champ from Iowa, and Aaron Simpson, who previously excelled at Arizona State before becoming an MMA star.

In the featured match-up, Askren, who won his NCAA titles at 174 pounds in 2006 and 2007, has held the welterweight belt in the Bellator Fighting Championships since 2010; two years after Askren competed at the 2008 Olympics in Beijing, China. Wright, a four-time All-American for the Nittany Lions, won the 197-pound NCAA championship last March, two years after he won the 184-pound title for Penn State.

This inaugural event is expected to be the first of seven similar events that will be around the country. The next Agon event will be held in Flint, Mich., on Dec. 22. In 2014, there are more events planned for Ithaca, N.Y. (in January), Columbus, Ohio (February), Clovis, Calif. (March), Indiana, Pa. (April), and again in Las Vegas next July.

For more information on this event, go to http://www.agonwc.com/

 

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