How did the Super 32 field compare to Fargo this year?

Photo: Bo Bassett, the first four-time high school boys’ Super 32 Challenge champion, also dominated his way to a Junior National title in Fargo this past July. Photo by Tony Rotundo.

Editor’s Note: This article appeared in WIN’s Volume 32 Issue 2, which printed on Oct. 31, 2025. Click here or call 641-792-4436 to subscribe to WIN Magazine. Buy a Digital or Combo Subscription to get immediate digital access to WIN’s Volume 32 Issue 2.

By Rob Sherrill

The Super 32 is an event that the nation’s top prep wrestlers look forward to every October. As the nation’s biggest single-field high school event, the Super 32 has drawn many comparisons to USA Wrestling’s giant 16U and Junior Nationals, which take place at the iconic Fargodome in July.

The styles are obviously different, with Fargo treating us to freestyle and Greco, the Super 32 to folkstyle. The ever-increasing popularity of the Super 32 also invites the real comparison that inquiring minds want to know about: Which one is tougher?

I decided to take a look. Using the individual rankings I compile for WIN as a guide, I compared the number of ranked wrestlers who competed at Fargo to the number of ranked wrestlers who competed in the Super 32. Granted, we’re comparing up to four Fargo tournaments to one Super 32. Still, the results were surprising, and they are a testament to the job that USA Wrestling has done selling its age-group development programs.

In 2025, the wrestler I had ranked No. 1 competed at Fargo, either in the 16U or in the Junior Nationals, in 11 of the 14 weight classes (I combined all weight classes 106 and below into a single weight class for this assessment, since the lowest weight class I rank is 106). The 165-pound class was led by the wrestler I had ranked No. 2, and 106 and 138 were headed by the wrestler I had ranked No. 3. But 11 out of 14? That’s a staggering number of top-ranked wrestlers in a single event.

By contrast, the Super 32 that just concluded contained only four wrestlers now ranked No. 1 – Ariah Mills (106) and Antonio Mills (126) of Georgia, Moses Mendoza (132) of California and Bo Bassett (150) of Pennsylvania. All four won their weight classes relatively easily — three months after Antonio Mills, Mendoza and Bassett won Junior National freestyle titles at Fargo, and Ariah Mills one-upped them with a U17 World freestyle gold medal. Four Super 32 weight classes were headed by my No. 2 wrestler, five more by my No. 3 wrestler, and one, 215, by my No. 4 wrestler.

Overall, more ranked wrestlers competed at Fargo than at the Super 32 in 10 of the 14 weight classes. The Super 32 held the edge in just two weight classes, and two weight classes wound up in a tie. See the chart above.

There are a couple of extenuating circumstances. First, the numbers of wrestlers in the upper weights at the Super 32 have always been low, given that the tournament is conducted at the height of the football season. Additionally, the Super 32 preregistration list included counts of ranked wrestlers that often trended slightly ahead of the Fargo numbers. But scratches and no-shows resulted in the numbers shown above.

That said, the comparisons in quality were even more pronounced than those in quantity. Not only did just four No. 1 wrestlers compete in the Super 32, but wrestlers ranked in the top five stayed away in droves.

Only four of the 14 weight classes attracted as many as three of the top five at the weight. The participation of wrestlers ranked in the top 10 was nearly equally as sparse. Instead, it was in the second 10 of the rankings where ranked wrestler counts increased significantly, and not just in the upper weights. See the chart below.

Only two Super 32 weight classes attracted more than half of the wrestlers ranked in the top 10. Those were 132 and 150, the latter boasting eight of the top nine. The 196 ranked wrestlers who competed, however, computes to well over half of the overall total of 350 ranked wrestlers — 56%, to be exact.

There was still plenty of movement within the rankings. Additionally, the tournament was a springboard for 19 wrestlers who made their debuts in the newest Top 25 — five of them at 150 alone.

Next up on the rankings carousel is likely to be the Walsh Ironman in December. That tournament always produces plenty of drama, and we’ll be chronicling it right here.