@BlackHair Lee great but definitely not the greatest in ncaa history. Once Tom Brands hit soph yr, he was beast mode 3x, Iowa Chris Campell came out of NYC hood to 3x in 70's and 2x Olympian including bronze at 38yrs old. and MANY other 3x guys were just as dominant as Spencer. I forget his name but Iowa 177 in 78-82 dude was national champion freshman, sophomore, 2nd junior yr, 1st again senior and gold in Olympics, he was more dominant than Lee as was 3x Randy Lewis ( & Olympian gold) others. Lee is recent history, there's been many legends going way back. 1980's. Even Carlton Haselrig, wrestled at a D2 school, barely ever wrestled D1 guys EXCEPT he was so dominant in D2 the NCAA gave him a spot 3 yrs in a row at D1 ncaa's and he crushed everyone > 3x D1 champ along with 3x D2 championships at heavyweight > 6x total ncaa championships, much more difficult for big men to win nationals as freshman & sophomores than it is for 125lbers.
@Luke Murray Spencer Lee has won 3 national championships this would have been 4th He is a senior also . Sorry dont know his over all record but he rarely ever looses!
@KG-hm4gk Thanks for the reminder, KG. 👍🏽 Yeah, the story of Gable's sister is very tragic. But very motivating how Dan Gable stepped up and kept his family together after that horrendous incident committed by a very sick and POS individual. That's a heavy burden for anyone to carry, let alone a young teen.
@Diego Pons 1970, I remember because that was my senior year in high school and my last year of wrestling. Everyone knew who he was and why he wrestled like he did, the death of his sister.
Hours before this match, Ramos had an interview and said he had a plan. You can really see him execute it here. 1) He chooses neutral in 3rd instead of bottom (Lee chose top in 2nd) because Lee's tilt is so deadly 2) He uses his Greco-Roman experience to full advantage. In their duel meet match earlier this year, Ramos dominated on his feet, but Lee pinned him as soon as he got on top. 3) He uses an excellent standing Granby roll twice to get escapes into immediate counter-attacks. 4) He is constantly pushing into Lee, then changing direction to throw him off balance. Even in the cases where this didn't score him points, it is obviously effective, often sending Lee onto his butt or into a desperate scramble. I would have loved to watch Lee make history tomorrow night. He's such an exciting wrestler to watch, and such a darn nice guy, that you can't help but cheer for him. I wish he had gotten the happy ending he seemed destined for. But on the other hand, this feels like the first chapter in a story just as exciting.
I didn't known that about Ramos pre match! I said beginning of the season. Alot of people are training specifically for Spencer this year. And it almost cost him three times. Wished he would have wrestled back in the backside, but oh well. Here's to the next big thing!
What's that last move Ramos hit for 5 called? I'm not used to seeing a roll away from the trapped arm. It was slick though, they don't call them home runs for nothing. Fun match.
@Butter lol I read that wrong, thought you were asking if he lost to the same guy from high school. Yeah he won three state titles and lost his senior year just like this time. The only person I though could have even competed with him was fix or suriano but after watching that killer performance by Glory at finals maybe he would of beat him. He looked slick as shit.
@Butter Lee is the same kid but desantos isn't who he lost to at finals. I don't like making excuses for anyone but Lee was nursing an injury when he lost to desantos in high school. He's been wearing that huge leg brace ever since.
@Jakob Folmar since your from PA as I am. Didn't he lose the same way in high school? 3 time state champ and then Desanto beat him in his last match. This is the same kid right?
What a weapon on his feet. He knew to stay off bottom to start the 3rd. Take that chance with a neutral start. Smarts and confidence there. A great career for Lee.
@Jakob Folmar I watched the match again and clearly saw that Ramos signaled neutral in the 3rd. What through ESPN and the two of us off was that we didn't see a clear signal from Lee in the 2nd.
I should note that I watched all the matches on ESPN. The commentators there said that Ramos chose bottom in the 2nd and questioned his decision. That was what I was going on in my other comment here. I then read the other comments in this string and also watched other inline commentaries which said that it was Ramos' choice to go neutral in the 3rd. So it is not clear to me who had the choices in the 2nd and 3rd.
@A E Wow. With the two medical forfeits announced today (in the consolation bracket), the semi final loss was his last wrestled loss of his career. Spencer was a very impressive, dominating wrestler. Shocked how his career ended.
Exactly and now, with Lee, we get to see HOW great he is-and will be, if he--as he, rises to the occasion. Gable went into a funk, but came out of it. One famous boxing champ once said "you can't see the great until you see how they handle getting beat". Something like that; now will Lee use this to get even better, like Gable did. Maybe?
Actually no, Lee totally gassed and gave up. He was WELL off his back and, I think, got choked out. He only needed to hold out for a few more seconds. His fire and fitness were not in the ball park for this season. If he couldn't crap tilt you in the first 2 minutes...he was a shell the rest of the match.
Amazing. Put him on his back twice, and the way he got that escape and came back aggressive and went for it was amazing. Seemed to catch Lee off guard.
Congrats to Ramos. I gotta say it’s insanely tough to continue competing at a high level with two torn ACLs even after surgery. You can tell it has affected him. He doesn’t move as good as before and gets gassed quickly. Even if he can’t get his 4th title, he’s still an unbelievable wrestler. Hats off to Matt Ramos tho.
@W S I was always taught that it's just a reverse gator roll, but there may be another name for it. It's pretty common in freestyle, it's a good way to keep your opponent guessing, not knowing which side you'll roll to. You can also bait him by attempting a regular gator roll then switching to the reverse roll halfway through, his body weight will be leaning towards the side you'll roll into because he's defending/resisting the first gator roll attempt towards the other side.
@W S you’ll see Ramos position his right arm across Spencer’s sternum to fully gator roll him. It is quite unorthodox but Spencer had great defense with his own right arm so Ramos chose to roll the opposite way and it just worked for him but you have to commit 110%
@Ricepower30YT I've asked this in a few threads and the best I've gotten is a variation on the gator roll. I've never seen rolling away from the trapped arm like that does it have a specific name? In a traditional gator roll he would've rolled towards the trapped left arm or counter clockwise if that makes sense. But yeah I've watched it 12 times, would love a name to find an instructional.
@wrestle4life234 yeah I agree. I was shouting, “get off your knees!” now I’m just a bum that love wrestling and know I would lose to a 125lbs champion every day even though I have 100lbs on them haha. Being on your knees is just bad overall but credit to Ramos for putting all his weight and pressure on Spencer to not allow him to get up
I actually thought, “What if Ramos pinned him in the last minute” right before he threw The Move. I think I’ll try my luck at guessing the Lotto numbers!
@Adam Ski yes ik but this past year it’s been pretty clear that it’s possible for him to go to his bad and Ramos proved it multiple times from freestyle/greco moves
You can tell Lee was giving Ramos too much respect by 15 seconds in. He usually attempts a hi-c on the right leg by that time. No shot attempts in the first period. Once i saw no takedowns in the first i said Ramos is going to pull this off because Lee gets weaker as matches get longer.
My name is Rob Rohn from Lehigh. I won a NCAA championship in wrestling. Some consider it the greatest upset win in NCAA wrestling history. I will tell you right now, this one beats mine. I am shocked
Wrestling fan here. If you are Rob. Yours definitely beats Ramos. You won a title with your gator roll/ cement mixer. Was that your go to move? Nice submission move
See what happens when you incorporate all 3 styles of wresting into one masterpiece. Haven’t seen lee thrown like that since his younger days. Great match, all respect to both warriors, only one can go further.
Ramos showed in January he might have the edge in neutral. Even though he still lost despite being up 8-1 in the first that's information to take with you and a confidence boost.
Great match, tough to see Spencer get pinned, hats off to Ramos, he came to battle like in the Dual. Both of them fought and fought for sure, great match.
I always had this impression that the guys Lee was beating were some how “letting” him win.. I had thought last night that Lee might lose in the semis or finals, just going off of the quarterfinals win, he was momentarily on his back and then in the interview, Lee seemed SHOOK and very nerve rattled and was giving quick answers and not happy looking or sounding. Brutal way to lose. The Iowa curse, like Dan gable, and also Lee losing his final match in high school. Sucks to suck.. but most just dream of getting on the podium, let alone winning THREE NCAA TITLES. So we can’t feel too sorry for mr Lee. Go PSU!
That was one of the sickest moves I've ever seen. To execute it at that moment against arguably the best 125lber to ever do it is just simply clutch. Not taking anything away from Ramos but Lee looked anything other than dominant the entire match!
Much respect to the warrior who beat Lee. Much more respect to the man beaten. An inspiring wrestler to whom no one holds a candle to. You’re the man, Spenser Lee. My heart and admiration goes out to you.
I am a casual fan, but I watched the dual meet between Ramos and Lee during the season. When Ramos was up 8 to 1, I knew he would be a problem for Lee. I felt like Lee was confident on the mat, and too confident specifically going into this match, whether because he not only beat but pinned Ramos previously or not. It will be interesting to watch how he wrestles tomorrow morning for the third place title.
Gotta disagree. Lee gave Ramos props at the handshake in the first match on the throw. And Lee definitely respected the hell out of Ramos' upper body weapons. Looked more to me like Lee just got caught in a wild position and paid the price. Hats off to Ramos for being game til the very end. Signed, a Spencer Lee Fan boy lol
I love to see the comment section. All respect to Ramos for beating one of the best Hawkeyes in the past decade. Sad to see Lee go but the whole community loves him
Shall we call that the “Ramos Roll”. Literally with .01 seconds left HE’S STUCK! 😮 Kudos to Matt 👏🏼 And Spencer will be always be a legend. My god I love this sport and hot damn I love tournament. 🙏🏼
Huge upset! But anyone could possibly see this coming at some point. Lee has been handled many times upperbody this year and this shows how difficult the four x thing is. Only sport you can be ahead by a ton and as long as their is time on the clock, you can lose. Credit to Ramos , he had no fear of Lee on his feet and thanks to Lee for giving us fans so much to applaud over the last couple of years.
@Michael North hehehehe, says little Mikey from mommy's basement with his Fritos and strawberry Walmart soda. Is that what they told you when you lost your4x hotdog eating contest!?
@Zayne S It is over already. Technically, not mathematically over, but it is over nonetheless. Lee finishing 3rd or 6th makes no difference. Iowa has no chance of catching PSU. There is very little chance of any team catching Iowa for 2nd place either. 1. PSU, 2. Iowa, 3. through 7. is a fight between Cornell, Ohio State, Missouri, Michigan and Nebraska.
@Michael North right lol, like a 3x national champ and 2x Hodge Trophy winner is easy to do. You must be a 4x and 3x'er. Because that's what Lee was looking at doing.
@anthonymorton9299 possibly...hard to tell...so much pressure...to be 1 of a handful to win 4... looked focused to me but locking hands around him just before the roll was a lax move to ride out the clock... looked like he got away from his norm of score score score
It almost seemed like he was so accustomed to winning that he would just try to cruise through the matches and now that he faced someone that was competitive he had trouble
What an amazing match for both of them but such a bold but effective pin/finishing move to end the match. I got to wrestle against Spencer Lee's high school team in team state playoffs and we barely got by them... then we got beat by Canon Mac :(
I remember I use to wrestle with matt in the same club back in Bolingbrook IL when we were on the raiders together he’s always been good super proud of you matt !
I can watch this all day…Ramos had the will and determination to win…they even gave Lee 2pt take down when the video shows Lee’s foot was in the air and out of bounds…Great win Ramos…
I'm a Pennsylvania guy and a huge Penn State fan. What I just witnessed I'm speechless over. Iowa is our huge rival, and I never saw Spencer Lee losing. Ever. Huge hat off to Ramos for an intelligent Match...
@Kristopher Wilson And even Zain Retherford and Bo Nickal AND Jason Nolf. All who were disappointed by past tournaments and didn't want that feeling ever again. I think Bean Bartlett and Shayne Van Ness will also go down as two of the Penn State greats down the road, but Shayne's time I feel is definitely coming quick.
@Biden is a traitor strongly disagree. Dan Gable's loss to Owings in 1971 is not what people remember him for. Once the shock goes away and once he transitions to freestyle (if he does) his whole career will be remembered. Can say something similar about David Taylor (4x finalist, losing to Bubba Jenkins and Kyle Dake), Isaiah Martinez, Mark Hall, etc.
Between Matt Ramos and the men’s basketball team, Purdue was on different sides of a couple of the most historic upsets in college sports history… on the same day
When Lee chose to be on top after Ramos deferred, I thought “oh sh*t, he has to believe he can turn him and ride him out.” Lee did just that. I love nothing more than to watch Iowa lose, but never expected this. Great match.
This is a point in Lee’s career where he can either go uphill and get better as a result of this loss like how Gable went to whole other level after his Owings loss, or go downhill and be a small part of history like when Dean Heil lost his senior year
I admire Lee for many reasons, least of which is his ability to tilt up just about anyone in the world, whenever he wants. But I am heart broken he didn’t answer the call for two more matches to let everyone in the world know what kind of man he is, win or lose, that is what wrestling teaches us, courage to do what we do not want to do!!
Now I can finally say I told ya so, after watching their previous match a couple weeks ago, I predicted this would happen. Shame on them doubters! 😂 I even mentioned the thing about gable vs. Larry in that old comment. Poor Lee though, hope it isn't too heartbreaking for him that he stops wrestling.
What an incredible move to flip Lee! Ramos had been on top of Lee's head the whole match wearing him down and that set up the move. Must have been planning that for weeks.
That’s savage. I think this is the most neutral someone’s had spencer lee and I think that pin was amazing. Congrats to Ramos and great work from spencer lee; as always. As disappointing as it may seem I hope spencer can overcome that and come back and destroy the competition wherever he decides to compete.
Even without the pin Ramos had it won with back points! That is a clean win over one of the best of all time. Credit to both guys for going all out all throughout!