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The Hodge

The-Dude-Abides

The-Dude-Abides

HB MVP
Jan 1, 2023
1,945
6,221
113
Fan voting (for whatever the hell it's worth) is open until Friday at 5 central. Finalists are Mesenbrink, Starocci, and Hendrickson. Winner announced next Monday at noon central.

For me, it's gotta be Hendrickson. Beats two NCAA champs and Olympic gold medalist while racking up a shit ton of pins.

Edit to add: the winner of the fan vote gets 5 first-place votes, so definitely not nothing.

Mesenbrink, Starocci, Hendrickson are finalists for Hodge Trophy; voting now open

Vote for Dan Hodge TrophyThe finalists have been announced for the 2025 WIN Magazine/Culture House Dan Hodge Trophy, presented annually by ASICS Wrestling to the nation’s top NCAA Division I wrestler.The coveted trophy was created in 1994 by former WIN...
www.themat.com
 
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The-Dude-Abides said:
Fan voting (for whatever the hell it's worth) is open until Friday at 5 central. Finalists are Mesenbrink, Starocci, and Hendrickson. Winner announced next Monday at noon central.

For me, it's gotta be Hendrickson. Beats two NCAA champs and Olympic gold medalist while racking up a shit ton of pins.

Edit to add: the winner of the fan vote gets 5 first-place votes, so definitely not nothing.

Mesenbrink, Starocci, Hendrickson are finalists for Hodge Trophy; voting now open

Vote for Dan Hodge TrophyThe finalists have been announced for the 2025 WIN Magazine/Culture House Dan Hodge Trophy, presented annually by ASICS Wrestling to the nation’s top NCAA Division I wrestler.The coveted trophy was created in 1994 by former WIN...
www.themat.com
Click to expand...

Hendrickson also has the highest dominance score. This isn't really an argument.
 
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It's Messenbrink for me. I get why they would give it to Starocci or Hendrickson, but the reward is truly supposed to be given to the most dominant wrestler. Even with how good Caliendo wrestled this year, he was NEVER close to winning and even got teched one of the 3 matches.

But, I do see that for all that dominance, Mitch didn't have a single win by fall, but 18 of his 27 wins were TF's. He only had 3 matches by regular decision and those were 8-2, 5-0 and 4-1...
 
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Wyatt had a 22-0 record prior to NCAAs with 10 pins and 85% bonus rate. In what we all called one of the toughest weights of all time, certainly for heavyweights.

Then at NCAAs
3 pins
Win over defending champ Kerk
Win over "next topic" GOAT of heavyweights
And this:
Results against 2025 NCAA Qualifiers

  • Record: 17-0
Bonus Breakdown:

  • 7 falls
  • 4 tech falls
  • 0 majors
  • 1 injury default
  • 5 decisions

    2024-25 wins against 2025 All-Americans: 8
 
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MSU158 said:
It's Messenbrink for me. I get why they would give it to Starocci or Hendrickson, but the reward is truly supposed to be given to the most dominant wrestler. Even with how good Caliendo wrestled this year, he was NEVER close to winning and even got teched one of the 3 matches.

But, I do see that for all that dominance, Mitch didn't have a single win by fall, but 18 of his 27 wins were TF's. He only had 3 matches by regular decision and those were 8-2, 5-0 and 4-1...
Click to expand...
Besides Caliendo and Amine, how many other AA's did he wrestle? The high end of Hendrickson's wins are pretty impressive. Heavyweight was a pretty loaded class this year too.
 
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Hendrickson. Mesenbrink had a great year, but the weight just didn't have much depth. Caliendo wins the weight going away as well if Mes wasn't there and it wouldn't mean he deserves the Hodge either. They have the first and second tier each to themselves then a big drop to third tier.
 
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ChiPackHawk said:
Besides Caliendo and Amine, how many other AA's did he wrestle? The high end of Hendrickson's wins are pretty impressive. Heavyweight was a pretty loaded class this year too.
Click to expand...
I am fine with using his win over Steveson as the deciding factor, but the main body of work really isn’t any more impressive than Messenbrink. His two best wins after Steveson were both relatively close matches with Schultz. After that he had a couple over Trumble and 1 over Kueter. It falls off considerably from there, excepting Kerkvliet and he was injured enough to default the rest of the way after that match, so it makes it hard to gauge that win.

Again, I have zero issue with picking Wyatt, but I still think Messenbrink and his style was the most dominant in all of DI. But, Wyatt most certainly had the biggest win and that isn’t even close and could definitely swing it in his favor.
 
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I guess I don't see how anybody besides Hendrickson could even have an argument.

The definition of domination is pinning, and he did it more than anybody, while beating two national champions and an Olympic gold medalist on his way to a natty.

IMO this is even more clear cut than the Spencer vs. Gable bs.
 
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GoHawks1996 said:
I guess I don't see how anybody besides Hendrickson could even have an argument.

The definition of domination is pinning, and he did it more than anybody, while beating two national champions and an Olympic gold medalist on his way to a natty.

IMO this is even more clear cut than the Spencer vs. Gable bs.
Click to expand...
Again, I don’t want to disparage Wyatt. He is very deserving of the Hodge and I get the fall argument. It’s just that I wasn’t pinned very often, but I could always at least explain what happened and how to adjust for it. But, when it comes to getting tech falled, that is an azz whooping in every possible way. There is no other way to rationalize it. You got beat as bad as wrestling allows.

Winning by fall at a weight were guys rarely get off their backs if they get put there doesn’t impress me more than winning 21-5 on a regular basis. But, beating Steveson certainly makes it harder to argue against him…
 
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MSU158 said:
Again, I don’t want to disparage Wyatt. He is very deserving of the Hodge and I get the fall argument. It’s just that I wasn’t pinned very often, but I could always at least explain what happened and how to adjust for it. But, when it comes to getting tech falled, that is an azz whooping in every possible way. There is no other way to rationalize it. You got beat as bad as wrestling allows.

Winning by fall at a weight were guys rarely get off their backs if they get put there doesn’t impress me more than winning 21-5 on a regular basis. But, beating Steveson certainly makes it harder to argue against him…
Click to expand...
Until a TF counts as 6 and a Fall counts as 5…gotta reward pins.
 
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A21408t said:
Until a TF counts as 6 and a Fall counts as 5…gotta reward pins.
Click to expand...
I would like to revisit that argument in about 4 years. Not saying you are wrong at all, just when Bassett has a crap ton of techs, that will probably convey dominance.
 
4net3sandbagger said:
I would like to revisit that argument in about 4 years. Not saying you are wrong at all, just when Bassett has a crap ton of techs, that will probably convey dominance.
Click to expand...
Difficult to get “caught” and end up teched. In that way, I do think techs are more dominant. But I’m for Wyatt winning it, because of who he beat, how he beat basically everyone else, and because I kinda doubt he “caught” anyone for a pin 😂
 
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MilleGinja said:
Difficult to get “caught” and end up teched. In that way, I do think techs are more dominant. But I’m for Wyatt winning it, because of who he beat, how he beat basically everyone else, and because I kinda doubt he “caught” anyone for a pin 😂
Click to expand...
wyatt pins nearly everyone. its done in a pretty dominant way nothing flukey about his pins
 
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acuhawk said:
Write in for Buchanan. dude showed up every week wrestled the toughest guys won a lot of duals. Team mvp what's Trump's anything any other guy did 😎
Click to expand...
He was my favorite wrestler this year. He always did what was needed for the team in those tight duals and then rocked it at NCAAs!! Wish we could have had him for the past 5 years!
 
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MilleGinja said:
Difficult to get “caught” and end up teched. In that way, I do think techs are more dominant. But I’m for Wyatt winning it, because of who he beat, how he beat basically everyone else, and because I kinda doubt he “caught” anyone for a pin 😂
Click to expand...
True story. I definitely think if things are pretty equal, a big win should be the deciding factor. He definitely was a "force" pinner, not a "catch" pinner.
 
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