Nick Suriano is a stone cold figure in the sport of wrestling, a real go-getter and a hard worker as most will say. More than one of his coaches have given him praise on the fact that you can find the hardest working kid in the room and Suriano will out work him like it’s his job. Daton Fix is just as silent as a figure, eyes forward for the task at hand. They both had really impressive highschool careers. They are both 4 time state champions. They wrestled in College in the 2018-2019 season twice. Sparking a rivalry that was short but very tense.
Daton Fix is from Oklahoma, a 4 time state champion in high school with an impressive record of 168-0 in high school. Nick Suraino had just as impressive of a career in his native state of New Jersey winning 4 state titles and boasting a record of 159-0 in high school.
Fix ended up staying in his home state of Oklahoma and attending Oklahoma State University.
Suriano would leave New Jersey to wrestle at Penn State. Fix had a stable team and stayed in Oklahoma. Suriano however got injured his freshman year and ended up transferring to Rutgers University in his home state of New Jersey after the end of his freshman year.. His senior year he was with Michigan. They are both well known by wrestling fans sometimes in bad ways.
Some people feel that their short lived rivalry was bad for the sport as it didn’t bring new fans long term. They just wanted to know what Fix and Suriano were doing as of late, they didn’t care about what else was happening in the rest of the sport. However the buzz about these two was a good thing for the sport. It isn’t often that people who don’t wrestle love to watch the sport, but some long time fans and wrestlers such as Ben Askren felt that they sparked interest in the sport with their flashy style and demeanor on the mat. After all it isn’t every day that two wrestlers of this caliber step on the mat and bang heads for 7 minutes
straight.
Suriano and Fix met twice in the 2018-2019 season. Their first bout against each other was at Oklahoma State, A highly touted dual just because of the matchup between Fix and Suriano at 133 pounds. It was a great match full of exciting moments and a few really good scrambles. Fix ended up winning in overtime on a controversial call on hands to the face, giving fix the win. They would meet later at the NCAA championships in the finals. You wanna talk about a highly anticipated matchup on finals night. The match went into overtime and then the two ride out periods before Suriano took Fix down after 9 minutes of wrestling. Making Suriano a NCAA champion. That meant a lot to Suriano as he lost to Spencer lee the year before in the finals. This put an end to the rivalry as Suriano would cut to 125’s the following season.
Wrestling is a sport for those who are strong and mentally tough, there is no sugar coating the fact that rivalries like Fix and Suriano are good for the sport and an exciting twist to add to the sport just like in the NFL when rivalry games bring the most excitement to the sport. That coupled with the fact that both of these wrestlers will eventually wrestle on the world team and possibly medal in the Olympics. This rivalry was fun to follow and there is no question that everyone should find a rivalry in a sport they don’t follow, it may spark some interest to follow the sport in the future and it can be a fun way to start watching a sport.