Nick Suriano vs Dylan Ragusin - Who Solves Their Puzzle First

Two of Michigan’s quirkiest wrestlers of all time square off in a match dependent on both men untying one of the toughest knots they’ve ever come across. It’s Nick Suriano vs Dylan Ragusin and it’s going to be nothing short of a chess match.

Nick Suriano has had classic matches for his entire career with the biggest names in the sport. Dylan Ragusin picked up the torch and carried the “Rubik’s Cube” reputation of Michigan lightweights. The two will now meet under the brightest lights in the sport.

Almost nobody’s legacy is the same without Suriano in the picture. Pat Glory, Daton Fix, Spencer Lee, Austin DeSanto and many more owe a chapter of their career autobiography to the two-time NCAA National Champion.

While other lightweights may have more notoriety, Suriano was a name that gave them all fits.

He never needed a big, obvious opening to attack and he was never predictable. He could turn tiny reactions into strange entries and big numbers on the scoreboard. He was hard to figure out and even harder to put into action when you did.

Ragusin was cut from a similar cloth. Michigan lightweights have never been easy to pin down, and Ragusin became one of the latest to carry that reputation. He could make matches ugly, turn scrambles into puzzles and force opponents to wrestle through positions they weren't always comfortable in. There was rarely a clean, simple answer to his style.

His game was built on the kind of stubbornness that makes a wrestler miserable to prepare for. Ragusin wasn't going to hand an opponent easy points, and he had a knack for keeping himself in exchanges long enough to find an opening of his own.

Suriano made a career out of forcing opponents to react to things they couldn't quite anticipate. Ragusin knows how to live in that uncertainty. He's comfortable in the chaos, and he has spent years competing in a room that rewards the ability to make even the most talented opponents look uncomfortable.

Suriano can make quick work of Ragusin if he can make him react first. Suriano seems to download opponents’ gameplans and tendencies immediately. He doesn’t even need to win every hand fight to be a weapon. If he can open him up with feints, he can disguise real attacks and time Ragusin’s tendencies and tells.

He can give himself an advantage by creating angles and avoiding trying to attack through Ragusin can put him in endless threatening positions.

For Ragusin he can benefit greatly from pushing Suriano into extended exchanges. As threatening as Suriano is, his efficiency and angles are his biggest strength. Forcing him to continue digging into his bag of tricks makes him more and more human as the exchanges go on.

Ragusin also needs to turn defense into offense.

Ragusin's scrambling ability could be his biggest weapon in this matchup, but only if he uses it to score rather than simply survive. Against Suriano, Ragusin needs to recognize when to defend, when to counter and when to turn a scramble into a scoring attack of his own. If Suriano gets to a leg, the exchange shouldn't automatically belong to him. A thwarted attack could make all the difference in the world. Lucas Byrd can attest.

Neither man will be an easy night out but one Michigan grad will leave RAF14 supreme. It will either be an offensive showcase or a defensive showdown. Either way it was Match of the Night written all over it.

Catch Nick Suriano vs Dylan Ragusin Friday, October 23 at RAF14 ONLY on FOX Nation!