Iowa’s Mikey Caliendo ignored a handshake from Penn State’s Mitchell Mesenbrink after losing to him at the NCAA Wrestling Championships. The incident quickly garnered the attention of fans, who felt he showed poor sportsmanship.
Mesenbrink and Caliendo squared off in the 165-pound final, where the Penn State wrestler secured an impressive 20-4 win by technical fall. With this win, Mesenbrink solidified his dominance over Caliendo, improving to 9-0. In addition, this win capped off the top seed’s undefeated 27-0 season and marked his second consecutive title.
The moment that stole the spotlight, however, was their encounter while they were standing at the podium. Mesenbrink attempted to shake hands with Caliendo, who refused to acknowledge him. A user shared this news on X:
His actions did not sit well with the fans, who accused him of poor sportsmanship.
One user asked the Iowa wrestler to accept that Mesenbrink is better than him, writing:
“I could see if it was a controversial match but damn man you got destroyed and aren’t you 0-9? Just accept he’s better and move on.”
Another fan wrote:
“Bro gets his ass beat and can’t acknowledge greatness.”
Emphasizing Caliendo’s record against Mesenbrink, another follower wrote:
“It’s tough losing to a guy 9 or 10 times.”
Calling out his sportsmanship, one of the fans commented:
“Wow. Impressive display of poor sportsmanship. Iowa style.”
Along similar lines, another fan chimed in:
“Iowa is a sore loser program and base. Only the worst choose to wrestle there. Caliendo seemed like a class act. MM just destroyed his soul. He had nothing, he is second – and a distant second, that’s why he did what he did.”
Mitchell Mesenbrink opens up about winning the NCAA title
After claiming his second consecutive NCAA title, Mitchell Mesenbrink opened up about his experience:
“I feel like my whole season could be summed up into this quote, ‘sometimes it takes obtaining the goal to realize that the goal is not the thing to be obtained.’ And before I lose you, let me just try to explain that sometimes we think that becoming a national champion or Olympic champion, or whatever your goal is that you set out to be, is about making X amount of money or whatever. It’s never as fulfilling as you think it is. And it definitely can’t be the thing that you fill your soul and fill your cup with.”
He added:
“This past year, I had some of the toughest times that I’ve ever had in my young life. And you know, almost exactly what I was saying with that quote that no matter how many wins or things or amount of money or whatever infinite number of something that you can gain, that was not the point of all of it.”
Along with being a two-time NCAA champion, Mitchell Mesenbrink is also a two-time Big Ten champion.
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