NEWS RELEASE
2017 Ohio Tournament of Champions - 25th Anniversary
New for 2017: Region Competition - with chance to win up to $2500 cash grant, to help support wrestling in your Region
February 13, 2017
The Ohio Tournament of Champions, considered one of the toughest post season wrestling tournaments in the country, as well as being the largest one day event, will be held at the Columbus Convention Center, in Columbus, OH, on April 22.
This year marks the event’s 25th Anniversary and tournament organizers are expecting 3000 participants. Currently, entries are running at more than 75% ahead of last year’s pace, which saw nearly 2500 entries, and 16 states are already represented.
Registration is currently open, thru April 14, with extended registration closing out on April 16, at
http://www.ohiotofc.com - there will be no entries accepted after after that. Age groups, which are determined by the birth year, range from 8 and under and go thru high school. There is also an Open Division, for those wrestlers that have graduated high school.
Past participants read like a who’s who of wrestling, including: Jon Reader (10X Champion), Logan Stieber (6X Champion), Kyle Dake (1X placer - 4X placer), David Taylor (2X Champion) and Coleman Scott (2X Champion).
Other past competitors have included: Kyle Snyder, Mark Hall (6X Champion), Dean Heil (4X Champion), Anthony Collica (3X Champion), Lance Palmer (3X Champion), Collin Palmer (8X Champion), Zahid Valencia (2X Champion), Luke Pletcher (9X Champion), Cade Olivas (7X Champion), Mark Grey (6X Champion), Eric Tannenbaum (5X Champion), Kaleb Romero (5X Champion), Kenny Courts (5X Champion), Hunter Stieber (5X Champion), Dustin Schlatter (4X Champion), C.P.Schlatter (2X Champion), Austin O'Connor (2X Champion), Yianni Diakomihalis (4X Champion), Michael Poeta (3X Champion), Zeke Moisey (3X Champion), Nathan Tomasello (1X Champion), Jason Tsirtsis (1X Champion), Myles Martin, J. Jaggers (3X Champion) and many others.
While the event is an individual tournament, with awards being given out to the top eight place finishers in each age/weight class, a new twist was added this year - Region Competition.
“Basically, we have divided the United States up into about 40 Regions,” Tournament Chairman Bart Freidenberg said. “When a wrestler registers, he will select the Region that he resides in. The top 25 place finishers, in each Region, will score points for his Region. So, every wrestler is a potential point scorer.”
Freidenberg added that the top five Regions will win cash grants, ranging from $500 to $2500, which will go directly to support wrestling in the winning Regions. “We’ll see how the entries go,” Freidenberg said,” so there may even be additional money allocated to either the top five Regions, or additional placing Regions. We haven’t decided on that part yet.”
With the Region Competition, the event has added a new category of qualification, “Wildcard Entry.” Basically this is just an additional exemption that folks can use to register,” said Freidenberg. “We anticipate that 99 percent, or more, of our entries will have already met some other qualification, to enter. In the past, many folks have met one of the qualifications, or exemptions, but weren’t aware that they had, so they never bothered to enter. This just sort of streamlines things and makes it easier for folks.
Also back is the Club & Team Competiiton, which is again based on wrestler’s individual place finishes. ”There was a lot of confusion on which Division to enter last year,” Freidenberg said. “This year, the clubs and teams will just pick the Division based on the prize they are hoping to win.” This years prizes range in value from $500-$1500 worth of custom wrestling apparel and gear.
The Tournament has also announced its first two Special Guests for the event: Frank Jasper, who portrayed Shute, in the movie “Vision Quest” and Grayson Russell, who portrayed Texas Ranger in “Talladega Nights” and Fregley in the “Diary of a Wimpy Kid” movies. Both will be on hand to sign autographs for all the attendees.
You can follow tournament updates on their Facebook page, at: You can also like the event’s Facebook page, at
https://www.facebook.com/ohiotofc/ and the event itself will be streamed live on Flo Wrestling.
