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Ohio Wrestling coach Joel Greenlee (Left) and Jordan Greer (Right) watching a match vs Northern Illinois.
Ohio Wrestling coach Joel Greenlee (Left) and Jordan Greer (Right) watching a match vs Northern Illinois. [HG Biggs | WOUB Public Media]

Ohio and Kent State reignite annual Grudge Match rivalry

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ATHENS, Ohio (WOUB) — When two rivals face off, records can be thrown out the window. On Friday night, when Kent State (1-12, 0-5 MAC) walks into The Convo to face Ohio (6-3, 4-1 MAC), the seasons of both teams and all the wrestlers on them will be irrelevant. The only thing that matters is taking that silver slab of metal back to the winning team’s locker room. 

When Ohio and Kent State toe the line at the center of the mat, the schools will face off for the 75th time, according to Kent State Wrestling records. The teams face off once every season in the most highly-anticipated dual of the season for both teams. The difficult season for Kent State will be washed away with a win over Ohio and the season will be deemed a success if it wins. 

The rivalry has grown in the past years. Kent State alum, Zeb Miller, was recruited heavily by Ohio head coach Joel Greenlee only to ultimately choose to put on a Kent State singlet. However, in the years following his collegiate career, he founded a media company, GOhioCasts, that specializes in spotlighting high school and collegiate wrestling in Ohio. As two of the four programs in Ohio with Division I wrestling, Ohio State and Cleveland State are the others, the matches would be broadcasted live on Miller’s YouTube channel. The notoriety gained by the program led to the “Grudge Match” term to be coined by miller and others. 

Greenlee has been a part of the rivalry for years and has countless memories, but the ones that stick out are the relationships and the way they have transformed over the many meetings between the programs. 

Ohio Wrestling head coach Joel Greenlee on the bench during the Bobcats' meet with NIU.
Ohio Wrestling head coach Joel Greenlee on the bench during the Bobcats’ meet with
NIU. [HG Biggs | WOUB Public Media]
“When I first got here, we got the best of Kent State,” Greenlee said. “For a while in the middle [of my tenure], they got the best of us. Now, we’re getting the best of them. Jim [Andrassy], their head coach, I think we pretty much hated each other early on. I think we’ve kind of become friends over the course of the last few years. I think it’s one of those things that our guys really get fired up about, they get invested in all that stuff.”

The entire reason for the rivalry is most due to the lack of another. Miami, the biggest rival for Ohio in every sport, disbanded their team in 1998. That left a vacuum in the rivalry department for Ohio. While teams like Central Michigan and Northern Illinois provide a good challenge on the mats, there are no other teams with as much history across all sports with Ohio in the MAC. 

“I would say Kent is our biggest rival,” Greenlee said. “Miami had a wrestling program for one year while I was here. I didn’t even fully understand [the rivalry] yet… I don’t like to lose to anybody in the MAC, but this is the big one. We recruit the same kids and it’s just more important for us to win this dual.”

The trophy, a visual representation of the head-to-head victory between the teams, features both logos and the state of Ohio with both Athens and Kent highlighted on the map. The teams, like any good rivalry, trade the trophy back-and-forth between the winning team. Currently, Ohio has held the trophy for the past three seasons. All time, Kent State leads the series 49-25 despite the recent struggles. 

No matter the records or stats, Greenlee puts it best when he talks about the rivalry and his burning desire to emerge from the Grudge Match victorious. 

“I want to get the best out of them every time we face them,” Greenlee said.