The World Came to Las Vegas to Wrestle: Men's Freestyle Opens at the U23 World Championships at Thomas & Mack

One of the biggest wrestling events ever held on American soil reaches its main event this weekend in Las Vegas. The 2026 U23 World Wrestling Championships, running October 12-18 at the Thomas & Mack Center, turn to the men's freestyle tournament on Friday, the final and most anticipated discipline of the week. United World Wrestling billed this as the first U23 Worlds held in the United States and the first world championships of any age group in the country since 2015.

What happens on Friday

Friday's program opens at 10:30 a.m. Pacific with qualification rounds at five men's freestyle weights: 61, 74, 86, 92 and 125 kilograms. Semifinals follow in the late afternoon, and the night session brings medal matches in women's freestyle at 53, 57, 62, 65 and 72 kg, closing out the women's tournament. Saturday adds the remaining five men's weights — 57, 65, 70, 79 and 97 kg — along with repechages and the first men's finals, and Sunday finishes with repechages in the morning and the final medal matches in the afternoon.

A U.S. team built from champions

Team USA did not send a developmental roster to its home world championships. According to USA Wrestling, six of the ten men's freestylers have already won age-group world titles. The headliner is Luke Lilledahl at 57 kg, a three-time age-group world champion who is defending the U23 world title he won last year and who has reached the gold-medal match in each of his five age-group world appearances. He starts his tournament on Saturday.

Bo Bassett at 65 kg is having a year almost without precedent: he won the U20 world championship in August, made the senior world team less than two weeks ago, and after Las Vegas will head to the Senior World Championships in Astana, Kazakhstan — three world championships in a single season. Aedeon Sinclair, the U20 world champion at 86 kg who won his title with back-to-back comeback wins, opens on Friday. So does Jayden James at 74 kg, the 2025 U17 world champion and Penn State signee who took silver at this year's U20 Worlds. Joseph Sealey (79 kg), a 2022 U17 world champion, and Justin Rademacher (97 kg), the 2025 U20 world champion, start Saturday, while 2026 NCAA runner-up Benjamin Davino (61 kg) and heavyweight Coby Merrill (125 kg) round out Friday's American entries.

The home-mat factor

College programs from across the country have wrestlers in Las Vegas wearing different flags, too. Nebraska alone has three athletes in the men's freestyle field competing for their heritage nations — LJ Araujo for Brazil at 74 kg, Omar Ayoub for Puerto Rico at 65 kg and Christopher Minto for Jamaica at 79 kg — and a Nevada native is part of Iowa's contingent at the event. Greco-Roman, which opened the week, was won in the team race by Iran, per the championships' records, setting the bar for the freestyle team battles to come. International contenders flagged by UWW include Magomedkhan Magamedkhanov, Mobin Azimi, Takhir Khaniev and Arsen Balaian.

How to watch

Every session streams live in the United States on FloWrestling and the FloSports app for subscribers, with live brackets, results and mat assignments available through United World Wrestling's Arena system. Sessions start at 10:30 a.m. Pacific each day at Thomas & Mack. For a city that hosts championship fights and rodeos, a world championship in an Olympic sport — with the home team favored to contend for the team title — is a fitting October weekend. Follow our sports coverage for results as the medals are decided.