In a few months, the NCAA Championships will commence for wrestling. Indeed, until now, the fans of the sport have been fed with a lot of action from various programs. One of them is the Iowa Hawkeyes, who have been on a roll for a long time, owing to many prolific performances by their wrestlers on the roster who possess a variety of talent in individual divisions.

However, in their latest bout against the Penn State Nittany Lions, during the 184-pound match between Angelo Ferrari and Carter Starocci, Hawkeyes’ Gabe Arnold threw a tantrum in the arena. Even though he didn’t have any matches, he was present to watch his rival, but according to his actions off the mat, it has caught the attention of a certain Olympian who is concerned for the Hawkeyes’ future.

Wrestling is a team sport, and the performance of every wrestler in a team matters. As shown on Craig Dubler’s X profile, Gabe Arnold, who was sitting with the Iowa Hawkeyes to watch the match between Angelo Ferrari and Carter Starocci in the 184-pound division, didn’t take him a while to just stand up and walk away from the match, not even caring for supporting his teammate.

Do they have beef against each other? Absolutely not! The only beef that Arnold has is with Starocci and not Ferrari. Remember what the Hawkeyes’ wrestler said after their match with Ohio State? “I’m gonna end this off on this. We got Penn State next week. And we didn’t get the job done last year, and that kind of sucks, but we’re gonna get it done this year. So this time, we’ll be in your home dojo. And I promise, your head’s mine. Book it,” said Arnold in the post-game interview.

Indeed, he was excited about the bout against Penn State, but it was a simple coaching decision where the team wanted to put Ferrari against Starocci. And while he was present among the crowd, as seen in the video, he chose to walk away. Watching this Olympian, Andy Hrovat shared his thoughts on the situation, stating, “My guess is he knew all along he wasn’t wrestling, and he pulled the press stunt to corner the staff into letting him wrestle. I hear stuff but can’t confirm anything. After the default at the SS it was set for Angelo to wrestle is what I was hearing the whole time.”

Hrovat was also confused about the incident. He was uncertain about Arnold’s motivations for pulling this stunt during the match between Ferrari and Starocci. Indeed, the Hawkeyes star really wanted to wrestle against the Penn State wrestler and wanted to showcase who was the better one in the room. But the Hawkeyes coaching team had a different plan, and they did want to put Ferrari to the test. But what was the actual concern?

Since the NCAA championship is coming up, the Hawkeyes have both Ferrari and Arnold for the 184-pound division. But this particular action from the wrestler might cause some rift in the roster and attract a lot of unwanted attention from the wrestling community. However, how did the program’s head coach react to this?

Iowa Hawkeyes’ coach’s hot take on this

Angelo Ferrari is a freshman, and since he went against Carter Starocci, who is a four-time NCAA champion, the results were already up there. The Hawkeyes’ wrestler tried his best, but the 3-1 decision favored the Penn State wrestler. However, this match’s main attraction was the walkaway of Gabe Arnold, who came to watch these two wrestle. And how did Tom Brands react?

“We got to load-manage Gabe Arnold, that’s a term in the NBA people don’t like. Gabe Arnold, we need to make sure that he’s feeling pretty doggone good down the stretch. He’s going to be our guy at 84 (184),” said the coach during an interview with FloWrestling. Indeed, he made his statement clear that no matter what, Arnold will still be their main wrestler in the aforementioned category.

Brands was well aware of the statements that Arnold made prior to the Penn State match and his rivalry with Starocci. However, the team’s primary focus is not on these trash talks between wrestlers but rather on securing the championship. So Brands wanted his wrestler to give himself rest before he arrives on the mat once again.