The steroids and Penn State situation have spiraled out of control. After Meyer Shapiro made an offhand comment that ignited a storm in the online wrestling community, Dylan Palacio shared a picture of himself on his X account, featuring a syringe emoji and a question mark. Ex-Cornell wrestler Bo Nickal quickly retweeted Palacio’s post, adding the caption, “Notice how Meyer didn’t name a single person or a single team, but the entire Penn State fan base is losing their f**king mind responding to his comments.” Since then, the Cornell and Penn State alumni have engaged in a series of spiteful exchanges.

So in summary, Nickal ended up calling Palacio a crybaby and minimizing his wrestling career, saying, “Your biggest accomplishment in wrestling is not getting pinned by David Taylor at the scuffle. No one is scared of you!” But Palacio is not one to back down and pulled out the personal stops, ultimately saying, “My biggest accomplishment in wrestling is sending thousands of kids to wrestling camp for free , one of which you tried charging us 10k to make an appearance at and you showed them a three-quarter Nelson and sat on your phone the entire session. And that’s why I didn’t say hi.”

Palacio is clearly referring to the wrestling camps where he often works as a clinician. Of the camps, one X user wrote of his experience with Palacio as a coach, saying, “I absolutely love Palacio. I had the pleasure of being a counselor at a wrestling camp he came to as a clinician. He sat us down for an hour and chatted with all the counselors before and I’ve never met a more satisfied, funny, sincere, happy man.” So clearly Palacio is speaking from a place of confidence and Bo Nickas didn’t seem to have anything else to say after this…not yet. But how did it all begin and why is everyone so Penn-t up? (Pun intended!)

The Butterfly effect: Everything that has followed Shapiro’s comment leading to Bo Nickal and Dylan Palacio rift

It all started with a simple post-match comment by Cornell’s Meyer Shapiro. When asked about the possibility of him shifting a weight class, Shapiro responded by saying, “You know, as much as I want to wrestle 165, I could be a 49-pounder for all I wanted to be. Some guys, if they’re taking steroids or they’re not taking steroids, wink wink, it’s just crazy.”

Because of Penn State’s impressive performance at the NCAA finals, with Carter Starocci making history by winning his fifth title and the university winning the championship title, this comment seemed targeted at this particular team. But Penn State is not remaining quiet about it.

Soon after Shapiro’s comment went viral, former Penn State wrestler Jason Nolf made his own X statement in response: “No one in college wrestling is taking steroids,” he wrote. Matt McCutcheon also added to the discourse, writing, “Throwing shade on athletes and a program for using steroids with no basis other than ‘speculation” is weak sauce.”

Then there was five-time champion Carter Starocci, who seemed totally removed from all the controversy and only focused on practice when he posted a picture of the Lions working out the day after the championship, writing, “All day. Champions don’t rest.”

And of course, there was the charming exchange between Dylan Palacio and Bo Nickal, which resulted from Nickal taking things too personally as well.