The summer leaves wrestling fans with plenty of time on their hands to debate hypothetical matches, argue about what team was the greatest in history, or prognosticate NCAA champions for the following season. Today I will dip my toe into the greatest of all-time debate. To be exact, the greatest duo of all-time. 

You can name plenty of great duos, but I want to put some qualifiers in place that make it clear that the debate is only between two duos. I am looking at full NCAA careers, and the duo must be in the same class to qualify for recognition. If you start looking at international accolades and post-collegiate careers other tandems could creep into the conversation, but we aren’t going to do that.

You may be thinking, “I’ve read about this before.” You're right, Andrew Spey tackled the topic after the sophomore seasons of Nolf and Nickal. They didn’t do anything, but hold serve from that point to spur the debate after all the dust settled.

The qualifiers quickly bring the debate to two Nittany Lion duos. David Taylor and Ed Ruth ushered in the Nittany Lion dynasty, winning the first four team titles of the current eight-of-nine title run. After missing out on a trophy while Nolf and Nickal’s freshman class redshirted, the Lions were led to another four straight titles by the duo of Nolf and Nickal. I expected to have a strong position when I started to research stats for the article. I thought I was going to side with Nolf and Nickal, probably recency bias in full effect, but I definitely had my moments that I felt foolish for forgetting how dominant Taylor and Ruth were.

Stat Lines

The stat lines for the four wrestlers are incredibly similar, and it truly depends on what stat you prefer in order to take a position to pick the better pair. 

Taylor and Ruth have a slight edge when comparing records. Very eerie that all four wrestlers have three losses. Both Nolf and Ruth have asterisks, but it’s Nolf with the stronger claim for you to give him a pass for his injury default loss. Ruth trailed and was getting punished by Amuchastegui when the match was called for a knee injury. However, Ruth did clear the air the next season by majoring Amuchastegui in the NCAA finals showdown. While the slight win percentage advantage goes to Ruth and Taylor, you have to call this a draw.

Bonus points is where I can see opinions diverting in different directions. Taylor and Ruth have a slight bonus rate edge at 82.97% to Nolf and Nickal’s 81.07%, certainly within the margins to call it a draw. I think the better metric is bonus points per match. I used standard dual scoring to assign one bonus point to a major decision, two bonus points to a technical fall, and three bonus points for a fall. This gives Nolf and Nickal a solid edge because of the number of falls they secured over their careers. They are the top two pinners in Nittany Lion history combining for 119 falls. 

Two stats stuck out to me when analyzing the bonus data. One: if you prefer Taylor and Ruth here because of their overall bonus rate and the number of technical falls, I can’t blame you. Taylor's 42 technical falls over his career is incredible. I’m not in the technical fall camp, but some people believe that is more dominant than the fall. The second stat that stuck out to me is the lack of falls for Ed Ruth. When you think of Ruth you remember the misdirection, the effortless go-behinds, and most importantly his cross-face cradle. I was shocked to find Ruth with the least amount of falls by a pretty wide margin when he wrestled the most bouts of the four.

Competition

This is another area where readers will come to different conclusions, and almost everyone will be able to back their opinion. There isn’t a signature win or rivalry that separated anyone being analyzed. I am firm on my belief that credentials don’t necessarily match how good a wrestler was. Credentials are a nice starting point, but you have to look deeper. Not all NCAA champions or finalists are created equally, consider the field and the competition throughout their career. 

Let’s compare Taylor and Nolf before jumping into Ruth and Nickal. I believe comparing similar weight classes is the most logical. Nolf’s best wins are IMar, Berger, Kemerer, and Hidlay. Taylor took down Fittery, St. John, Abdurakhmanov, and Caldwell. I would say the resume of wins are very comparable. You have to consider at what point in their career both wrestlers were at the time of the bout. I truly believe Taylor’s best win was his dominating performance against Fittery his freshman year at NCAAs. Fittery dominated everyone else that crossed his path that year, including 5-0 over Adam Hall in the consi-semi and 13-1 over St. John for third. IMar has to top the list for Nolf, but IMar won razor close matches to keep Nolf off the four-time champion list. When you compare the losses to Dake and IMar you have to consider the competition equal with a very slight edge to Taylor’s competition because of Dake, but that's probably nullified by the loss to Jenkins. Don’t let Abdurakhmanov’s post-collegiate success sway you, he wasn’t quite world-medalist caliber when Taylor pinned him in the semifinals.  

Bo Nickal moved three weight classes during his career and should have had the most opportunity to rack up wins over credentialed wrestlers. His list of notable hits include Dudley, Abounader, Brooks, Martin, M. Dean, G. Dean, and Moore. The Gabe Dean victory in the NCAA finals is Nickal’s signature win, as Dean was looking for his third NCAA title. Pinning Myles Martin in the NCAA finals to clinch the team title in 2018 could also be considered. Had Martin run the table this past season I would definitely look at that win differently. It’s crazy to think that 30 seconds of an NCAA semifinal could change your opinion of a career so much, but the loss did just that for Martin. 

Ed Ruth has the only common win with G. Dean. on his hit list. The rest of the list for Ruth looks like this: Lewnes, Henrich, Heflin, Storley, Amuchastegui, Steinhaus, Bosak, Hamlin, and Sheptock. You could make a few different arguments for Ruth’s best win. I will take his wins over Bosak. He moved up a weight and took down the reigning champ multiple times. It will always be a “what if,” but the Jon Reader matchup in 2011 would have been a nice measuring stick. 

This is another category I don’t think you can distinguish between the duos. Ruth had losses to Letts, Amuchastegui, and Dean, while Nickal was defeated twice by Martin and once by Jackson. The comparisons between the duos couldn’t be any closer, and I think competition has to be considered a draw.

NCAA Finish

When topically looking at the NCAA finishes you give a clear edge to Nolf and Nickal both going 2,1,1,1. When you look at 2,1,2,1 for Taylor and 3,1,1,1 for Ruth, you have to account for the second-place finish to Dake. What if IMar didn’t move to 165lbs? Would Nolf still have three titles? Results and credentials don’t tell the entire story. Ultimately, you have to look at team contribution. This is where things get really weird. Both duos combined for 193.5 points over their career. Taylor is the only wrestler with just two NCAA titles, but he scored the most team points at 99. 

International

This category didn’t weigh into my final decision when picking the best duo, but it’s certainly worth mentioning. It is currently unfair  to measure what Nolf and Nickal have done as they just graduated from Penn State. Taylor has a world title on his resume, but it took him five years to get there. Both Nolf and Nickal made the national team and have reigning medalist in front of them on the ladder. Ruth made his only world team just after graduation in 2014. This is definitely a separation criteria for the top-tier NCAA athletes, but you have to get so far into the weeds it is its own topic.

Coming into the research and analysis, I thought there was going to be a clear duo. That didn’t happen, the numbers were just too close. I prefer the fall and for that reason would take Nolf and Nickal by the slightest margin as the best duo in history. I am sure there will be plenty on team Taylor and Ruth, I’m just not one of them.