What makes Penn State special is that a talent like Marcus Blaze eventually always gravitates to the D1 program. They have become the pinnacle of collegiate wrestling, and they show no signs of slowing down. That was what the recruitment of Marcus Blaze was – a statement that they get the best wrestlers in the program.

Still to enter the collegiate scene, but the 18-year-old has already taken down accomplished NCAA wrestlers like Daton Fix and Seth Gross. The #1 prospect in the class of 2025 has also been in the 2025 U20 World Wrestling Championships in Bulgaria, where he is now guaranteed at least a silver medal. That’s truly impressive, but not surprising, to be honest. Although the fans have come across one of his bouts from this run, they are quite impressed by how the youngster got the job done.

Yes, sometimes the result doesn’t tell the whole story. Like Marcus Blaze’s 8-3 disqualification win against Sargis Begoyan in the  R16. Jon Kozak of FloWrestling shared a snippet of the match on his X handle on August 18. And let’s just say what the US wrestler had to face was quite unsettling. The caption of the post said it all: “Marcus Blaze beats a very tough Sargis Begoyan by DQ. Blaze was leading the whole match, and Begoyan couldn’t handle it, so he started wrestling dirty…Bye bye Begoyan!”

The ones who caught the whole match know what happened. But even if you haven’t, you will get a pretty good understanding from Begoyan’s reaction in the clip that was shared by the FlorWrestling guy. The Armenian was disrespectful of his opponent, unwilling to shake hands after the match was done. He didn’t even look Blaze in the eye while fuming in frustration about the loss.

The match was dominated by Marcus Blaze from start to finish. On the other hand, the Armenian U20 European Champion was trying hard to find a weakness in his opponent’s style, and hoping for some favorable call from the referee, which never came. Rather, Begoyan was penalized for a wrong challenge on a step-out point for Blaze. And from there onwards, the Armenian lost the plot.

He started using open palm attacks, just being dirty and trying to hurt his opponent. In fact, in the clip itself, we see Begoyan slapping Marcus Blaze violently on the back of the head, which ended up being the third caution and the disqualification. Meanwhile, Marcus Blaze didn’t lose his focus. He didn’t get baited into any illegal response on the mat, despite what the Armenian was doing. Blaze stuck to the basics, completed the match professionally, and kept his grace and composure like a mature pro, without being perturbed by his opponent’s antics.

What we saw from Blaze is something you expect from an experienced veteran. As an 18-year-old, he could have so easily lost his cool and reacted in the wrong manner. But far from it, he was so in control, and that was amazing to see for the fans who were having their say.

Fans love the maturity shown by 18-year-old Marcus Blaze

As the fans saw the clip, they decided to leave their not-so-forgiving banters about the Armenian in the comment section. One of them said, “This kid had gym class spaz written all over him. Official was about to smack him and I kind of wish he had.” Hey, even the match official has to be professional about it.

Another fan said, “Look how mad he is lol blaze is a beast”. Oh, Sargis Begoyan was fuming. And Blaze just showed what he does best. After that, he won two more matches, both by margins of more than 10 points. Let’s see what happens in the final against Ahora Khateri of Iran.

One fan was totally in troll mode, and he even pointed out how Blaze was totally unaffected by his opponent’s hissy-fits. The comment read, “lol Blaze is great. Walked right over with hand out.” This only shows how zoned in Blaze was, and he was unaffected by his opponent. He knew the steps – wrestle, win, shake hands, repeat.

But he was also having a bit of fun, as a keen observer noticed. The fan wrote, “Lmaoo Blaze dapped himself up after the he didn’t shake his hand for the last time 😂”. You have to look closely. As they finally walked off the mat, and the Armenian was flailing in anger, Marcus Blaze, realizing the handshake was not coming, just decided to observe the pleasantries himself.

Defeats are never easy to take. We understand how disappointed Sargis Begoyan was. But there’s no excuse for what he did during the bout. The open-palm vicious attacks were downright disrespectful to his fellow competitor. One fan wrote, “So dirty”. And we couldn’t agree more. The Armenian was devoid of class and needed to be taught sportsmanship.