Fix is Serious Heading to Tulsa, so Can He Help the Rest of the Cowboys
STILLWATER – This weekend in Tulsa at the Big 12 Wrestling Championships there are no gimmes. Well, maybe there is one at 133-pounds. Oklahoma State’s Daton Fix is as much of a slam dunk as you can get in this sport. Pardon the basketball term reference in the middle of a story about the wrestling championships. Oklahoma State has three number one seeds with Fix at 133-pounds, Boo Lewallen at 149-pounds, and Travis Wittlake at 165-pounds. Lewallen and Wittlake should win, but there is some competition in their brackets. Fix, unbeaten and having pinned everybody he has faced, is a dominant competitor that should be the top seed in St. Louis at the NCAA Championships March 18-20. Then after the NCAA Championships he will be even money to win a starting spot on the USA Olympic Team bound for Tokyo this summer.
It came up on the pre-Big 12 Zoom conference this week as to why Fix is all of a sudden putting his opponents on their back. It seems his younger brother, a sixth-grader, told his Daton’s girlfriend that something was wrong because Daton doesn’t pin opponents. It turns out he does and since he heard his younger brother’s trash talk, he has made it a point to turn his opponents and then look up his brother and talk some trash of his own.
His head coach John Smith expects a lot out of Daton Fix and Smith is afraid all these falls are a product of something that could be a concern in Tulsa and especially in St. Louis.
“He hasn’t been tested, it’d be nice if he could get tested this weekend, but that’s not his fault,” Smith said of Daton Fix and his season thus far. “That’s just the way it is in the Big 12 right now. Some weights you get tested and some you don’t. (A.J.) Ferrari is going to get tested three, maybe four times this weekend”
Daton, who was suspended for a failed drug test in international competition last year. The banned substance was Ostarine that he ingested through a water bottle. Fix and Oklahoma State fought it because an international suspension also applies to NCAA competition. They fought and they won shortening the suspension so that Fix could come back in time to compete in the NCAA this season and follow that up with the USA Wrestling Trials.
“With Daton the challenge for him over the year, he’s a proud kid, and he takes pride in his preparation,” Smith said. “You know I think he wanted his name cleared more than anything and say ‘I would never do anything (illegal) to enhance my performance.’ His character was on the line. It’s really nice to be at a place like Oklahoma State that believes in him and says let’s do whatever we have to do to within the NCAA rules to clear your name. That’s a big relief. Wrestling, as we watch him, some of that relief has fed into his wrestling.”
I don’t think there is any doubt about that. Fix is a man on a mission and the mission is beating anybody in his way to a Big 12 title, NCAA championship, spot on the USA team, and Olympic Gold Medal.
“The way that I’ve been wrestling in the room, the way I’ve been drilling and sparing, I feel I’ve been wrestling the best that I have in a long time,” Fix said. “I think I may be wrestling the best in my career.”
What would be nice with a shrinking number of pre-allotted guaranteed slots for Big 12 wrestlers in the NCAA Championships is for Fix’s love for wrestling and desire to excel to be spread around the Cowboys. Oklahoma State has the three top seeds, but a number of wrestlers that will need to wrestle well to qualify for St. Louis and at 141-pounds they will wrestle Kaden Gfeller, who hasn’t wrestled at that weight since Jan. 2, 2020.
Here are the Cowboys wrestling in the Big 12 Championships and their seeds:
| Wrestler | Weight | Seed | 1st Match |
| Trevor Mastrogiovanni | 125 | 3 | Preliminary vs. Anthony Molton, Fresno |
| Daton Fix | 133 | 1 | Preliminary vs. Kellyn March, N.D. State |
| Kaden Gfeller | 141 | NA | Preliminary vs. No.3-Clay Carlson, S.D. State |
| Boo Lewallen | 149 | 1 | Preliminary vs. Hunter Marko, S.D. State |
| Wyatt Sheets | 157 | 6 | Preliminary vs. Nick Knutson, No.Colorado |
| Travis Wittlake | 165 | 1 | Preliminary vs. Vincent Dolce, Air Force |
| Dustin Plott | 174 | 3 | Preliminary vs. Austin Brenner vs. N.D. State |
| Dakota Geer | 184 | 3 | Preliminary vs. Michael Nelson, N.D. State |
| AJ Ferrari | 197 | 4 | Main Draw vs. winner of No.5 Jake Woodley, OU vs. Keegan Moore, No.Iowa |
| Austin Harris | Hwt. | 5 | Preliminary vs. Randy Gonzalez, Fresno State |
“I just have a different love for the sport after I’ve been off for so long,” Fix said staring into the lens. “I think you forget and then when you have something taken away that you love so much, like going out there and competing, then you never want to lose that again. I think it’s helped me jump levels in my wrestling.”
A little Fix could go a long way for the Cowboys in Tulsa.