Bastida set to continue freestyle career against Kerkvliet

Yonger Bastida raising his hand after winning his championship duel against Konner Doucet (Oklahoma State). Big 12 Wrestling Tournament, session four, BOK Center, Tulsa, Oklahoma, March 7, 2026.

AMES — Former Iowa State heavyweight Yonger Bastida will wrestle 2024 NCAA champion Greg Kerkvliet at Real American Freestyle (RAF) 14 in Las Vegas on Oct. 23.

Bastida wrestled for the Cyclones from 2020-26 and placed second at the NCAA Championships in his final season with the team. He is a two-time Big 12 champion and a two-time NCAA All-American.

Kerkvliet competed at Penn State from 2019-24. A four-time NCAA All-American, he finally claimed gold at the NCAA Championships in 2024. The match will be his RAF debut.

When Bastida finished his time at Iowa State in the spring, the question to be answered was what he would do next. In football and basketball, athletes who perform well at the highest collegiate level have a clear path for their post-graduation career: The NFL, the NBA or the WNBA.

For wrestlers, the path is less clear.

For some, the answer is turning to coaching. Drake Ayala, who was a three-time NCAA All-American at Iowa, moved west after he graduated in 2026 to take a job as an assistant coach at Iowa State.

For others, the answer is a transition to mixed martial arts (MMA). Wrestling has been a prominent style at the top levels of the sport since the UFC was created in 1993.

Kyven Gadson, who was the 2015 NCAA champion at 197 pounds for the Cyclones, made the jump to MMA in 2025. He holds a 4-0 record in professional MMA, all by TKO or submission.

The option that Bastida has taken so far is continuing his career by making the jump from folkstyle to freestyle and pursuing a run at the World Championships and the Olympic Games.

Men’s high school and collegiate wrestling are contested under American folkstyle rules, which are mostly unique to the United States, so most international contests are freestyle or Greco-Roman tournaments.

Bastida grew up in Cuba and has trained in freestyle wrestling since childhood. While wrestling in the NCAA, he joined the Cyclone Regional Training Center (RTC) as a resident athlete.

The Cyclone RTC is a USA Wrestling-affiliated organization that uses Iowa State wrestling facilities to train athletes in various wrestling styles.

Competing for Team USA at the 2028 Los Angeles Olympics is a goal for Bastida, who is pursuing United States citizenship to compete for the team in international competition.

This puts him on a similar path as his fellow Cyclone RTC resident athlete, David Carr. Carr was a two-time NCAA champion at Iowa State and, since completing his collegiate career in 2024, has trained in Ames.

Carr fell to James Green in a best-of-three series at Final X over the summer and narrowly missed a chance to represent the United States at the 2026 World Wrestling Championships.

RAF has provided another answer to the question of what elite wrestlers should do after graduation. Backed by former World Championship Wrestling executive Eric Bischoff and, before his passing, the late Hulk Hogan, RAF was envisioned as legitimate freestyle wrestling with a presentation in the vein of scripted professional wrestling.

It launched in 2025 and has given athletes the chance to profit from their sport in a way that traditionally has not been available to amateur wrestlers. The sport has an agreement with USA Wrestling that allows NCAA wrestlers to compete and benefit from NIL deals, and it has attracted talent from the world of MMA.

Carr is the current RAF Welterweight champion and is 4-0 in the promotion. Bastida has had less success up to this point.

In his RAF debut, Bastida fell to Shamil Sharipov 5-3. Bastida passed out from a choke early in the match, but continued to battle after a stoppage.

On Oct. 23, he will have the opportunity to claim his first win in the promotion. RAF 14 will be broadcast on Fox Nation from Las Vegas at 8 p.m. CST.

Your donation will support the student journalists of the Iowa State Daily. Your contribution will allow us to purchase equipment, send our student journalists to conferences and off-set their cost of living so they can continue to do best-in-the-nation work at the Iowa State Daily. For donation amounts over $500, please contact [email protected] or send a check to 612 Farmhouse Ln., Ames IA 50011.

Noah LaBlanc is a senior at Iowa State University studying marketing and management. This is his third year with the Iowa State Daily. In his free time, he enjoys training in Brazilian jiu-jitsu.