Top of the Mountain: Burroughs continues to dominate despite fierce competition

Jordan Burroughs, who has not loss to an international wrestler in five years in winning two World Championships and one Olympic gold medal, knows the world was watching when he rallied to beat David Taylor in the recent ASICS U.S. Open in Las Vegas.

“I don’t care,” said Burroughs, who added a third Open title to his freestyle resume at 163 pounds on April 19. “They’ve been scouting me for years and they haven’t figured it out yet. For me, it’s about going out and wrestling to the best of my abilities. Luckily, I got it done today.”

Burroughs, 25, the former NCAA champion and Hodge Trophy winner, has lost just one international match since leaving the University of Nebraska in 2011 and that came against an American, Nick Marable, overseas this February.

And while Burroughs never did compete against Marable in Las Vegas, where the former Missouri Tiger won the 154-pound championship, the current most decorated American wrestler on

ce again found a strong threat from an American: David Taylor, the two-time NCAA champion and Hodge Trophy winner from Penn State, who led 6-3 with 40 seconds left in the final match of the Open before Burroughs scored a pair of takedowns to win 7-6.

“I know David Taylor, Andrew Howe, Kyle Dake and a number of guys will be coming after me in this country alone, but I’m still able to knock them off the ladder and stay on top,” said Burroughs, adding he would not be enjoying his international success without the threat from wrestlers like the three he mentioned. (Neither Dake, who suffered a foot injury this winter, nor Howe competed in this year’s Open. It has not been confirmed that they would definitively compete in the upcoming World Team Trials, May 31-June 1, in Madison, Wisc.)

(To read the remainder of this story for Burroughs’ incredible insight into defeating 2014 Hodge winner David Taylor, as well his perspective on being willing to take on “all comers”, subscribe to WIN Magazine by clicking here.

Subscribers will get access to WIN’s monthly Digital Edition and/or Print Edition. The Burroughs-Taylor article is a featured story in WIN’s late April issue. Digital Edition subscribers will get access to that edition, print subscribers need to request their subscription starts with that issue. )