When Stephen Buchanan arrived at the University of Iowa for his final year of college eligibility in wrestling, he already has his future mapped out.<\/p>\n
He was gunning to win an NCAA championship and then he planned on making an immediate transition into MMA. As a lifelong fan of fighting, Buchanan felt like fighting was just going to be his future but a season spent working under legendary coach Tom Brands gave him new perspective and a reinvigorated passion for the sport of wrestling.<\/p>\n
\u201cOnce I got to Iowa, it changed,\u201d Buchanan told MMA Fighting. \u201cI was going to be done with wrestling. Got to Iowa and got a new found love for it. From then on, I was going to train for the 2028 Olympics. I started training for that.<\/p>\n
\u201cAfter NCAA\u2019s, Real American Freestyle contacted me and I was like yeah, we can do that. It\u2019s freestyle wrestling, more matches the better and from then on, the mindset and focus is 2028. I want to wrestle in the World Championships and ranking tournaments here and there. Just training freestyle.\u201d<\/p>\n
He won the NCAA title at 197 pounds and then in his RAF debut, Buchanan put on an incredibly impressive performance shutting down and shutting out multi-time UFC title challenger and Olympic silver medalist Yoel Romero. Despite being 48 years old, Romero turned back the clock when he torched Pat Downey in his first appearance in RAF but he couldn\u2019t get much of anything done against Buchanan at RAF 5.<\/p>\n
The dominant win only further solidified Buchanan\u2019s decision to focus only on wrestling for now but he\u2019s not giving up his fight dreams just yet either.<\/p>\n
\u201cIt was going to be fighting. It was going to be fighting right off the bat,\u201d Buchanan said. \u201cI was going to finish my college career and then go straight into fighting and then Iowa kind of switched things up. I still kind of have fighting on my radar. I\u2019m really focusing on wrestling, getting a gold medal and then going after something else.<\/p>\n
\u201cMy plate is filled with the Olympics right now. That\u2019s going to be my biggest goal and after 2028, see what\u2019s left for me. Fighting is still in my mind. I really haven\u2019t had a lot of training in it but we came down a year or two ago and did some training sessions and kind of fell in love with it, also. It\u2019s martial arts. It\u2019s beautiful at its core and I would love to get in the octagon.\u201d<\/p>\n
With the Summer Olympics landing in Los Angeles in 2028, there are a lot of American wrestlers hoping to represent the United States on that stage. Buchanan is obviously adding his name to the mix but he\u2019s got a long way to go before he can stand on that podium with a metal around his neck much less even getting the chance to compete there because first things first, he has to be the person earning a spot on the American team.<\/p>\n
With plans to compete at 97kgs (213 pounds), Buchanan would potentially have to go through Olympic gold and silver medalist and multi-time World Champion Kyle Snyder, who has held down that weight class for the past three cycles.<\/p>\n
Snyder is one of the most accomplished wrestlers in U.S. history and he hasn\u2019t been defeated by an American since dropping one match to Jake Varner back at the 2016 Olympic trials. He went onto beat Varner in the next two matches to punch his ticket to the Olympics where Snyder became the youngest American to ever win gold in wrestling.<\/p>\n
In other words, Buchanan has his work cut out for him but he wouldn\u2019t have it any other way.<\/p>\n
\u201cHe\u2019s a great wrestler,\u201d Buchanan said about Snyder. \u201cHe was great from when he started up until now. Everyone\u2019s time has to come. I have great respect for him as an athlete and as a person. But when I\u2019m training, I\u2019m training to beat him. I\u2019m training to be the best. Not only him but everyone overseas.<\/p>\n
\u201cI\u2019m not training just to be the best American wrestler. I\u2019m training to be the best in the world. He is just an opponent in front of me that I have to beat. However it goes, I can learn, grown and come back. It\u2019s very exciting to be able to look to someone like that and know that\u2019s who I\u2019m going to have to beat to make the team.\u201d<\/p>\n
As far as MMA goes, Buchanan definitely isn\u2019t shutting that door, especially with the chance to maybe create some new rivalries with UFC fighters coming to RAF, but he can\u2019t pass up the possibility of competing for Olympic gold on U.S. soil.<\/p>\n
\u201cI would love to get in the octagon and maybe do both,\u201d Buchanan said. \u201cMaybe be one of the first RAF wrestlers who are in the UFC and in RAF, keeping my wrestling sharp but then growing and evolving in my striking and jiu-jitsu.<\/p>\n
\u201cOlympics are huge but having it right in your backyard. To have friend and family there, not just watch on television, it\u2019s an Olympics you don\u2019t just want to get to \u2014 you want to win. You have that memory forever. That\u2019s what I\u2019m pushing for every single day.\u201d<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"When Stephen Buchanan arrived at the University of Iowa for his final year of college eligibility in wrestling,…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":420008,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[444],"tags":[49,48,641,701,638,168750,168751,82,640,702],"class_list":["post-420007","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-mma","tag-ca","tag-canada","tag-fighting","tag-latest-news","tag-mma","tag-raf-wrestling","tag-raf-wrestling-news","tag-sports","tag-ufc","tag-ufc-news"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/420007","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=420007"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/420007\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/420008"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=420007"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=420007"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=420007"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}