10-23-2022 11:07pm

Cassioppi earns bronze at the 2022 UWW World Championship in Spain

Tony Cassioppi keeps Kai Shutto off-balance during the World Championships in Spain. Photo: United World Wrestling

Tony Cassioppi, former Hononegah Indian standout and senior wrestler at the University of Iowa, earned a bronze medal at the 2022 UWW World Championship in Spain on Sunday. The repechage match against Japan's Kai Shutto took just 33 seconds. Then Tony earned the bronze when Ukraine wrestler Yurii Idzinskyi defaulted because of injury.

This is the second straight U23 medal for the Roscoe native. At the 2021 UWW World Championships, Cassioppi captured the gold medal. Over the 2021 and 2022 championships, Tony has only dropped one match.

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Next up for the highly-rated Big Ten wrestler is the season opener for Iowa on Nov. 13 against Cal Baptist at home in Iowa City, IA.

First time to see Tony on TV will be Sunday, Dec. 4 as Iowa hosts in-state rival Iowa State on the Big Ten Network. Coverage begins at 2:30 p.m.

U23 WORLD CHAMPIONSHIP RESULTS
Cassioppi (USA) tech falls Altshuler (Israel), 10-0 (1:33)
Manshvili Manashvili (Georgia) tech falls Cassioppi (USA), 16-4 (3:48)
Cassioppi (USA) pins Shutto (Japan), 4-0 (33 seconds)
Cassioppi (USA) wins by injury default over Idzinskyi (Ukraine), 0-0

Thank you to Tony Cassioppi, Hawkeyesports.com and United World Wrestling for information and images for this story.

Editor's note: Not all of the photos on Tony's athlete page are pictures of the 285-pound college senior. As you may know, Tony isn't the only Cassioppi family member who's a wrestling star. Due to technical confusion on the United World Wrestling website, some of Tony's web page shows pictures of IHSA state champion and little sister Rose Cassioppi , who weighs 120 pounds less.