Iowa women’s wrestling is losing one of its biggest stars, with 2024 Olympic silver medalist and two-time national champion Kennedy Blades announcing June 5 that she will forgo her final season of college eligibility.
Blades said she will continue to train at the University of Iowa, but will instead be focusing on international aspirations and Real American Freestyle, a professional wrestling league that has taken off over the last year.
“As a little girl, I dreamed of competing at the highest levels of this sport for as long as possible, and for the first time, there is a real pathway for athletes like me to continue building a career in professional wrestling,” Blades wrote in an Instagram post. “That’s why, ahead of the season, I’ll be joining Real American Freestyle and pursuing Olympic gold full-time. For so long, opportunities for wrestlers after college were limited and now I get to live out my dream doing the sport that means so much to me. It’s the beginning of a new chapter, but I’ll continue training in Iowa, chasing big goals, and carrying with me everything this program has taught me. I hope to continue making the Hawkeye Nation proud, just on a new stage.”
Blades joined Iowa’s roster for the 2024-25 season, winning a National College Women’s Wrestling Championship at 160 pounds and helping the Hawkeyes win their second NCWWC team title. The following season, she won her first NCAA title at 160 pounds and helped Iowa to a runner-up finish. In her two years as a Hawkeye, Blades was 44-0 with 43 bonus-point victories.
Her domination of the college circuit saw her wow fans in Carver-Hawkeye Arena, but her goals were always much larger on international stages. With the recent boom of Real American Freestyle, which has included some of wrestling’s biggest stars, from Olympic champions and NCAA title winners, as well as a TV partnership with Fox Nation, it gives Blades a professional-level stage to wrestle a year-round schedule.
While Hawkeye fans won’t be seeing Blades’ fan favorite suplex in a Hawkeye singlet anymore, she will be sticking around to train in Iowa. That’s a bonus for the Iowa wrestling room as a whole, as Blades will have the chance to continue sharpening other Hawkeye women’s wrestlers in the years to come.
The loss of Blades in the lineup as a surefire NCAA title contender will sting. The departure sees a ton of team points at NCAAs vanish, and creates a ripple effect of lineup decisions to be made from 160-207 pounds. As a result, Iowa will likely be leaning on Kylie Welker and Naomi Simon as part of the equation to find success in the upperweights in 2026-27, but many decisions and questions remain as the offseason churns on.
Eli McKown covers high school sports and wrestling for the Des Moines Register. Contact him at Emckown@gannett.com. Follow him on Twitter at @EMcKown23.
This article originally appeared on Hawk Central: Iowa women’s wrestling’s Kennedy Blades to forgo college eligibility
Reporting by Eli McKown, Des Moines Register / Hawk Central
USA TODAY Network via Reuters Connect
By Eli McKown, Des Moines Register | USA TODAY Network
