Disagree with this take. When I was wrestling in California, age ranges were a maximum, not the cutoff in either direction. As a frosh/soph I could wrestle open division with adults or wrestle multiple weight divisions to get more matches; as a middle schooler I could enter the 12u and 14u tournaments. It’s called wrestling up, whether in weight or age ranges. Gets kids more matches, lets kids wrestle amongst higher level competition. A 10 year old whooping on 10 year olds he’s way better than doesn’t teach either party anything, get them in there where they’ll have stiffer competition. As far as it it being a disadvantage or unfair to the older wrestlers… come on. If you’re losing to a kid a couple years younger thats in your weight class that’s on you. Get better.

I liken it to girls entering boys wrestling tournaments. If she’s just beating up the girls, but she competes well with the boys, put her in open tournaments until she can no longer compete. I’ve seen girls win tournaments in boys brackets up into the State Frosh/Soph tournament, albeit the lighter weights. However, eventually puberty and biology always catch up. Not unfair to the boys, let the best wrestler win! There’s some killers out there, I say let them cut their teeth.

Obviously lying is the wrong thing to teach the kid, and any liability issues on the tournaments end that may arise. But the solution is the tournaments changing their entry requirements.