2023 NCAA WRESTLING CHAMPIONSHIP

March 18, 2023

Yianni Diakomihalis

BOK Center

Finals Media Conference

149 pounds

Q. Yianni Diakomihalis, Cornell, four-time national champion, just the fifth ever. I would ask your thoughts and feelings but this is the fourth time you've done this. What are the nerves like after four times, just a walk in the park for you?

YIANNI DIAKOMIHALIS: I'm in a very tough weight class, I'm wrestling quality guys. And they're coming to get me. And that's what they should do, right?

There's some special people in my life I wouldn't be here without like my dad, Mike Grey -- you saw the letter from my mom -- and brothers, Vito. Vito wrestled out of his mind.

I could sit and talk for 30 minutes about all those people. The people who think this is me, I'm just a face. You know what I mean? There's so many people that pushed me through it. I don't even know what kind of person I would be without those people.

Q. Four times is unique. You had a two-year gap, you had two-year gap and two. How difficult was it to want to come back and go for these final two?

YIANNI DIAKOMIHALIS: It's tough. I see people telling me I'm old and it's an advantage. It's tough. College wrestling is very hard. Six years of it beats you up. I've had more surgeries than I can count on both my hands. That doesn't even count the injuries I've had without surgeries. It's been a really tough road. It's been a lot.

And like I just keep talking about it, the people around me that are keeping me on this path, they're doing a lot more of the work than I am. My dad's the one who probably hasn't slept a minute since I've been here. Mike's the one who is spending time away from his family to answer my stupid phone calls about a position that we're going to work on in practice in five hours. I mean, it's so much the other people. And I just can't express enough. I'm just the guy you see.

Q. You knew all the four previous guys -- Pat, Cael, Kyle and Logan. How much are you alike them, and how different are you than they are?

YIANNI DIAKOMIHALIS: I would say I'm different in my own way. And I think that's true about any great wrestler. The reason they're great is because they're different. Jordan Burroughs is great because he's different. Kyle Dake is great because he's different. Taylor, Gilman, Snyder, all those guys are great because they're different.

And my style is different. I might take bits and pieces from each guy, but when you see the final product, it's its own form, the same as the guys that came before me.

Q. Looking at your career, from when you started college to where you are now and reflecting on maybe how you've grown, changed as a wrestler, as a person. You've had some coaching changes as well. How do you think that's impacted you and led you to the successes you're at today?

YIANNI DIAKOMIHALIS: The way I see the changes, they've been all positive. Obviously having Mike and my dad around the whole way through is the main thing. Picking up Mike, not Mike, picking up Kel and Donny, Gwiz, Frank -- Frank Perrelli, I haven't talked about Frank Perrelli and The Training Lab, what that's done for me, with my strength and conditioning.

My body completely changed after working with Frank and Coach Kel. Again, I think every person -- that doesn't mean the guys before me didn't do anything -- Kyle, Coach Kel, those guys. I'm going to keep saying it.

All those changes are additions to my life, and new people that have guided me down this road. And sometimes you take a step back and take two forward, but it's always forward. And those changes make the road a little bumpy but at the end of the day the line's moving up. And I'm so thankful for those people.

Q. Going back to the match itself, you have some history with Sammy and you guys both share some characteristics you're scrambling you sit that corner on your opponents shot you were in positions a lot in that match. The last scramble got wild at the end and the match was hanging on the balance there. Can you talk what you saw from Sammy anything different what you went through in that position anything in your head that you remember?

YIANNI DIAKOMIHALIS: I definitely wrestled a little tight. He wrestled fearless. Credit to him. I knew I was going to be able to get to the legs. I felt comfortable in the scrambles against him. I felt I was going to be able to win those, or at least win more than I'm losing.

Obviously they had a great plan. I'm sure that they spent a lot of time getting ready for this. And it's great. I was able to make it happen. In those positions you let your training, let your instinct take over. And I've been very well prepared for these matches. And I've been put in those positions a hundred times.

If you think that's the first time someone put me in a position like that, I was probably there with Vince Cornella last week. It's just the guys in the room get me ready. Coach gets me ready for anything. If you threw a baseball bat from the top of the stands I probably wouldn't have seen it coming.

Q. Something I know about you have an appetite for learning and constantly studying wrestling and investing and watching wrestling across the world. What drives that? How does that help you succeed and get to where you are right now?

YIANNI DIAKOMIHALIS: The big thing is this is what I love. If wrestling made me $5 million, I would love it. If I had to put my life in debt to do this, I would still love it. I think when you love something you pour your heart into it.

And for me, it comes in a technical way. I want to learn everything. I want to know everything. I want to -- I'm going to go -- I can guarantee you I'm going to go sit in my hotel room tonight and watch that match and think about what I should be doing.

What I did this weekend is far from the best version of myself and it's far, far from what I need to be to an Olympic champion, a world champion. And because of that, even the day I do it, I'm going to go home to my hotel room and watch a match and be like, what should I have done. And when you have that approach to it you can push your ceiling really high.

Q. You used the word changes a lot. There's been a lot of changes in your career. Did you need those changes so it did not become routine that added more excitement to your life in a sense?

YIANNI DIAKOMIHALIS: We talk about it all the time in the room. Definition of insanity is doing the same thing, expecting different results. And if I want to get better, I need to change. Whether it's been me, my training, my skills, the people around me, change can always be positive or negative depending on what you make of it. And I'm sure that there's a different way this could have played out where it would have ruined me.

But I think if you look at it the right way, you approach it the right way, you can make a good thing out of any change. And you've got to roll with it. Life hits you sometimes.

Q. Did you see Vito's match? What have you learned from him?

YIANNI DIAKOMIHALIS: I wish. I was getting ready and I kept hearing screaming and then "take down, Arujau." I was tying so hard not to get into it, but I was, like, he's so good.

Vito, he might be the most underappreciated wrestler in America. He's so, so good. Whenever he gets himself on a world team he's going to right away be in contention to win. He's so athletic, so skilled.

It's just he's had some matches not go his way. But when he's firing, I can't imagine him losing. And he was firing. And he wrestled out of his mind from what I was hearing.

Q. While we're talking about Vito when he was back here celebrating telling some of the coaches go get Yianni get ready go get Yianni ready I'm done my job is done here. How does that feel that you've got your teammate, he's celebrating himself but still thinking about you in these moments?

YIANNI DIAKOMIHALIS: I said this yesterday, but he's just as much family to me as my literal family. I've known Vito now for 10 years. He's my college roommate. He's my best friend. And we've had our lumps together. We've had our highs together. And I think because we're so close and we spend so much time together. He knows what this means to me. I know what that meant to him. So I think -- and we feel it. If he had lost and I had won, it would have been like a backhanded win. If it had flipped, he would have felt the same way. It's good to have us both do it. It doesn't happen often but when we both do it, it's awesome. It's awesome.

Q. So there's five 4-timers now, two of them from Cornell. What is it about Cornell that can breed that kind of success? How does one smaller program like Cornell come up with two of the most decorated individuals in history?

YIANNI DIAKOMIHALIS: I said Vito was the most underappreciated wrestler in the country. Cornell might be the most underappreciated team and staff in the country. It doesn't happen on accident. I could tell you what we did to the coaches this weekend just putting them through the workouts with us, they all should get a huge raise. I mean, we are torturing these guys day and night. They're spending time away from their families. They're not sleeping. They're taking every phone call. Doing every Mike Grey is running to get groceries for us at 11:00 last night, we asked him for them by the morning. He said I'll have them for you tonight. Kellen is walking around in a knee brace. He got hurt wrestling with us. He won't take any time off because he knows we need him. Donny's getting repaired in between matches. Gwiz is a training partner. He's an athlete taking time out of it to work with us. And I think it's the system.

These guys, they love us. They pour their heart into us and we know 100 percent they care. When we win, they win. When we lose, they're hurting, sometimes worse than we are. And I think when you have guys that care about you like that, it takes you a really long way, that we know if I had gone out there got tech falled and roll around on the mat like a fish, it would have broken Mike's heart because he knows what I could do. He would be like why do you do that to yourself, they just care so much. It was the same I think when Kyle was there, they cared. They really do. And when you have people that care about you like that and are putting their life on hold, putting their quality of life on hold, I'm sure their lives are altered forever because of what they're doing for us. It takes guys a really long way and pays back. Everybody's putting it back in. I'll never wrestle a college match again and I'm sure I'm going to do 500 top and bottom goes come the preseason because I want those guys to win again. And it's just the atmosphere. I've never seen a place like it. That's a long answer.

Q. With you not having to compete at the Open, will we see you compete before Final X?

YIANNI DIAKOMIHALIS: The plan is the Pan American championships. I need that freestyle. And like I said, that's not going to cut it. That's not going to cut it. We're happy. It's great. Celebrate tonight. Hug my family. Tomorrow, I'm going to sit down with Frank and Mike and talk about what I've got to do for the next six weeks to win the Pan Ams the next 13 weeks to make the team, the next four or five months to be a world champion. And I can't emphasize enough, that's not going to cut it. And it's not back to work on Monday, but this is going to go back to work tonight.