Arizona's Anderson Selected to Who's Number One!

Arizona’s Dean Anderson Selected to do Battle at Who’s #1

Big news this weekend as Valiant Prep’s Dean Anderson was selected to compete at the prestigious Who’s #1 All-Star Dual by Flowrestling. The premier High-School event in the country will take place September 26th in Oklahoma State’s historic Gallagher-Iba Arena, Dean’s opponent will be Penn State commit Gavin Mangano.

While Arizona has been well represented on the female side of the event, Dean becomes the 5th male ever from Arizona and the first since Christian Castillo in 2023. Because he wrestles at Valiant Prep, who competes on a national schedule and isn’t part of the traditional AIA member schools who compete for Arizona State titles, some readers may not be as familiar with Anderson’s work…so let me catch you up.

The University of Northern Iowa commit has been on an absolute terror over the last 18 months, and while his hit list is long and impressive, I’ll try to highlight some of his biggest wins.

Dean placed 3rd in the college division at the Reno Tournament of Champions as a high-school sophomore (yes, you read that right). That year he defeated NAIA National Champion Yoshiya Funakoshi and Juco All-American Damian Montoya.

At the PNL event this last Spring Anderson dominated the field, outscoring the competition 39-2, in the process of defeating Iowa State commit Gage Spurgeon and Fargo All-Amercan Caleb Schaefer.

His stock sky-rocketed when he racked up a runner-up finish in the U.S. Open U20 division in a bracket that was chalk full of college wrestlers and high-school stars. In the Open he defeated Lehigh’s Keanu Dillard and Oklahoma State’s Ronnie Ramirez before eventually falling in the finals to Elijah Cortez. That bracket also featured the likes of Carter Pearson, Paul Kenny, Shamus Regan just to name a few. This earned him a spot on the U20 Pan-American team which competed in Rio De Janeiro, Brazil July 9th-12th, where Mr. Anderson further bolstered his resume by defeating Michigan redshirt Moses Mendoza in the quarters. Mendoza is a 2x California State champ, Fargo Champ, Super 32 Champion and held the #1 in the Nation ranking at 138 lbs for the entirety of the 2025-2026 season. In the finals Anderson defeated Jaden Perez of Puerto Rico who was a U17 Bronze medalist.

This last weekend at Elite 8 Duals Anderson went 4-0 defeating #18 Cayden Rios of Texas, a 17-4 dismantling of #10 Nationally ranked Mattew Orbeta of California. Then in what would be the highlight match of the entire prestigious event Anderson would defeat Iowa commit and #1 ranked at 138 lbs Israel Borge 3-2 in UTB.

Anderson's accolades also include being a 3 USAW Folk National Champion, an NHSCA Finalist, multiple time U.S. Open placer, S32 placer... you get the drift, the kid's been really, really good for a long time. What I like most about him (and think bodes well for his college career) is that the kid is constantly in the streets competing. In a day and age when many choose to try to protect rankings or only wrestle when conditions are optimal, it is readily apparent that Dean just loves wrestling and is always willing to put it on the line.

Suffice to say, the young man is pretty good at the sport of wrestling. As previously mentioned, Dean is committed to wrestle for Doug Schwab at the University of Northern Iowa. This gives Schwab the #4 ranked recruiting class in the country for the class of 2027 according to Flowrestling, his strongest haul ever. Given the Panther’s pension for punching above their weight and developing talent at a seemingly disproportionate rate to many of the Division 1 blue-bloods, it will be fun to watch what the future holds for Dean Anderson and the Panther Train. Congratulations to Dean and Family and we look forward to watching the rest of the journey!