All-American Bella Mir to transfer from Iowa women's wrestling program
The Iowa women’s wrestling program put 12 of its 15 qualifiers on the podium as All-Americans at the 2024 National Collegiate Women’s Wrestling Championship (NCWWC) – an event won by the Hawkeyes in the program’s inaugural season on the women’s college wrestling scene.
Prior to today, it appeared head coach Clarissa Chun was set to return 10 of those 12 All-Americans for a run at a repeat in 2024-25.
Instead, per news this afternoon announced via Instagram that number will now be ‘just’ nine – as 155-pound fifth-place finisher Bella Mir will be transferring to 2024 NCWWC runner-up North Central College (IL) this fall.
What Iowa loses
Mir, the daughter of former UFC heavyweight champion Frank Mir, was 21-3 in her lone official season as a Hawkeye (also going 8-2 during the blanket redshirt year all Hawkeye wrestlers had to take back in 2022-23).
A fifth-place finisher for Team USA last summer at the 2023 U20 World Championships (68kg), she got a late start to the college season due to injury and wouldn’t make her debut in the Black & Gold singlet until just before the New Year at the Soldier Salute tournament held in Coralville, IA.
Mir would hit the ground running, bonus’ing her way through the bracket capped by a win in the championship match over eventual NAIA runner-up Latifah McBryde (Life University).
In fact, Mir would bonus her way through the first 17 matches of the season before running into teammate Marlynne Deede in the finals of the regional qualifying tournament – an 8-4 decision in favor of Deede.
Two weeks later, the #6 seed Mir would reach the NCWWC semifinals before back-to-back losses left her to wrestle for fifth place in her last match of the season – a match she’d win versus Sacred Heart’s #7 Madison Sandquist.
Elsewhere in the bracket, Deede would smash her way to a second-consecutive national title, capping an undefeated (lone) season as a Hawkeye after transferring in from Augsburg University (MN).
In her words
I’d encourage folks to go read Mir’s full Instagram announcement for themselves, but apart from expressing her gratitude for everyone and everything at Iowa – including “the BEST fans and community” – my biggest takeaway was her reference to the hardships of multiple injuries in her young career to date:
“And with those injuries, brought feelings of self-doubt and criticism, confusion, disappointment, and a loss of love for the sport. For an athlete with big goals in both wrestling and MMA, those thoughts aren’t welcome. I knew I had to make a change, and that’s what I did.”
Mir also expressed a similar sentiment in an interview with FloWrestling, saying, “I loved Iowa, the school, the fans, and my team more than anything, but something was missing, and I’m hoping to find it at North Central.”
Impact on 2024-25
Crazy as it may sound, the loss of Mir – and only a few days before the start of the fall semester no less – could very well have minimal-to-no impact on the Hawkeyes this coming season.
I say that without an ounce of disrespect to Mir as a wrestler – who is excellent now, as evidenced by both her collegiate results as well as her sixth-place finish at the 2023 US Open in the 68kg division – and has the ceiling to get significantly better in the future.
The reasoning is this:
- Iowa still has an embarrassment of riches at/around Mir’s projected weight class of 160 pounds.
- That particular weight class may actually be the biggest hindrance to Mir’s ceiling on the collegiate scene.
Mir spoke openly about being undersized for 155 pounds a year ago, and that challenge may only grow steeper as women’s collegiate weights shift this upcoming season.
What was 155 will now bump up to 160 pounds, while the weights above and below will shift from 170 to 180 and 143 to 145 respectively.
The best I’ve ever seen Mir wrestle was at 68 kilograms during the summer of 2023 – which is roughly the equivalent of 150 pounds.
By pure (bad) luck of the draw there doesn’t seem to be an ideal fit for her at the NCAA level as of right now.
Conversely, Iowa returns national champions at both of the weights surrounding her – Reese Larramendy (143) and Kylie Welker (170) – along with 2024 NCWWC All-American Ella Schmit (seventh at 143), who’s now a back-to-back U20 World Team Trials runner-up to boot.
Larramendy and Schmit figure to easily transition ‘up’ to 145 pounds, but it’s Welker who could really ease the pain of Mir’s exit if she drops down to the newly established 160-pound weight class from her previous perch at 170.
That latter move would seem increasingly likely as Welker is set to compete at the U23 World Championships in late-October at 72 kilograms (~158.7 pounds) – and quite possibly at the same weight for the Senior World Championships immediately thereafter.
It’s a notion also buoyed by the fact that Iowa recently added Olympic silver medalist Kennedy Blades to its roster, who could slide right in at 180 pounds to give the Hawkeyes arguably the best back-to-back combination in collegiate women’s wrestling history.
In addition, even without Mir, Iowa remains plenty deep at the upper weights.
Incoming freshman Naomi Simon was the #13 rated pound-for-pound recruit in the country by USA Wrestling. She’ll join the mix at 180 pounds fresh off of her debut on Team USA at the U20 World Championships in two weeks.
(Oh, and Simon doesn’t even turn 18 years old until tomorrow.)
Meanwhile, the ‘back up’ spot at 160 could very well be a battle royale between sophomore Haley Ward and redshirt freshman Rose Cassioppi.
Ward had an incredible true freshman season wrestling at 170 – a weight at which she appeared quite undersized, no less – going 28-5 and without a loss to any collegiate competition not named Kylie Welker until the Regional semifinal in late February.
Back-to-back losses at NCWWC’s via pin made for a surprising (and disappointing) end to the year, but it shouldn’t overshadow an overall excellent season that she can build upon in 2024-25.
Cassioppi on the other hand, spent her first year in Iowa City in redshirt – though hardly just standing idly by.
The younger sister of Hawkeye men’s heavyweight stalwart Tony Cassioppi qualified for the 2024 US Olympic Trials via a fifth-place finish at Senior Nationals last December, doing so up at 76 kilograms (~167.6 pounds).
That accomplishment was all the more impressive because (I believe) it came up a weight from Cassioppi’s most natural fit at 72 kilograms – which is not contested at the Olympics.
In 2023, Ward and Cassioppi finished second/third at U20 World Team Trials at 72kg, winning all of their matches via bonus sans defeat(s) to now two-time Senior World Champion and reigning Olympic gold medalist Amit Elor.
They’d follow that up by finishing second (Cassioppi) and seventh (Ward) in the Senior division at the US Open less than two weeks later.
You could easily argue that both were already in contention with Mir for a potential ‘back up’ spot at 160 pounds heading into this season – and with her exit it still figures to leave an absolute dogfight between the two second-year Hawkeyes.
Again, none of this is a referendum on Mir in any form or fashion.
She’s a damn good wrestler and North Central will reap the benefits of her presence – particularly as head coach Joe Norton referenced (in the same Flo article) his team needing to fill a hole based upon recent events:
“We learned that we lost a two-time All-American and title contender at the weight to injury a couple of weeks ago. So, she’s a welcome addition, especially in that weight range.”
That said, this is the kind of thing that becomes a ‘champagne problem’ when you’ve stacked a roster with as much depth and talent as Coach Chun & Co. have with the Hawkeyes.
In all likelihood, Mir may go on to do great things on both the collegiate, and particularly international scene(s).
And in all likelihood, Iowa is going to continue to roll along just fine itself – the true mark of a powerhouse program.
