How Levi Haines Beat Dean Hamiti | WTT Finals 2025

Here we have Levi Haines vs Dean Hamiti, I’m sorry if I’m mispronouncing, I’ll just use first names. This is a rematch of NCAA semis where Dean won, knocking Levi into the wrestlebacks where he got 3rd instead of getting a chance at his second NCAA title. So, little bit of history between the two.

Almost a minute in, both have a collar tie, Levi snaps a little bit, Dean clears from the tie, and so Levi does like a random head inside single. Really not much of a setup, so he doesn’t get onto an amazing shot, but it’s something to work with. Dean pinches his knee and grabs the right quad to stay square and stabilize the position, this is smart, prevents Levi from running outside and getting an angle which would lead to an easier finish. Levi must be super strong, he’s able to threaten a head wheel, where you pop your head out on the far side and pull that near leg down, right elbow down, which puts your opponent to his hips, and then switch direction to running the angle like I spoke to before, and then back again. That’s not an easy thing to be able to do, requires a lot of strength, because if Dean is doing the right thing, he’s putting his opposite hip down to stretch Levi out more, but it’s difficult to tell if he’s not doing that or if Levi’s neck is just that strong.

Levi starts to come up with the leg and pop his head out as Dean attacks that near leg, a high crotch grip, left arm on the inside, which would lead to a sprawl position if he’s able to keep his body straight and get his legs back, but he’s not able to. Levi has that near leg covered and so is able to threaten a quick cradle which makes Dean bail out and concede the takedown. 2-0 Levi. It looks like he was attacking at that ankle before the takedown, almost as if there’s a move where you attack a high crotch, slide the outside hand down to the ankle and pull as to make your opponent do a split, and then you come up with it. That does make sense, but the positioning at this moment doesn’t make it possible.

30 seconds later, Dean fires off an attack of his own. A pretty nice low leg single out of this collar tie, mostly brought on by the fact that he lowered his level and did like a pump fake, which baited out a pretty good reaction from Levi, straightening his leg and exposing his left foot, putting it within reaching distance. The motion on that fake must have felt like he was going for a high crotch on the right, which would make Levi’s reaction make sense. Dean pulls the ankle in, Levi covers and grabs a crotch lock on the right. Dean starts to get height and go out the back door, looks like Levi is trying to use the grip he has on the hips with his right arm to pull Dean back down to his hips, but Dean is in a stable enough position that he’s not budging. Levi tries to use his chest wrap to roll Dean for a set of back exposure, but ends up giving up his own exposure as Dean is still not budging, forcing Levi to bail. In folkstyle this is a very common funk position, defensively you’d attack the near leg and it would be a lot more complicated, freestyle changes things a bit. 2-2 Dean, who’s winning because it’s tied, same amplitude of scoring, he scored last.

Second period, Levi starts to really step into gear. Levi has a collar tie and a wrist, inside grip, pushes the wrist down, fakes a little bit left and then fires off a righty single. The fake wasn’t very threatening and so didn’t bait out much of a reaction, so, Dean is able to react to the shot fine, not even half of a sprawl got him away, attacks that far ankle as Levi steps his near leg up. Excellent reaction time. Levi goes to kick, probably because Dean didn’t initially have a very good grip, he tried to keep it with both hands but fumbles it a little bit and so Levi is able to convert to a sprawl and get a reattack of his own, super quick arm drag to a near single, then circles to the right to sit Dean on his butt and covers for the takedown. This is such a high level exchange.

1:30 left in the match, Dean goes for a random high crotch from space, don’t think he was trying to get too much of out it, Levi down blocked it well, dean stayed a bit low, Levi snaps the head down with his free arm to get to a front headlock. Down block to a snap down, really nice. I really like what Levi does here, chases after the near ankle, which prompts Dean to match angle, Levi converts to an underhook on the right, like cement job or cow catcher, lets go of the pressure on the head, and immediately does a lefty high crotch when Dean is coming back up to his stance. This is such a nice transition, front headlock, cement job grip, convert to underhook to a high crotch. It’s difficult for the defensive guy to react to the quick shot when he’s in the process of standing back up to his feet. The momentum is going the wrong way, the shot opens up. They get back into this out the back door position, this time Levi on the offensive side, Lifts to go out the back door, catches the ankle with his left hand and puts Dean to his butt, who is forced to bail and give up the takedown. 6-2 Levi.

40 seconds left, looks like Dean is pretty much spent, things open up even more. Dean goes for a random righty high crotch from space, which Levi easily pulls into a front headlock, chasing down that near ankle again and Dean kind of just gives up the takedown, not much fight in that one. Honestly he should have gotten a piece of that left elbow as soon as he landed in the front headlock, instead of reaching for the leg. This is like, an elementary mistake, most likely brought on because he’s so tired. Because he doesn’t have the elbow he doesn’t have the ability to keep up with the circling and is forced to give up the takedown easily. 8-2 Levi.

15 seconds left, Levi has a collar tie with his right, Dean over-tie with his left, tries to do a little slide-by but Levi disappears from the tie up and snatches up that near single. He was probably able to do this because he wasn’t feeding any real pressure into that slide-by, it was forced a little bit, and so he didn’t have to work very hard to stay in his stance, and then grab the leg that was right in front of him. He’s then able to just reach for the far leg, wrap both of them up, and get the takedown. Again something you would only really be able to do against someone who’s spent. Usually they would do a better job circling away and trying to get back to a sprawl.