How Spencer Lee Beat Luke Lilledahl | Final X 2025

So Spencer Lee beat Luke Lilledahl at Final X in impressive fashion, 2 matches to none. The matches were fairly dominant, though age, experience, and just pure grown man strength may have played a factor. We’re going to go through both matches and see what we can learn.

Match 1, about 50 seconds in, Spencer does a quick snap with his right hand, which catches Luke off-guard a bit. Probably because of Luke’s stance, the positioning of his feet in that moment gives him a weird center of gravity which allows the snap to be more effective than normal. This is less of Luke being out of position, and more of Spencer catching that snap at the exact right moment. It’s probably also the first time Luke really felt Spencer’s strength in this match, and that can also catch you off guard. As Spencer snaps the head, Luke gets a piece of that left wrist and follows it up with a lefty single, which he normally can probably get to, or at least threaten enough danger that it makes his opponents back away, but Spencer reacts super well to the half shot, kicks his right foot back, drops all of his weight onto that near shoulder, which buckles Luke and makes this arm drag get behind look effortless, especially with the grip he immediately gets on the far hip. 2-0 Spencer.

Not going for that shot would have been a better idea, clearing the snap, getting back to your stance. It is smart to try to get to your shots on your terms, though shooting from someone else’s snap is a good way to slingshot your way in, as long as you stay in good position while you do that. That’s like, someone snaps and you do a good penetration step to a high crotch or a double, keep your head up, they pretty much pull you into their legs, but that’s not so easy to do with a single.

Spencer immediately goes to a gut wrench, threatens the left side a tad, then goes back to the right, and rolls Luke for 2. When defending a gut wrench you are taught to try to inch forward, but Spencer’s grip is interesting, it almost looks like he’s not as tight as he could be, there’s a noticeable gap, which might be lulling Luke into a false sense of security. The gut tightens up pretty quickly when spencer digs his hips under, and it looks like Luke is close to stepping over for a reversal of sorts, but Spencer’s grip is too good, he has the leverage necessary for the roll. 4-0 Spencer.

Couple seconds later, Spencer does pretty much the same thing, this time not for a roll, just for some quick back exposure, 6-0 Spencer.

About 50 seconds left in the first period, Luke goes for a lefty single on Spencer’s right. He’s been going for lefty singles all match, and has gotten close to something, but this one is a bit better, but I’m afraid it’s mostly due to Spencer not reacting as well as he could. Spencer is in the process of digging his wrist free, right foot is forward, looks like he’s relaxing a bit too much. Also looks like Luke pulls that right arm down as he shoots, which snaps Spencer out of position as he steps his right foot back. As this happens, Luke’s head finds a hole under Spencer’s arm, and he’s able to duck around for the takedown. Super slick from Luke, a lot of things had to happen to make this look this easy, especially the movement at the end. It isn’t easy to find that hole and keep moving in this position. Lightning Luke indeed. 6-2 Spencer.

Lots of good hand-fighting, Spencer not putting himself in any danger by attempting anything, but also not getting put on the shot clock, which is interesting. About a minute left, Spencer digs underhook on the right, Luke snaps, circles, and bails from the tie-up, immediately following it up with a double from space, but Spencer sprawls pretty well, puts good hip pressure in which knocks Luke off of his leg, and allows him to get to that same arm drag. The difference this time being he didn’t get to the far hip and so wasn’t able to pull the pressure down. Luke’s able to get to his feet and only suffer a push out point. 7-2 Spencer.

A lot of times, especially if they need points, wrestlers will go from this position with the drag back to a shot, which gives them another pretty good chance at a takedown, but Spencer sees no need to do this, when he’s already up on this many points so a push out point will do the job as well.

About a minute left, Lilledahl to that single again, Spencer gets a grip of the arm drag, this time just walks Luke out for the push-out point, 7-2 Spencer. And that’s how the match ends.

Match 2, Spencer starts off with a bang yet again. Luke goes for a lefty high crotch off of a righty collar tie. This kind of shot has been super popular in recent years, using the elbow of the collar tie to lift the arm as you shoot across the body.

Spencer catches on over under as Luke shoots, lets go of the underhook on the left, arm drags on the right, for an easy go-behind, 2-0 Spencer.

I almost wanna see Luke get more of a hand-fight series going before he commits to his shots, but his handfighting in these matches has been good. The ultimate goal with hand-fighting would be to get your opponent to react to more than just one fake. So like, fake high crotch, arm drag, fake single, opponent reacts, attack the far side. When you go for one shot, even if it’s off of a decent setup or fake, a top tier opponent can still react. So stringing as many together as possible is important, the more times you get them to react in a row the slower their reactions tend to be, the more it compiles, and the more you can just walk into an easy shot. Wrestlers like Gable Steveson and Mitch Messenbrink do this very well. Don’t commit to shots, make your opponent react to as many different things in a row as possible until the shot commits to you.

Spencer drops his level, puts his head between the legs, and gets a weird leg lace for another 2 points, not much to say about this one. This leg lace looks awkward but is super difficult to defend when it’s tight. 4-0 Spencer.

20 seconds later, Spencer gets a front headlock, does a bit of a whip over, pulls the overhook down, lifts the underhook up and across, and gets an easy 2 points. This is Spencer again showing some grown man strength, coupled with the fact that Luke was a bit too high in his posturing while being stuck under here. A lot of times you’ll see wrestlers almost bail out to a wide stance when someone has a front headlock, it’s such a powerful position. You can’t be too narrow or compact, or this or maybe a head pinch will happen pretty easily. His base needs to be lower and wider, but he likely didn’t expect this kind of power from this position. He does correct it, Spencer tries this another time or two throughout the match and doesn’t get anything, but he does give up 2 here. 6-0 Spencer.

The rest of the match is pretty uneventful to be honest. Spencer clearly just okay with getting the victory here, doesn’t have a need to show off or try to embarrass or anything. That is cool, though the general advice for aspiring wrestlers is to not do this. The more chances you take, the more points you score and moves you successfully do as you grow up through the sport, the more likely you’ll excel later. So, for the young ones, take the Bo Basset approach, attack as often as possible, make mistakes, score points, let the outcome of matches take care of itself.

Spencer Lee is our rep, ranked #1 in the world, favorite to win worlds this year. And although Luke wasn’t able to get much going in these matches, he’s young, he has a lot of time to figure this thing out, and a great rival to look up to as he grows into the senior level.