Seven champions were crowned in the sand Saturday as Fargo hosted the summer’s biggest showcase of girls and women’s beach wrestling. Nearly 200 matches ran across three rings in a single day — fast exchanges, brackets drawn on-site, and title runs decided one takedown at a time. The full event is available on replay now at MMA Futures, with individual match videos rolling out in the MMA Futures fan app all week.
The tournament ran alongside Fargo’s biggest week in American amateur wrestling, though it is not part of or affiliated with the national championships held in the city. “Fargo’s the premier wrestling event in the world, in terms of quality and quantity — and there’s no second place even close,” says Ed Duncan of USA Beach Wrestling, who organizes the Tour of America beach wrestling series. “To have an opportunity for beach wrestling to be alongside that is very special.”
Fargo Beach Wrestling Results — Division Champions
16U Girls
- 105 lbs: Kourtney Azuri (Arizona) — def. Hailey Robinson (Wyoming) in the final
- 110 lbs: Isabella Thiel (Ohio) — def. Rhaelyn Schedlbauer (Idaho) in the final
- 125 lbs: Kelty Kynaston (Arizona) — def. Adeline Smith (Vermont) in the final
- 140 lbs: Brooklyn Dodge (Idaho) — def. Veda Gensrich (North Dakota) in the final
Junior Girls
- 115–120 lbs: Peyton Smith (North Carolina) — def. Jordan Deglace (Florida) in the final
- 125 lbs: Malila Miller (Alaska) — def. Leah Rivas (Arizona) in the final
- 155 lbs: Christal Desir (Florida) — def. Arianna Antoniou (Florida) in the final
Complete brackets and every placement match are available at USA Bracketing. To every athlete who stepped into the sand — from first-time beach wrestlers to returning champions — that took guts.
Watch Every Match on Replay
The complete broadcast — every ring, every round — is streaming now on MMA Futures. Individual match videos, cut from every ring, are being added to the MMA Futures fan app throughout the week — follow Beach Wrestling in the app to be alerted the moment your match is up.
What Is Beach Wrestling? The Rules, From the Man Who Runs It
Beach wrestling takes wrestling off the mats and into the sand — contested standing, with short matches that reward takedowns and balance. Duncan’s pitch is simpler.
“Beach wrestling is fast, it’s fun, and it’s exciting,” Duncan says. “Think easy scoring — takedowns, one point. Pushouts, one point. Throw them straight to their back, three points. First one to three wins, one three-minute period. You will not get bored at a beach wrestling tournament.”
No overtime. No twenty-five minute matches. A bout can end on a single throw, and every step happens in shifting sand, which makes balance the visible skill that separates competitors. Saturday proved it — several finals ended inside a minute.
Why MMA Fans Should Watch
David Mirikitani, who runs the Missouri Border Brawl and works alongside Duncan on the Tour of America series, draws the line straight to the cage.
“You don’t hit your knees on offense in beach wrestling, which is a very big difference from folkstyle or freestyle,” Mirikitani says. “You’ll see a lot of men and women, boys and girls with skills that are highly translatable to MMA — takedown defense, staying in the center, getting pushed out versus getting pushed against the cage.”
For MMA Futures, the event is part of an expansion in coverage. The outlet covers regional combat sports across the Midwest — MMA, boxing and kickboxing — and is adding wrestling to that mix with a focus on women’s wrestling.
Every event streams live and on demand — full cards, replays, and the archive.
Watch on MMA FuturesFrom the Sand in Fargo to World Gold: The Eliana Bommarito Path
The proof that beach wrestling can change a career is named Eliana Bommarito.
Bommarito was the number-one ranked heavyweight girl in the country — in a sport where four-year colleges offered no heavyweight class for her, as Mirikitani tells it. Introduced to beach wrestling through the same organizer circle that ran Saturday’s event, she became the first American ever declared a Senior Beach Wrestling World champion, has now won the world title three straight years, and holds a U.S.-record ten career Beach World Series gold medals.
“It completely changed her life,” Mirikitani says.
That pipeline runs through Fargo. “The last three years, our U17 and U20 world teams have medaled as teams, and we brought home a couple of world champs at the age-group level,” Duncan says. Saturday’s champions competed in exactly that lane — and history says a few of them may be on a world stage within a year.
The 2026 Summer Beach Wrestling Series Continues
Fargo was one stop in MMA Futures’ 2026 summer beach wrestling series with the Tour of America. The series heads to Lake of the Ozarks on August 2, 2026, then returns to Missouri in September for the Border Brawl.
“You’re gonna get at least three awesome wrestling events in nine weeks,” Mirikitani says.
A subscription that covers the Fargo replay carries straight into the Lake of the Ozarks live broadcast. Follow along and turn on alerts in the MMA Futures fan app.
Watch the full Fargo girls & women’s beach wrestling replay on MMA Futures.
