Senior Level: Everybody’s Chasing Kristie

by Derek Levendusky, AWW staff writer

As we head into Worlds, fans of women’s wrestling might ask: Who's the greatest female wrestler our country has ever produced? There's lots of good ones, but none greater than Kristie Marano-Davis. Born in 1979, she got her start at Colonie Central High in Albany, NY in the mid-1990’s. It didn’t take long for her career to explode on the national scene. She was on 10 world teams between 1996-2010, winning a whopping 9 world medals, including 2 golds, 5 silver & 2 bronze. Winning her world title in front of family and friends at Madison Square Garden in 2003 in her home state made many new supporters and fans of women’s wrestling.

Davis was also named the “Women's Wrestler of the Year” five times by USA Wrestling (1998, 2000, 2002, 2006 and 2007), more than any other wrestler since the conception of the award in 1993. In her college career, she won two WCWA national titles.

In spite of all her success, Davis never made an Olympic team. In 2004, there were just four Olympic weights for women’s freestyle and Davis found herself in a tweener debacle. After getting within a few pounds of 63 kg, her body began to shut down and she was forced to move up to the next weight, 72 kg. That’s where she fell in a match against Olympian Toccara Montgomery. In 2008, Davis went 72 kg again, this time falling to Katie Downing in the challenge tournament. In 2016, only three short years ago, Davis came out of retirement to make one more run at an Olympic spot but fell short of her dream.

In the end, Davis stands alone as the most decorated USA female wrestler of all-time and she was inducted into the National Wrestling Hall of Fame in 2018. She's currently the head coach at Emmanuel College in Georgia. Her daughter, Kayla Marano, is a college All-American who wrestles for Emmanuel and is currently ranked #6 in our inaugural AWW Senior Level Rankings.

Only Elena Pirozhkova has matched Davis’ 10 world teams, though Pirozhkova only has four medals.

As we watch Team USA at Worlds in Nur-Sultan this year, let’s remember the career of Kristie Davis.

Davis is now the head coach for the Emmanuel College women’s program in Georgia.