1-on-1 with DP – 93.7 The Ticket KNTK - A.J. Ferrari IN STUDIO Interview with DP: July 2nd, 12:45pm

Episode Date: July 2, 2025

A.J. Ferrari IN STUDIO Interview with DPAdvertising Inquiries: https://redcircle.com/brandsPrivacy & Opt-Out: https://redcircle.com/privacy

You're listening to one-on-one with DP on 93-7 The Ticket and the Ticketfm.com. I would like to now officially announce my commitment. Are you ready for this? Here we go, okay. I got it right here, okay? Here we go. Big reveal. I would like to officially announce my commitment to the University of Nebraska.

Wow. Let's go! Let's go. Welcome back to one-on-one D.P. Bach. We are joined now by the A.J. Ferrari. Kind sir. How you doing, man? Welcome to Lincoln. Welcome to the ticket. How you doing? Doing great. I'm excited for the future of Nebraska wrestling.

You know, I'm so happy to be here. Everybody's been amazing. Nothing but amazing things to say. And it's good to be back around a team, you know, going after a national championship, not just me. individually, but as a team and just that hunger. And then Coach Manning, you know, he's the one that's just talked so highly of everyone here and everything that he said has come to true so far. So it's just amazing and I'm just grateful. You have walked into kind of a storm of positive movement.

And it leads me to ask. And all our texts, we have a text line where our listeners text in and they've asked the question. So I'll now ask you on their behalf, why Nebraska? Yeah, the biggest thing for sure was just when I look at joining a program, right, I don't look at just what they're accomplishing, right? Obviously, that's great being here. That was a huge thing. But as a coaching staff, you know, a lot of coaches say, you know, I'm going to be closer to you and love you and help you regardless of results on the wrestling mat, right?

And you can't judge people, though, based on what they say. For me, I judge them based on the way they act and the way they do their lives, you know? And, like, that's a big thing for me is, like, going from different schools and having all these schools come after me. All the coaches at Nebraska wrestling were strong in their fellowship with the Lord, you know, and they didn't just speak it. They didn't have to. You could see it in their lives, you know, that's huge to me, that they have those fruit. You know, a good tree in the Bible, it says will have good fruit and a bad tree, we'll have bad fruit, you know, and they can try to put on an act for a couple days on the official visit. But I'm from talking to their guys.

And honestly, I almost came back here. I don't know if you guys know this back in 2019. When I took my official visit here, it was about the second school on my list, I ended up staying close to home going to Oklahoma State. but man, just amazing what they got going on here with Coach Manning. And the fact that they have one thing that speaks truly of how, you know, strong and how good the coaching staff is, is that they haven't had the biggest number one recruiting classes. They've had some of the not as good, number five, number four, number three recruiting classes

and been able to take second, you know, and beat teams, you know, and surpass them that have better recruits. You know, that shows that they're helping their guys grow, not just in their wrestling, but in their lifestyles. AJ, it is interesting. Full disclosure. I told the listeners, there's zero chance that I could get you to delve into all the things that you need to talk about for folks to know who you are. Right.

And the wrestling part, easily trackable. But you and your faith, you and your guidance, you and your boundary, you and your discipline are so important to you. And as a coach, it's this thing that resonates with me is how hard does somebody do the things that aren't pleasant? How disciplined are you? Where does that come from for me? for you um i think that really what comes from me is understanding that you have to learn to embrace suffering and embrace hard times a lot of people want the result you know and the thing for me that i think that separates me as a competitor is that i love the training just as much as i love the result

but just like for me i love the day-to-day stuff just as much as i love you know what i mean getting into god's kingdom a lot of people just want the result they just want to be a national champion the result of training right they just want the result of fulfilling god's plan of of salvation of having eternal life with the Lord going to heaven, right? But for me, I love the lifestyle, you know, I love the day-to-day training. I love lifting 600 pounds for reps on deadlift just as much as I love winning national championship. And that's what separates me. I love preaching and helping people grow in their faith during wrestling camps, bringing kids to Christ that don't truly have that in their house, maybe some of them, you know, just as much as I love my salvation,

because that is a part of it, you know, so that that's big for me. And I think that that's just something that's amazing here. And I'm just grateful to God to have the opportunity. And when you when the parable of the talents, when God gives you more, you're expected more, you know, so that that's big for people to understand. I always tell people at my camps, the worst thing in life is wasted talent. You look around in our generation. There's so many people that could have been, should have been, would have been this. But they decided to take the easy route and they decided to not take the path less taken, you know. But that's one thing that my dad always grew me up with is like a lot of what you're seeing is just like the way my dad grew up.

And my brothers is why you see them. my brother angel wrestling in Iowa, you know, being the 184 pounder, being number of the country right now, me being number one in the country, 25. Brother Anthony, you know, I'm going to be top in the country at 165, you know, it's just the way that we were raised with that work ethic and then the true faith in the Lord, you know, and my dad didn't have to preach it, but he lived it by serving my mother and by always putting my mother first, you know, in every aspect of life and then just the work ethic of like you always find a way to succeed. There's always a way to find an excuse and there's always a way to find a way to succeed. Well, that is the guy.

that you can make a way, you can make an excuse. Waymakers usually stand at the top of the podium. That's how that works. It is a thing. You talk about your dad, and I'm around the UFC circle enough that I know your dad is a dude. Your dad is a dude. And I think Lincoln has to prepare itself for when the senior Ferrari shows up in Lincoln, because he is a rock.

your dad. Yeah. So my dad just the way that he grew us up, he wasn't the dad that he necessarily wanted growing up, you know. The dad you needed though. He's the dad you needed, you know, because like just the way we grew up, you know, one thing that my dad always did is like a lot of kids want to like make their kids lifestyles easy and fun and good. But for me, everything that he tried to do was to make our lives absolutely miserable and make us learn to embrace that. Like as crazy as that sounds like the stuff that he put us through, like things that seemed impossible you know like for instance let me give an example we'd say oh we're going to go run to my uncle randy's house right um three miles there whatever and uh you have to stick like what a six

seven minute pace whatever the pace was for the day depending on the weather if it was 100 degrees down he might cut us a little bit of slack if it was nicer weather it'd have to be faster right so we're running and then we maybe we'd get there and all of a sudden i assume when we get there and we're about to we stop right he's like what are you doing you got to do three miles back at the same pace and so it was But let me say, so was this in Allen, Texas? So I was in the Woodland section. So I know the terrain in Allen, Texas. That's not really conducive to a son that sits on your shoulder as you run.

So you're telling me you're doing six miles round trip. Right. Just because. Just because. Well, sometimes there would be, we'd be doing, you know, workouts, practices. And let's say, working hard. You know, if you didn't work hard at that practice, if you were being lazy and my dad saw you, you were cutting corners, you know, you would get in a ride home, you know?

So you'd be like, you'd be like, get a ride home. I'm not bringing up. You got to find a way. My dad's quote is, in my family, if you don't work, you don't eat. That's my dad's quote. So you're not going to eat with the family. You can eat by yourself, go eat by yourself. But if you don't work in my family, you don't eat.

I don't respect it. You know, that's the biggest thing. I feel like in the Italian culture, passed down generation, generations. Every generation makes a sacrifice for the next one, you know? So that's like my great-grandfather. I know I had to like move out at 12 years old to get a job, you know. So and then my grandfather was the first one to get an education, become an accountant.

And then my dad's an accountant as well. I was the first one to go on a four-wide scholarship. And then my brothers are following in my foot steps as well. So, well, actually my sister, I guess you could say her too because my sister had a four academic scholarship as well. But she's also an accountant. So my family's good with numbers. That's our type of thing.

I think they're going to need to be. You got lots going on, AJ. There's lots in space. Jay Ferrari joins us one-on-one, I think for listeners, and again, trying to get as much of this into a short space. But the decision to move from 197 to heavyweight is, one, it's a personal challenge of epic proportion, and then it's the ultimate team choice to help Nebraska pursue a greater goal, a purpose bigger than the individuals doing it. Walk me through the process in the conversation to get you to move to heavyweight.

Well, when I was, you know, transferring, so after I was, you know, committed to UNC, and then the whole thing went down, I hit the portal, I had all these schools heading me up, right? I had a lot of schools reaching out to me. You know, the biggest thing for me was like, I told the coaches, and I wanted to be clear that I'm going to try to go heavyweight to the best of my ability. But if I can't put on the weight, if I don't feel healthy that I can win and dominate and win a national championship, I'm not going to do it. You know, now I've gotten here and I feel more than ready to win a national championship

at heavy weight just from my weight and the way I'm training, the way I'm feeling, right? But that was a big thing for me is just the weight and just how it's going to be on my body. So there's ups and downs to both sides, right? So $197, right? I think the easiest thing for me is I've already won it there. I already know the weight class. I've already beaten all those guys, you know. But the biggest thing was that coming here, you know, they already have a guy that took eighth as a freshman, you know,

so it would really be a much bigger help to go heavy weight for the team, not to mention I like to eat. And $197 this past year was a real struggle. You know, I really did at Cal State Bakersville, a technical. almost bust weight. I remember I stepped on the scale. It was like point two over. I stepped on again and I made flat at one of my tournaments. So it was just a really, this year's, my body has grown, you know,

and even when I got my freshman year, 197 was even tough to make. You know, I was always a big cutter. I remember one day I'd cut eight pounds morning of. And that was my first loss I had because my legs were so shot from running that morning. I ran like, I think five miles, you know, with like four layers on, you know, in the heat. and it just, it was terrible, you know, and that's why I didn't finish those shots. So I think heavyweight's been a blessing. But the hardest thing for me is like, people think cutting weight is hard, right?

Dieting, left style, you know, not being able to eat. I do a lot of fasting when I was going 97 last year. But, man, going heavy weight's tough for me too just because you got to eat. Like for me right now, I'm meeting about every two hours. The last couple weeks I was doing about anywhere from two to four pounds of meat per day. So thankfully, that's a big thing me coming here too was the training table. But we have the training table here, which is the abs. And I was just UNC with Bill Belchek, who had, they boasted in our coaching staff at the wrestling program there, was like, yeah, you come here, you know, you get to eat here.

And their training table is basically the same as Tom Brady's. But the biggest thing was, like, it wasn't near as nice and near as big as the one they have here. The one here is as a camaraderie. You eat with the football team. It's not separate. The football guys are there. You know, I actually just hung out with a bunch of football players a couple days ago. I was hanging off Bodie, a bunch of the guys, Eric, having a good time.

they had a really good uh really good time with them all the football guys are very similar because they're constantly trying to get big a lot of them trying to eat so um you got to eat big to get big you know and it's just like for me it's constant because my metabolism like every two hours pretty much i'm putting something in my body and i have to even if i'm not hungry like if that's the most important part of eating is eating when you're not hungry you know so i've already when i got here i was like when i first took the official visit before i left right um when i talked to coach i checked my weight i was about like 215 and I'm already up to like 235 so I'm trying to still continue on that I want to touch down at

255 and then like weigh in at nationals like 240 around there you know just because like my metabolism like for instance like I'm big I take my recovery seriously I take my sleep I take my left style right there's some like when I got to nationals this year listen this this year at 197 you have to make 197 197 198 199 on the third day right so I get there the first day the first day were there, the tournament starts Thursday, Friday, Saturday. I get there. The coaches were like, we're going to fly on Tuesday. I was like, no, I'd rather us flying Monday night, right? So we fly on Monday night. I get in Monday night, right? We're wrestling. We have to make weight on Thursday, right? When I got there, my weight was 213 pounds. So I'm 15 pounds or 16 pounds over, right? So 213, 16 pounds over, right? But I had flown

and whenever you fly, you retain water. So I drank two gallons of water with electrolytes, right? So I get there. I go to sleep right that night. I went to bed at 2.13. Next morning, I woke up. I was 204.5 pounds. So I had floated eight and a half pounds. You know, I floated sometimes not if I do it. But I had, the thing is I went to bed early.

I went to bed at nine and I woke up at 10. So I got 13 hours of sleep. The signs behind it is so incredible. And I think it actually gets better for you here at Nebraska. Yeah. Because they've got the data. They've got the personnel for you. Yep, for sure.

It was, I was telling Bach before in the previous segment that I was, so I was at Nationals, and I was in the corridor right as the walkout. You were at wrestling national championship? Yeah, and sitting there watching you, immediately post-match, go into recovery and weight loss. Right, right. Was the most, I was telling me back, that's how you learn who people are. Right. And to watch how you went about it, I've never seen anybody more focused and more positive about,

hey, I just wrestled, just got my win. Now I need to get ready for the next thing. And you quickly moved into it. It was impressive. Well, really, there's two wrestling matches, right? You got a match against a scale and you got a match against your opponent. And if you don't cut that weight right, if you're really destroying your body to get on the scale, right, man, it's going to show.

And I think that's one thing that me and Cardana is actually the guy that ended up taking forth one of my friends for Burden Catholic. He was pulling a lot of weight this year, too. And that's why we always talked about, too. I think we've tried to advocate for this and talked about it, but like, I'm surprised they don't have like a 225, 215, 215, 215 around weight class, like a weight class. I think it would honestly pull a lot more football players to the two wrestling too because 197, I mean, there's barely any football players that are walking around that unless you're a cornerback or a very speed-based guy or even the guys that have a lot of speed like myself. Like I feel just as fast as I was at 197 as I do at 235. You know, my explosiveness, my agility is just as good because I train it.

My flexibility is just as good. I still have the splits. When did you put down football? I stopped playing football in eighth and ninth grade. So seventh grade was my last year. I played at Curtis Middle School. Curtis is one of the schools in Allen, which football was huge, right?

And I was loving it. I remember back in no school, I think I held like the school record for like most sacks in one game. I had like seven sacks in one game. I was like off the charts. They were having me play like middle linebacker, but like pretty much every other play, they're having me just like blitz around the corner

and just get to the quarterback. And I was, I was lighting people up on the field. You see that rule. dialing right now. Coach Ruhl. He's like, hey, just a couple of a couple of plays. Like, we'll protect him, but, you know, especially he's walking around at 240. It's going to be a

problem. A.J. Ferrari joins us, first of all. Once again, thank you for making time. I don't know what your schedule is. I know you got a crazy schedule and you have to be places all over. But I would like to ask you to stay another 10 minutes if that's possible. That's, that's no problem. I have a little bit more time. Okay. So here's what? I have to, what time is right now?

It's 1255. Yeah, I'm good. I have to 1.30. Okay, so here's what we'll do. We'll end one-on-one, and then we'll come back and we'll get started with Bach in the black shirt. But it'll be me and AJ and Bach. Y'all got to hear this guy, because I'm just telling you, it's a great story, a wonderful addition to the program and to this community. This community got better when A.J. Ferrari got here.

DP, A.J. Ferrari, don't go anywhere at 1 o'clock. We're going to bring it back to you.