Mizzou legend J’den Cox retires from wrestling
STATE COLLEGE, Pa. (KMIZ)
Mizzou wrestling legend and two-time world champion J'den Cox retired from wrestling at the U.S. Olympic Trials on Friday night.
As the crowd gave the Columbia-native a standing ovation, he left his shoes on the mat, a universal sign of retirement, after losing to the No. 4 seed Kollin Moore.
Cox was a three-time NCAA champion at MU, but found even more success once he moved on from Columbia. The Hickman alum was a bronze medal winner at the Olympics in Rio de Janeiro in 2016. He is Mizzou's seventh Olympic medalist in school history and was the first to claim one since 2008.
He won the world championships in Hungary in 2018 and in Kazakhstan in 2019. He also qualified for his fifth World Championship appearance in 2022, in Serbia.
The 29-year-old was inducted into the Mizzou Hall of Fame in 2022 after winning national wrestling titles in 2014, 2016 and 2017. He was also a four-time champion of the Mid-American Conference and is only the program's second-ever four-time All-American, joining Ben Askren.
Cox finished his Tiger career with a school-best .965 winning percentage, going 136-5 all-time.
As a member of the Hickman Kewpies' wrestling team, he won four state championships at four different weight classes. He notably did not lose a single match through his freshman season.
