Michael Blockhus, Gophers’ surprise victor vs. Iowa, giving Minnesota wrestling a boost

Melissa Blockhus encountered some tension among select residents in her home location of Cresco, Iowa, several years ago, when her son Michael decided to take his outstanding wrestling skills a half-hour south to New Hampton before his junior year of high school.

Michael was known as Millage then, the name of his biological father, and was not able to legally fulfill a desire to change his surname to Blockhus until turning 18.

Travis Blockhus had been a stepfather with whom he remained close and also the surname of the “two most important women” in his life, Melissa and younger sister Paetyn.

Years after the move to New Hampton was smoothed over, with Michael winning the last two of his three state wrestling titles for the Chickasaws, another potential public relations problem surfaced this week that Melissa was required to put to rest.

“Your son told me, ma’am,” I said in a phone call to Cresco this week, “that you threatened to duke it out with Herky the Hawk if Iowa’s mascot didn’t stop poking at you during Monday’s dual with the Gophers at Carver-Hawkeye Arena.”

Melissa laughed, and then said emphatically: “Not true. A dad wanted to get a picture of Herky and his son. I was in my Minnesota gear and Herky wanted to show he was anti-Gopher in the picture. It was all fun and games.”

So, yes, Hawkeye lovers in Cresco, Herky and Melissa are fine.

What wasn’t fine for the Iowa faithful was this:

Michael Blockhus, now wrestling at 157 pounds for the Gophers nine years after he won his first Iowa prep title at 106 pounds, gave the first defeat of the season to the Hawkeyes’ Jared Franek with a dramatic takedown in the closing seconds.

Franek, a transfer from North Dakota State, was ranked No. 2 nationally and Blockhus was down the list at No. 11.

“It’s a new and higher weight class for me; plus, I lost a match to a wrestler from George Mason earlier this season,” Blockhus said. “That’s been held against me, as it should be.

“And a ranking during the season, it’s just a number next to your name. What counts is being the No. 1 guy at the end of the year.”

The victory over Franek does put Blockhus in the national picture at 157 pounds, and also offers the memory of a wondrous sound inside Iowa’s home arena:

Silence.

“Franek was a point ahead, and I took a shot in the final 20 seconds and was working on the takedown,” Blockhus said. “I got the ‘two,’ rode him for a few seconds and it was over. And it just went quiet in there.”

Iowa would win the match 22-9 in the Big Ten opener. Blockhus added another big win Friday night with a 12-5 decision over Nebraska’s Peyton Robb in the Big Ten home opener.

Blockhus has provided an unanticipated asset for coach Brandon Eggum. Blockhus had a redshirt season at Northern Iowa and a COVID-19 season with the Gophers, so he was eligible to return for this sixth year, but he had decided to attempt to launch a career in mixed martial arts.

Blockhus got his degree in human resources at Minnesota in May, then went to the Kill Cliff Fight Club in Deerfield Beach, Fla. to train in MMA.

There was a Bellator card in Sioux Falls on Aug. 11. Blockhus debuted among the preliminary fights with a TKO over Eli Mefford at 2:43. The victory came with a flurry of punches as Mefford was on his back.

Promising start, but then Blockhus continued to dwell on all those years of wrestling:

Possessed by it from an early age, a state title, sitting out the first half of a season in order to make his preferred move to a different high school, overcoming surgery to fix a 1-inch hole in his heart after his first year at Northern Iowa, transferring to Minnesota, going from a 9-8 record as a sophomore to All-America status with a No. 8 finish at the NCAA meet in 2023 ... and he made the decision to take that one more season of Big Ten wrestling.

“Nothing beats the mentality you need to succeed in wrestling,” Blockhus said. “The discipline, the toughness, the constant working out, cutting weight … nothing compares to what it takes to succeed in wrestling.

“And my goal, which is realistic to me, is to finish as a national champion.”

He is a restless soul, as his movements will demonstrate, but Michael Blockhus also will assure a stranger of this:

“I’m the nicest guy you’ve ever met, unless I’m on a mat or in a ring.”