Blaise Butler was born into wrestling. The 174-pound Missouri redshirt-senior credits his father for starting him and his two brothers as wrestlers by signing them up for youth camps when they were young.
Butler has wanted to follow in his father’s footsteps since then, and since his father wrestled at Amherst College, Butler decided he would pursue wrestling in college as well. When he graduated from Boylan Catholic High School in Rockford, Ill., he moved to Virginia and wrestled four years for the University of Virginia, where he believes he grew both intellectually and physically as a wrestler.