Graduate student 141-pounder Chris Cannon crumpled to the mat.

On that Friday night in January, it was Cannon’s left shoulder — his second time injuring it in less than a week. A month earlier, it was a displaced rib, and before that, a concussion so severe he almost quit wrestling for good.

Cannon was once a two-time All-American and bona fide national title contender, but those days seemed far away in what was poised to become another medical forfeit, the latest in an avalanche of setbacks.

But this time, he pushed through.

When coach Matt Storniolo said the fate of another injury-derailed match rested upon him,  Cannon said he wanted to test his body’s limits, but more importantly, show his teammates he was there for them. 

He slipped the shoulder back into place, stood back up, and finished the bout.

Despite his moment of personal heroism, Cannon lost the match 10-2.

Throughout his turbulent collegiate career that included a transfer to Michigan and a return to NU, along with countless injuries, Cannon persisted when many others would have dropped out. It was not in a relentless pursuit of glory, but for the simple joy of wrestling, he said.

Just over a week ago, Cannon’s college wrestling journey reached a potential conclusion.

***

Long before Cannon’s collegiate wrestling career took him to not just one, but two Big Ten schools, he hated the sport. 

“My first memory was probably getting my butt kicked,” Cannon said.

He didn’t have much of a choice. 

His father, Robert Cannon — a former college wrestler — coached Chris Cannon’s older brother Austin’s middle school wrestling team. Chris Cannon spent his weeks as a third grader getting dragged to wrestling practices and playing his true passion, Little League Baseball.

“He didn’t know whether he was a leftie or a rightie,” Robert Cannon said. “At that point, I think wrestling was going to be his sport.”

Chris Cannon joined the team workouts in elementary school, but he stayed away from wrestling. It wasn’t until his dad realized he was really bad at baseball, Chris Cannon said, that he forced him to drop Little League and start wrestling. 

“I liked the push-ups, sprinting around the mat, I liked all that stuff,” Chris Cannon said. “But the wrestling, I was crying every practice.”

But the choice to switch sports would pay dividends by fifth grade, when he placed higher than his brother at a tournament for the first time. The moment his older brother gave him a pat on the back, Chris Cannon realized he actually enjoyed it.

After earning a starting spot on his father’s team, Chris Cannon told him he wanted to attend Blair Academy, a New Jersey boarding school with 17 NCAA wrestling championships amassed by its alumni.

As a senior in high school, Chris Cannon watched fellow New Jersey native and then-NU wrestler Sebastian Rivera win a Big Ten Championship and decided he wanted to follow in his footsteps to Evanston.

Instead of getting formally recruited, Chris Cannon reached out to Storniolo and scored an official visit. He met the entire team, which gave him an appreciation for the tight-knit intrasquad and player-coach relationships that he thought would be impossible in other Big Ten programs.

Reflecting on Chris Cannon’s first days with the program, now-graduate student 157-pounder Trevor Chumbley and former Wildcat 125-pounder Michael DeAugustino said they saw a Jersey kid with a lot of potential and something to prove. 

“He was a guy that gave 110% every day, and he let you know he did,” Chumbley said.

When he began his 2020 redshirt year as DeAugustino’s training partner, Chris Cannon took on the starter in a down-to-the-wire preseason practice match.

Though DeAugustino narrowly won that bout, the moment offered an early glimpse of the work ethic Chris Cannon carried with him to NU. 

DeAugustino finished third at that season’s Big Ten Championships. Although Chris Cannon was ineligible to compete in the starting lineup, he trained as if he was the starter.

In his first year of full competition, Chris Cannon moved up to the 133-pound slot for the 2021 season and became a fixture in the rotation.

Chris Cannon often wrestled alongside his former training partner at tournaments, turning what was once an internal rivalry into a friendship that remains today, DeAugustino said.

Chris Cannon said he often thinks about the time he regained his composure to win his first All-American accolade after DeAugustino lost on a nearby mat.

DeAugustino prefers a story of their friendship from the following year’s national championships, when he notched his first podium finish at 125 pounds and cried tears of joy in a back hallway while Chris Cannon wrestled for the same reward.

DeAugustino heard a whistle and a slap of a mat, signalling a pin. Chris Cannon met him in the tunnel, and he could tell he won.

“Finally f–kin’ did it together,” DeAugustino remembers saying.

***

In 2023, Chris Cannon beat that year’s national fifth-place finisher Aaron Nagao during the dual season and eventual-2024 national champion Jesse Mendez at the Big Ten Championships. 

He then lost 6-5 in the first round of nationals before getting pinned in the second round of the consolation bracket. Getting to the podium back-to-back years and falling short in the third year tore him apart, he said. 

Something needed to change, and ultimately, he said he decided it was his environment.

Alongside two of his teammates, Chris Cannon opted to transfer to Michigan following the 2023 season. DeAugustino said he became a Wolverine because as a rising senior, it was “crunch time” for him to pursue a national title. 

Sixth-year associate head coach Andrew Howe and fourth-year assistant coach Jimmy Kennedy both left before the 2022 season only for their replacements, Joe Colon and Joe Rau, to also leave.

The departures left Storniolo as the only coach on staff in the summer of 2023, which DeAugustino said wasn’t enough coaching support for him. Rau would eventually return along with the additions of assistant coaches B.J. Futrell and Justin Oliver, all of whom remain with the team today.

When Storniolo received a text from Chris Cannon on the last night of spring break in 2023, he had an idea of what was coming.

“He said that he felt like he needed to make a change to continue growing and to continue getting better,” Storniolo said. “So, he made that change.”

Chris Cannon said that moment prompted a bit of a falling out between him and his coach. 

Storniolo wanted him to rethink the move, but Chris Cannon said he wanted to follow through with what he thought was the right decision.

“My frustration (in my) senior year was not doing well at NCAAs,” he said. “I took that out on Northwestern and took that out on Storniolo with leaving.”

Chris Cannon, DeAugustino and heavyweight Lucas Davison all transferred to Michigan that summer. Chumbley stayed behind, but he said the move made sense at the time.

***

Michigan opened its 2024 dual season with a nonconference meet against Columbia. As the 125-pounder who usually leads off for every dual, DeAugustino started Michigan’s season on the right foot with an 8-1 win, then left the mat to run sprints while Chris Cannon followed him up at 133 pounds. Business as usual.

He heard a whistle, and when he came back to the mat, Chris Cannon was on the ground. He later learned Chris Cannon had attempted a blast double, launching forward with both arms for his opponent’s legs. His head crashed into his opponent’s knee, knocking him out.

Chris Cannon said he doesn’t remember anything.

“I was scared to death because I didn’t know what happened,” he said. “When something happens, you can picture it in your head. That was the scariest part: I couldn’t replay it, and I was trying to. I was totally shook — like completely emotionally distressed on the mat.”

Robert Cannon said concussions followed his son from Blair all throughout college, but Chris Cannon said this was unlike anything he had ever experienced. He continued to have headaches when he returned to the mat, and upon talking to a neurologist, he decided to take the rest of the season off.  

And so, rehab began: Daily eye exercises from a vestibular doctor, closing his eyes and standing on one leg in the corner of a room to test his balance, taking notes to determine whether a morning headache was from the concussion or just a poor night of sleep. 

Back on the sidelines during wrestling practices for the first time since the fourth grade, Chris Cannon trained for and completed a half marathon just to give purpose to his time spent rehabbing on the treadmill.

All the while, his friends back in Evanston — Chumbley, graduate student 184-pounder Jon Halvorsen, redshirt senior 165-pounder Maxx Mayfield and more — sent videos of the team hanging out at NU. 

It was then that Chris Cannon routinely took trips to visit his former teammates in order to take his mind away from his injury at Michigan. 

“Through those visits and talking on the phone with me and some of the older guys, I think he realized how much he missed this place,” Chumbley said.

Chris Cannon said he had great relationships with his teammates and coaches at Michigan, but an injury-ridden season in Ann Arbor prompted him to reflect on what was most important. 

Chris Cannon called Storniolo the moment he entered the transfer portal.

“I miss you, I miss Northwestern, I miss the guys,” he remembers telling Storniolo. “Will you take me back?”

Chris Cannon said he doesn’t regret his stint in maize and blue. He needed to leave in order to remember why he loved NU, he added.

“I’m happy that I (transferred to Michigan), and I’m happy that I came back,” he said.

A summer internship in Dallas gave him a taste of what life without wrestling could be like, and by the fall, he had moved in with Mayfield in Evanston. 365 days after his concussion, Chris Cannon returned to the mat in an NU singlet.

After moving up to the 141-pound weight class, Chris Cannon posted a 4-9 individual record in his 2024-25 campaign. While his father said moving up a weight class was a difficult transition, Chumbley said he’s seen Chris Cannon come back wiser, more mature and more focused.

Chris Cannon was the seventh-best wrestler in his weight class in his second year of college wrestling, but looking back, he said he was “young and dumb.” Now, he says his preparation is better. 

He sleeps on time instead of staying on his phone for two extra hours. He reads instead of playing Call of Duty. 

“I wish I knew that you can do more than you think you can,” he said. “As you get older in this sport, maturity and discipline really show who’s getting away with doing the wrong things and who’s doing the right things.”

Although he still has one more year of athletic eligibility, Chris Cannon said a seventh season at 25 years old is something he wants to take time to consider. 

He remembers telling Storniolo he was just grateful for the opportunity to compete.

“Last year, I didn’t know if I was going to wrestle ever again,” he said. “You never know when it’s your last one.”

By sheer chance of NU hosting this year’s Big Ten Championships for the first time in 14 years, Chris Cannon got one more guaranteed opportunity at home. He entered the weekend riding his best momentum of his season following wins in his last two dual matches and a healthy February. 

A first-round bout against Illinois’ Danny Pucino ended in a 7-1 loss, sending him to the consolation bracket for a meeting with Purdue’s Greyson Clark. A second-period takedown gave him a shaky 5-4 lead as the clock ticked down in the third. 

With 20 seconds left in the match, Clark secured Chris Cannon’s head and left leg, heaving him onto his back. The referee raced around them as Chris Cannon kicked and struggled, quickly at first, then slower and slower.

Final score: Clark 11, Cannon 5. Chris Cannon’s Big Ten Championships, 2025 season and potentially, his college wrestling career, were over.

He watched the championship bouts from the stands, with his father and Halvorsen by his side.

***

As the conference championships wound down, Storniolo stood in the quiet east corridor of Welsh-Ryan Arena. With the entire NU team walking down the hallway, Storniolo prepared to follow them. Chris Cannon’s arms were clearly full as he walked by, and he dropped a bottle of lemon-lime Gatorade Zero at his feet.

Instead of asking someone to pick it up or hold something for him, he started kicking the bottle down the hallway. The bottle had a long way to go, and it was not making it there. 

As the bottle arced farther away from the trajectory Chris Cannon wanted it to take, Storniolo said coaching him has taken him across the entire emotional spectrum.

“Coaching Chris Cannon has been like a rollercoaster,” he said. “Just like anything in life, it’s had its bright spots and its rough patches, but I wouldn’t change anything about it.”

Email: siddarthsivaraman2028@u.northwestern.edu

X: @sidvaraman