As a child, Nelson Brands tussled with his cousins in what his uncle and Iowa head wrestling coach Tom Brands called a “ruckus in the background.”

The 184-pound Hawkeye’s nose started to bleed from a hit square in the face. But as Nelson Brands hanged his nose away from his body, he giggled while he asked how to make the bleeding stop.

“Yeah, that’s a pretty good sign that you got somebody that can deal with a little owie or a little bit of discomfort or pain or whatever,” Tom Brands said.

Fast forward to Nelson Brands’ redshirt sophomore year on the No. 1 wrestling team in the nation, his toughness has paid off as he has won his first two matches of the season in front of his uncle and his father, associate head coach Terry Brands.

In his first match, he faced No. 7 Taylor Venz from Nebraska and won in a 13-5 major decision.

On Friday against Isaiah Salazar of Minnesota, Brands won in a 10-6 decision. Nelson Brands is ranked as the No. 6 wrestler in his weight class in the nation by Intermat this week.

“I feel like I am more stingy,” Nelson Brands said of his improvements in wrestling over the past couple seasons. “I think I wrestle positions to the full extent of that position.”

Last season, Nelson Brands wrestled in the first dual of the season against Chattanooga and defeated No. 7 Sam Colbray of Iowa State. He also participated in the Midlands Championships.

But after losing 8-2 to No. 14 Anthony Montalvo of Oklahoma State in February, Tom Brands put Abe Assad as the 184-pound representative at the Big Ten Championships. Assad was later named a second-team All-American.

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At the Hawkeye Wrestling Club Showdown Open in November, Nelson Brands defeated Assad, 9-0.

Jacob Warner, a redshirt junior at 197-pounds, has wrestled before against Nelson Brands in practice and they do drills with each other once in a while.

With Warner being at a different weight class, he gets something besides wrestlers focused on being strong while going against Nelson Brands.

“He’s quicker,” Warner said. “He knows what to hit when and where, so it’s a lot different of a feel as far as that goes and it’s good to be able to wrestle with guys like him or [Abe] Assad or [Myles] Wilson whoever it is who are more explosive and faster, and I have to bring a different A game to the table when I wrestle.”

Nelson Brands was a three-time state champion out of Iowa City West High School. Now under his uncle and dad’s coaching, he has a simple rule for how he refers to them. He refers to them by their first names at Carver-Hawkeye Arena, and refers his dad by dad and his uncle by Tom outside of the arena.

Like many people’s relatives, Nelson Brands has similarities and differences with his dad and uncle.

“I would say that I’m very, very, very competitive,” Nelson Brands said. “Like, if they said who’s going to talk first on the Zoom call, I’m going to speak first. I want to be first in pretty much that I do. I’d have instances in my life growing up where I tried to get the first in line in third grade and I would get in trouble for that and things like that are definitely similar to Tom and Terry and I feel like I am a way different person when it comes to being more mellow and chill with wrestling or just life in general. I definitely I want to say more relatable, but I don’t want to bash my dad and Tom.”