Mr. Spladle Worldwide: The Fast-Rising Journey of Logan Bonfilio

Easton P.A.— When most 13-year-olds are worried about homework and weekend plans, Logan Bonfilio is juggling international fight camps, viral highlight reels, and cross‑country training blocks with some of the best young wrestlers in the world. He introduces himself on social media as a “13‑year‑old kid” who has already hit “over 100 spladles” in competition, and the nickname that follows him into every gym is simple: “Mr. Spladle.”

Logan’s path into combat sports started in pretty humble fashion. As he tells it, his dad asked him to pick a one‑on‑one sport, and within a week wrestling became the family’s focus. They began in Massachusetts at a local club that gave him his first real taste of the sport. “We kind of outgrew the club — I was beating most of the kids,” Logan said. That early dominance pushed his family to look for tougher rooms, and they landed in Pennsylvania, which he already understood as “one of the best wrestling states in the country.” They spent about four or five months there before everything changed again with a decision to go overseas.

“Before summer break, we were thinking about going to Thailand to train Muay Thai and learn wrestling and MMA,” Logan says. The plan turned into reality, and when he arrived, the difference hit him right away. “It’s a very different culture. I didn’t think it was going to be that different,” he remembers. “The training was definitely more intense… but that’s all they do there. It’s Muay Thai and boxing.” What stood out just as much was how invested people were in his growth: “All the people, they’re always wanting you to learn stuff and not just having you pay.”

Thailand wasn’t just about drilling and pad work. Logan ended up taking a real Muay Thai fight after a coach noticed how quickly he was picking things up. “I was getting somewhat good, and one of the coaches said I should fight,” he recalls. They talked to the head coach, “and he said he’d get me a fight that week.” The opponent looked intimidating — “the kid had like a leg sleeve tattoo on his leg, it was pretty scary” — but Logan stepped into the ring anyway. He fought that weekend, won, and “then just kept on training.” Some of his favorite memories are of those nights in the ring with his dad and coaches in his corner.

The experience overseas expanded far beyond one bout. Logan says he’s already been to “like six, seven countries overseas to train and fight,” and he lights up talking about the small details that made it special. “The people are very nice. They treat you like their family,” he says, and he loved the culture, “the motorbikes, the fishing, the weather.” Even the food became part of the story. “It’s very good. It’s mostly soups and stuff. The fried chicken, the grilled, all the grilled stuff, it’s really good.”

If you know Logan’s name, though, there’s a good chance you first saw him on a wrestling mat hitting a spladle. The “Mr. Spladle” persona came out of the VAC Duals in Virginia Beach. “After, we were thinking about something to do with Instagram because I was hitting so many spladles,” he explains. At that time “we didn’t even have Instagram before that. We never used social media.” A friend tossed out the idea of the “Mr. Spladle” handle, and they decided to post one clip from VAC. “We made a post, the first post, it was in VAC and it got like 70,000 likes and like 5,000 followers from it. And that’s how we really went with the Mr. Spladle.”

The explosion changed his life in ways he didn’t expect. He now has tens of thousands of followers and reels that bounce around the wrestling and combat‑sports internet constantly. Logan admits, “I didn’t think I was going to get recognized as much as I do. I never thought I would be like somewhat famous, like a celebrity on Instagram. I always wanted to, but I didn’t think that’s how it would start.” At tournaments, the attention is constant: “Once in tournaments it’s like seven people, probably a day,” asking for photos. He leans into that role and says, “If anybody wants a picture or wants me to like make a video with them, I always usually say yes. It’s not a big deal for me.”

The visibility has a competitive cost. High‑level opponents have studied his spladles so much that the move is harder to hit. “It’s not always there,” he explains. “For most of the high‑level guys now, it’s common because they can see from Instagram and their technique. So it’s kind of hard to hit it. It happens once in a while, but it’s mostly fading now.” That shift has forced Logan to deepen his game beyond the one position that made him famous. He describes himself as “more like legs, like leg passes, funky stuff, Granby rolls, slide‑bys and stuff,” someone who thrives in weird scrambles rather than just hunting the same finish.

Along the way he has trained with some of the most talked‑about young fighters in the world. One of the names that lights him up is English youth star CeeJay “Mini Beast” Fenton. When asked if he’d ever trained with the kid from England, Logan doesn’t hesitate: “Yes, sir. I was training with him in Dubai for a week or two, running MMA and wrestling.” He calls CeeJay “a beast” and notes that because wrestling isn’t as big in England, the coaches mostly ran a tight schedule, leaving less room for Logan to show off folkstyle nuances. The week they spent together, blending striking and grappling work, left a strong impression on him.

He’s also sought out high‑end wrestling partners whenever he’s back in the States. Logan mentions that he’s had chances to wrestle Jax Forrest and Bo Bassett “at The Compound Ranger Pride,” as well as getting hands on college‑level talent like Cornell’s Gabriel Bouyssou. Those touches give him an early feel for the pace and physicality of where he wants to go. He loves watching college programs like “Cornell, Oklahoma and Iowa,” and says of Iowa in particular, “Iowa kids are super strong, very good technique, and I like the Brands brothers, all the people on the roster.”

Another key piece of his development has been movement‑specific training with Caroline Webster, who runs Wrestling Prep. Logan doesn’t hesitate when you ask who has helped his body awareness the most. “One of my biggest help with my flexibility and my movement is Caroline,” he says. She “really taught me how to move my body in certain ways and just not for even for MMA, boxing and not just wrestling — in every way.” That functional movement work shows up in his scrambling, in how comfortable he is in awkward positions, and even in how he absorbs the volume of training that comes with his schedule.

This summer, his focus shifted to the Steel Valley Wrestling Club in Pennsylvania, run by Dan Reeves. Logan made his first solo flight to go live and train with the Reeves family, staying in their home while he embedded fully in the Steel Valley environment. It was an emotional step. “It was definitely hard going without my dad for a little while since he’s been there with me,” Logan says. “I haven’t mostly spent a month without him my whole life.” Once he settled in, though, the decision made sense. “Steel Valley is a very good club. I have one of the best teammates, coaches there helping me get better,” he says, pointing to partners like Liam Reeves as a big part of his growth. “It’s amazing. They’re pushing me to get better that I didn’t think I would get in Thailand… it’s a different opportunity.”

He also traveled to Wesley Chapel, Florida, for the 14U National Duals to support Liam and the rest of the Pennsylvania lineup. Logan wasn’t there to compete; he was there to be part of the environment and back his friends. “It was pretty fun. I was kind of part of the team. I was helping with the team, the coaches and stuff,” he says. Even without stepping on the mat, he found a way to plug into the atmosphere and contribute.

For all the hype, Logan is blunt about where he still struggles. When you ask what’s hardest for him in the sport, he answers, “Probably my bottom game and my technique.” That honesty is part of why he and his dad constantly seek out coaches who can help sharpen details. In addition to Caroline Webster, he leans heavily on his core coaching circle and his own study habits. Logan says he reviews video “after every one of my matches or after like the weekend of a tournament when I’m in the car driving home.” Those drives become film sessions where he and his dad “see what I did wrong, talk to my dad, my coaches, talk over everything.” When asked about a match he wishes he could have back, he doesn’t point to one single outcome. Instead he says there are “matches I should have, like I know I should have did this but I didn’t, and that’s how I lost — not listening to my coaches.”

Boxing and MMA continue to influence how he wrestles. Logan explains that striking has changed his footwork more than anything else. “In boxing, I feel like [I’m] more agile. In wrestling, I felt like I was more heavy on my feet,” he says. That heaviness used to cost him: “That was how I was getting taken down and that was how I was getting spladled, because I was too heavy on my feet.” Boxing taught him to “not be heavy on my feet so much,” and that lesson has carried straight back to the mat.

Day to day, he balances all of this with school through homeschooling. “I am homeschooled, so I always have time in the day to get my stuff done in Thailand or America,” he explains. “I do it in the car, do it when I’m at home, wake up, and I go to sleep.” He likes that it gives him “more opportunities to travel more,” and admits that while he sometimes misses parts of regular school, “waking up at 6:00, 6:30 every day to go to school isn’t the funnest thing.”

Away from competition, Logan is still very much a kid. When you ask what he’d do if wrestling disappeared, he says he’d “probably play like other sports like soccer or something, hang out with my friends.” Hanging out usually means “we go to the mall and stuff, walk around parks.” He laughs when he admits, “I’m pretty good at video games,” and lists Fortnite as his favorite, with the UFC game right behind it.

The biggest growth curve right now might be mental. Early in his career, he felt the weight of eyes on him. The pressure came from “not trying to lose in front of your friends and trying to win the whole tournament,” and from knowing that if he wrestled, someone might post the result. Now, if a kid beats him and throws the highlight on social, Logan shrugs it off: “It doesn’t really affect me too much. It’s always like if they do it, I can do it, obviously.” He has adopted a more process‑driven mindset that a lot of older wrestlers preach. “If you wrestle your hardest and you lose, there’s nothing you can really do about that besides watch the film, reflect on the matches.” But he also knows mindset cuts both ways: “If you think you’re going to lose and know you’re going to lose going into the match, most of the time you’re going to lose.”

When younger kids look up to him, his core advice is simple: “You can’t let the pressure get to you in close matches. It takes over your game, your focus.” Most of his own mental coaching comes from home. “My dad’s always been there for me since I was born,” Logan says. “He’s took me everywhere I wanted to go. He’s taught me everything I know. And we’ve been through it all.” Traveling alone, staying with other families, and spending a month away from him has forced Logan to grow up a bit quicker, but he sees that as a good thing. It has “made me more independent with like handling stuff on my own now. Not completely, but doing what I can do independently,” and taught him “not just having someone guiding me around my whole life.”

Looking ahead, Logan isn’t ready to lock in a college choice yet, but he knows the level he wants to reach. He talks about wanting “to be the highest‑paid wrestler in history,” and when asked about chasing wrestling versus MMA long‑term, he says he’s “leaning towards wrestling right now.” He loves watching athletes like Meyer Shapiro, calling him “one of my favorite wrestlers to watch,” both for “his style” and because “he’s funny, great person.” If he could sit down for dinner with anyone, top of the list would be “one of the Brands brothers,” just to soak up their “advice, their mindset,” and Shapiro himself to ask “how he had all the concussions and stuff, how does it not like affect him at all?”

For now, Logan’s immediate goals are concrete. He’s eyeing events like Kids Nationals and Thousand Island Duels and says, “Yes, sir,” when asked if he wants to do more high‑level tournaments. Super 32 is a “we’ll try to” situation, but the drive is there. Between Thailand and Pennsylvania, Steel Valley and VAC, spladles and straight doubles, CeeJay Fenton sparring rounds and Caroline Webster movement sessions, The Compound Ranger Pride, Fortnite lobbies and long car rides home watching film, Logan Bonfilio is living the kind of youth sports journey most kids only see on their screens — and he’s doing it with an attitude summed up in the advice he gives others: wrestle hard, don’t let the pressure own you, and keep learning, no matter who is watching.