Zagreb Ranking Series

[bnwtwg]

1 hour ago, maligned said:

Sorry, I wasn't tracking this event very closely...why didn't Brooks end up wrestling?

Detained at customs for attempting to smuggle in a Schedule II controlled substance that helps him pay attention and cut weight at midnight

Edited Friday at 05:44 PM by bnwtwg

[mspart]

Is Brooks injured?

mspart

[Shibboleth]

On 2/6/2025 at 11:36 PM, nhs67 said:

 

He had already lost to Masoumi in the past.  This result wasn't a surprise.

He lost 11-6 last time (it was last year at this same tournament) and it was fairly competitive. In that same tournament, Masoumi beat Givi Macharashvili 6-2, and Parris did the same with Givi, 9-2 a few months later. 

---

This time, these guys looked like from different divisions. Also, 4-2 win vs Zillmer, who I have a ton of respect for, is underwhelming. I thinks that Parris is either untrained or off his peak, and Masoumi is just approaching his best.

 
 

[maligned]

21 hours ago, bnwtwg said:

Detained at customs for attempting to smuggle in a Schedule II controlled substance that helps him pay attention and cut weight at midnight

Anybody know the actual reason Brooks didn't wrestle?

[nhs67]

11 hours ago, Shibboleth said:

He lost 11-6 last time (it was last year at this same tournament) and it was fairly competitive. In that same tournament, Masoumi beat Givi Macharashvili 6-2, and Parris did the same with Givi, 9-2 a few months later. 

---

This time, these guys looked like from different divisions. Also, 4-2 win vs Zillmer, who I have a ton of respect for, is underwhelming. I thinks that Parris is either untrained or off his peak, and Masoumi is just approaching his best.

 
 

Did you watch the match?  Masoumi was never close to losing or in danger.

[GrandOlm]

17 hours ago, Shibboleth said:

He lost 11-6 last time (it was last year at this same tournament) and it was fairly competitive. In that same tournament, Masoumi beat Givi Macharashvili 6-2, and Parris did the same with Givi, 9-2 a few months later. 

---

This time, these guys looked like from different divisions. Also, 4-2 win vs Zillmer, who I have a ton of respect for, is underwhelming. I thinks that Parris is either untrained or off his peak, and Masoumi is just approaching his best.

 
 

Sometimes people are just bad matchups. 

Zare and Taha always wrestled each other close and while Taha and Gwiz could have decently competitive matches, Zare always absolutely destroyed Gwiz.

[Shibboleth]

15 hours ago, nhs67 said:

Did you watch the match?  Masoumi was never close to losing or in danger.

Yes I did, Masoumi was up 9-6 with 30 seconds to go. 

He won 11-0 in 2 minutes.  

See the difference?


Also remebmer, Masoume beat Kueter just 4-2 last September - altough he was reportedly injured then.

So what I'm saying is that while Masoumi did improve, Parris lost a step clearly. He has no chance against Gable obviously but also I would not bet on him vs Kerkvliet and Hendrickson if they're in good shape come US Open

[Lucho]

Semenov got teched by Yousefi. Iran well and truly has the best heavyweights on the planet. What a contest it will be deciding who goes to worlds. Mirzazadeh, Hedayati, Yousefi and Fatihtazangi are all monsters.

[nhs67]

6 hours ago, Shibboleth said:

Yes I did, Masoumi was up 9-6 with 30 seconds to go. 

He won 11-0 in 2 minutes.  

See the difference?


Also remebmer, Masoume beat Kueter just 4-2 last September - altough he was reportedly injured then.

So what I'm saying is that while Masoumi did improve, Parris lost a step clearly. He has no chance against Gable obviously but also I would not bet on him vs Kerkvliet and Hendrickson if they're in good shape come US Open

The match played out the same way.  Parris over-extending w/ Masoumi catching him on the way in.   That 9-6 was only 9-6 because Masoumi wasn't trying.

You're talking to the biggest Parris fanboy on these forums.  That said, a duck is a duck. 

I would take Parris in a potential match with Zare before I would a rematch with Masoumi.

[bnwtwg]

11 hours ago, Shibboleth said:

So what I'm saying is that while Masoumi did improve, Parris lost a step clearly. He has no chance against Gable obviously but also I would not bet on him vs Kerkvliet and Hendrickson if they're in good shape come US Open

Parris was an out of bounds line away from getting teched by Hendrickson last time. Immediately after that he proceeded to come back and later win a world bronze. It would be a surprise to no one if he loses to Hendrickson and it should also be very, very clearly understood that he is a very bad dude. USA has world caliber depth at 125 and it should be heralded because who knows when the carriage turns back into a pumpkin.

[GrandOlm]

11 hours ago, Lucho said:

Semenov got teched by Yousefi. Iran well and truly has the best heavyweights on the planet. What a contest it will be deciding who goes to worlds. Mirzazadeh, Hedayati, Yousefi and Fatihtazangi are all monsters.

I don't think that's a coincidence. I think Greco has been begging for some country to take advantage of the weak international scene since the fall of the eastern bloc (and now Cuba with their financial problems).  Iran also has the 97 kg champion and the 67 kg champ? I've said it so many times but there is no Greco version of Dagestan, Ossetia, American folk system or Mazandaran. So any country that trains kids from a decently young age, well, and does it to a wide enough talent pool, should dominate. Russia has been coasting on fumes for over 30 year,  and it looks like Iran is kind of stepping up slowly. 

 

[Lucho]

4 hours ago, GrandOlm said:

I don't think that's a coincidence. I think Greco has been begging for some country to take advantage of the weak international scene since the fall of the eastern bloc (and now Cuba with their financial problems).  Iran also has the 97 kg champion and the 67 kg champ? I've said it so many times but there is no Greco version of Dagestan, Ossetia, American folk system or Mazandaran. So any country that trains kids from a decently young age, well, and does it to a wide enough talent pool, should dominate. Russia has been coasting on fumes for over 30 year,  and it looks like Iran is kind of stepping up slowly. 

 

Greco hasn't had a dominant country since the Soviets because the talent pool was equally distributed amongst the eastern bloc during Soviet era. We can see that now with it being split between Russia, Hungary, Bulgaria etc in terms of top tier wrestlers. In saying that though I would argue Khuzestan which is the province most of Iran's Greco talent is from would be the closest equivalent to a Dagestan or Mazandaran for Greco. I think in the next 5-10 years Iran will pull away and be the best with Azerbaijan and some other countries having contenders in some weight classes. But still I didn't expect one country to have 3 of the top 5 guys in a weight class in the modern era that's just ridiculous.

[MPhillips]

Brady Koontz - Bronze 55kg GR. Beat last years European Champ...

Edited Tuesday at 11:20 PM by MPhillips

[GrandOlm]

On 2/9/2025 at 8:41 PM, Lucho said:

Greco hasn't had a dominant country since the Soviets because the talent pool was equally distributed amongst the eastern bloc during Soviet era. We can see that now with it being split between Russia, Hungary, Bulgaria etc in terms of top tier wrestlers. In saying that though I would argue Khuzestan which is the province most of Iran's Greco talent is from would be the closest equivalent to a Dagestan or Mazandaran for Greco. I think in the next 5-10 years Iran will pull away and be the best with Azerbaijan and some other countries having contenders in some weight classes. But still I didn't expect one country to have 3 of the top 5 guys in a weight class in the modern era that's just ridiculous.

Semenov got gold at Euros in 2024, he came in way out of shape, overweight , and still won. I was thinking there are like 3 men in Iran who could have beaten him that tournament .... Europe can't even produce one person anymore at that level? Mirzazadeh, Yousefi, and Hedayati are fine wrestlers, but they're not some once in a generation anomalies. Or how did someone like Alin win gold at Euros? Alin almost lost to an unremarkable American wrestler who was a beginner at Greco. The European championships used to be almost as strong as the world championships and now? 

Bulgaria if you take away the transfers, is about the same level as America (not good). Their home grown flagship was Milov and he was lower level than Hancock. 

 

[Truzzcat]

On 2/7/2025 at 11:08 AM, maligned said:

Sorry, I wasn't tracking this event very closely...why didn't Brooks end up wrestling?

Health issue I think or personal Bach eluded to an issue but did not go into details. He does think he is going up to 97kg though.

[Truzzcat]

As to the Gable vs Iranian big 2 convo, I think Gable would beat Zare. Watching Geno get to his legs I think gable would have no issue doing so. He is also about 30lbs heavier than he was in 2021 which I think will allow him to hold center better than he would have previously. As for Masoumi I am not as confident simply because I think I have seen one person ever touch his legs and it was Mason like 1.5 years ago.

[Lucho]

15 hours ago, GrandOlm said:

Semenov got gold at Euros in 2024, he came in way out of shape, overweight , and still won. I was thinking there are like 3 men in Iran who could have beaten him that tournament .... Europe can't even produce one person anymore at that level? Mirzazadeh, Yousefi, and Hedayati are fine wrestlers, but they're not some once in a generation anomalies. Or how did someone like Alin win gold at Euros? Alin almost lost to an unremarkable American wrestler who was a beginner at Greco. The European championships used to be almost as strong as the world championships and now? 

Bulgaria if you take away the transfers, is about the same level as America (not good). Their home grown flagship was Milov and he was lower level than Hancock. 

 

I completely agree with you, Greco especially at 130kg is not very competitive internationally. But also look at the last 10 olympics. 8 of them have been won by 2 people. Even in the worlds Riza Kayaalp until fairly recently was winning world champs relatively comfortably in Lopez's absence. Its just very difficult to find guys athletic enough to be not only able to be 130kg but also willing to do Greco over Freestyle. I think Europe isn't where top level Greco is anymore I think it would be fair to say Asia has the most competitive Greco (Iran, Uzbekistan, Kyrgyzstan, Kazakhstan, Japan etc). I think Hedayati however can shape up to be a generational talent if he can beat Yousefi and Mirzazadeh in the next 2/3 years he is only 20 years old and I could see him dominate for a decade. But yeah the future of Greco isn't looking very good unfortunately unless other countries start investing more in the sport it could be at risk of getting scrapped in the Olympics.