Mongolian ranking tournament

[Saylors_Tiny_Willie]

Those really are sad little brackets.

[GrandOlm]

Do you blame them? Who wants fly all the way to Mongolia for a tournament no one will remember. There are like no good wrestling areas near Mongolia. And Mongolia is a Tier 2 or 3 wrestling nation itself.

And for what, ranking points? They don't even matter since many of the best wrestlers go unseeded for Worlds and the Olympics. 

[SNL Wrestling]

57 was fun! Or at least following RBY was pretty exciting.

 

i was up at 12:30 Watching wrestling in Mongolia, pretty fun for me as well. 

[Saylors_Tiny_Willie]

17 hours ago, GrandOlm said:

Do you blame them? Who wants fly all the way to Mongolia for a tournament no one will remember. There are like no good wrestling areas near Mongolia. And Mongolia is a Tier 2 or 3 wrestling nation itself.

And for what, ranking points? They don't even matter since many of the best wrestlers go unseeded for Worlds and the Olympics. 

Ulaan Baator is on my bucket list.

[okokzach]

[Mr. PeanutButter]

7 minutes ago, okokzach said:

That was a good match and a great win for RBY. I hate to say it, but he seems to be coming into his own at 57kg. I didn't watch the finals yet

[okokzach]

1 hour ago, Mr. PeanutButter said:

That was a good match and a great win for RBY. I hate to say it, but he seems to be coming into his own at 57kg. I didn't watch the finals yet

If you do, you can skip this first period. Only a penalty point and not much action.

Spoiler of what happened:

RBY got a late takedown to go ahead by criteria with 20 seconds left, tried for a gut to add to his lead and got reversed 

[Pa in Taiwan]

On 6/1/2025 at 9:18 AM, GrandOlm said:

There are like no good wrestling areas near Mongolia.

Mongolia borders Russia and China. The Central Asian "stans", Kazakhstan, Kyrgyzstan, Tajikistan, and Uzbekistan are close by. There are direct flights from Kazakhstan, which take 4 hours. Japan is a 5.5 hour flight away. That's not too far. India is a bit farther, with direct flights about 9 hours away. 

There certainly are good wrestling areas near Mongolia. That doesn't mean that those nations will participate in this ranking tournament. 

[Pa in Taiwan]

Munkh Erdene Batkhuyag from Mongolia defeated RBY in the gold medal match 6-3.

RBY showed a lot of heart in beating Aman Aman from India in the semifinal match. He was quite gassed, and Indian lightweights have excellent motors, though Aman also looked quite gassed at the end. 

[GrandOlm]

2 hours ago, Pa in Taiwan said:

Mongolia borders Russia and China. The Central Asian "stans", Kazakhstan, Kyrgyzstan, Tajikistan, and Uzbekistan are close by. There are direct flights from Kazakhstan, which take 4 hours. Japan is a 5.5 hour flight away. That's not too far. India is a bit farther, with direct flights about 9 hours away. 

There certainly are good wrestling areas near Mongolia. That doesn't mean that those nations will participate in this ranking tournament. 

It does border China, so....? 

The stan countries you listed range from ok to bad and one is primarily Greco. 

It's hard enough to get Japanese wrestlers to compete at worlds, let alone a ranking series. 

I would't say so. It's quite a bit farther east or just not close to the wrestling hotbeds. 

I guess the point was more for American wrestlers, since Mongolia is annoyingly far away with no real draw to it. I think it's understandable why most wrestlers skipped this one. 

[nhs67]

7 hours ago, GrandOlm said:

It does border China, so....? 

The stan countries you listed range from ok to bad and one is primarily Greco. 

It's hard enough to get Japanese wrestlers to compete at worlds, let alone a ranking series. 

I would't say so. It's quite a bit farther east or just not close to the wrestling hotbeds. 

I guess the point was more for American wrestlers, since Mongolia is annoyingly far away with no real draw to it. I think it's understandable why most wrestlers skipped this one. 

They aren't worse than Cuba or USA or any western hemisphere team or far east team is to Turkey or Poland.

[Truzzcat]

I think it's worth noting Aman is always better at ranking series events because of the +2kg. He pulls crazy weight to make 57kg. Also, fun note he beat Luke in Lukes first cadet finals.

[CHROMEBIRD]

21 hours ago, Mr. PeanutButter said:

That was a good match and a great win for RBY. I hate to say it, but he seems to be coming into his own at 57kg. I didn't watch the finals yet

I thought RBY looked a little sloppy. Aman2 is no slouch by any means, but we see RBY take three sloppy half-attacks and get countered and taken down. His freestyle scrambling didn't look great. Fun match, but it didn't look like his best wrestling. I'm a little surprised that he's going 57 this early in the quad. I thought the descent wasn't as easy for him as he says. Either way, Spencer would beat both guys.

[wrestlingshoe]

47 minutes ago, CHROMEBIRD said:

I thought RBY looked a little sloppy. Aman2 is no slouch by any means, but we see RBY take three sloppy half-attacks and get countered and taken down. His freestyle scrambling didn't look great. Fun match, but it didn't look like his best wrestling. I'm a little surprised that he's going 57 this early in the quad. I thought the descent wasn't as easy for him as he says. Either way, Spencer would beat both guys.

And that carried over into the finals. That's why he got reversed and turned. All three--Aman, RBY, Mongolian--are one, maybe two steps below Spencer. But that's no surprise. 

[Truzzcat]

49 minutes ago, CHROMEBIRD said:

I thought RBY looked a little sloppy. Aman2 is no slouch by any means, but we see RBY take three sloppy half-attacks and get countered and taken down. His freestyle scrambling didn't look great. Fun match, but it didn't look like his best wrestling. I'm a little surprised that he's going 57 this early in the quad. I thought the descent wasn't as easy for him as he says. Either way, Spencer would beat both guys.

I'm sure some guys will emerge and there is the chance that ono drops for 2028 but 57kg is pretty terrible right now. Russia has a u20 kid that I think will be better than pavlov, Mongush seems to have grown into a 61. Uguaev,Haryutunyan,abakarov are all up the weight seems like spencers to dominate but I would not be shocked if RBY is one of the best guys especially with his arc of improvement in stillwater. The north korean seems to be very good as well and I am sure whoever reps Japan while Higuchi is off will eb good too.

[bnwtwg]

I'm surprised RBY didn't move back to 61. MEX has proven they support non-olympic weights with Gomez going up to 70 this year. Good win and good on him for staying disciplined on a hard cut.

[wrestlingfan22]

13 hours ago, bnwtwg said:

I'm surprised RBY didn't move back to 61. MEX has proven they support non-olympic weights with Gomez going up to 70 this year. Good win and good on him for staying disciplined on a hard cut.

I also think the weakness of 57 currently will improve his medal chances. Also as crazy as it sounds he is a better fit for 57 than 61 based on his current frame. His body recomp has been really impressive, he posted the change recently. 

[bnwtwg]

14 minutes ago, wrestlingfan22 said:

I also think the weakness of 57 currently will improve his medal chances. Also as crazy as it sounds he is a better fit for 57 than 61 based on his current frame. His body recomp has been really impressive, he posted the change recently. 

I would certainly not consider 57 to be "weak."

Spencer Lee is still there. Aman is a returning medalist and can't even buy a drink in the states yet - he and RBY really came down to that one sequence and I can see it going differently next time as he grows with experience. Don't forget that he had to go the Spencer route by qualifying the weight then going to the olympics and getting the medal. Micic will be coming back from his ACL this year. Japan will send a medalist. Russia will send a medalist. Abdullaev and Zou have not gone anywhere. I'm sure there are others, this is just off the top of my head. And don't forget that in 18 months Thomas "Not Retired" Gilman will be back on the scene.

[wrestlingfan22]

2 hours ago, bnwtwg said:

I would certainly not consider 57 to be "weak."

Spencer Lee is still there. Aman is a returning medalist and can't even buy a drink in the states yet - he and RBY really came down to that one sequence and I can see it going differently next time as he grows with experience. Don't forget that he had to go the Spencer route by qualifying the weight then going to the olympics and getting the medal. Micic will be coming back from his ACL this year. Japan will send a medalist. Russia will send a medalist. Abdullaev and Zou have not gone anywhere. I'm sure there are others, this is just off the top of my head. And don't forget that in 18 months Thomas "Not Retired" Gilman will be back on the scene.

I meant weak comparable to the Olympic field from last year. Should have been more clear, 57 in the non-olympic years is always weaker since guys don't hold it in the off-cycle. Comparing it to 61, I honestly don't know which will be better this year since both are missing the returning World/Olympic champ at the weight. Also with Micic, is he expected to compete in 2025? 

[bnwtwg]

2 hours ago, wrestlingfan22 said:

Also with Micic, is he expected to compete in 2025? 

I would think so. He turned 30 his last year at Michigan and just had has fourth grandkid so I would assume if he has anything left in the tank he's going to rub some Biofreeze on his knee and give it a shot