Rahman Amouzad

[Shahin]

Guys,

I’m curious to hear your thoughts on Rahman’s overall chances of becoming the greatest Iranian wrestler of all time. Of course, winning Olympic gold is a must, but considering he’s only 23, he could realistically compete into his early 30s. If he manages to rack up more World Championship golds and secure that Olympic gold, where would you rank him among Iran’s all-time greats?

Edited 9 hours ago by Shahin

[nhs67]

I think that if he wants that continued success, he needs to go up in weight.  65 KG is not an old man's weight, nor will it ever be.

Also, add in that there have been persistent rumors that he is not long for 65 KG for years, and that also adds in that he will be outpaced by father time sooner rather than later.

Yazdani has 10 medals, w/ four being Golds.  He is one person away from having eight Golds.

Amouzad would have to medal the next seven years to catch up on the medal count at the same age - no down years, and that is if Yazdani doesn't wrestle/medal ever again.

[Shahin]

17 minutes ago, nhs67 said:

I think that if he wants that continued success, he needs to go up in weight.  65 KG is not an old man's weight, nor will it ever be.

Also, add in that there have been persistent rumors that he is not long for 65 KG for years, and that also adds in that he will be outpaced by father time sooner rather than later.

Yazdani has 10 medals, w/ four being Golds.  He is one person away from having eight Golds.

Amouzad would have to medal the next seven years to catch up on the medal count at the same age - no down years, and that is if Yazdani doesn't wrestle/medal ever again.

Wow thank you for that detailed response. I completely agree with you. It's also interesting you mentioned Amouzad moving up on weight. That is absolutely the right approach if he wants to keep wrestling. And you are absolutely right about the medal counts for Yazdani in comparison to Amouzad, 10 v 3 (counting Worlds and Olympics). Now speaking of Yazdani, if he doesn't wrestle anymore, where is his place in Iran's wrestling and also where would you place him all time in the world?

[jross]

 

[bnwtwg]

Zare has entered the chat. The only person who can stop him in the forseeable future will be Masoumi.

[Shahin]

5 minutes ago, jross said:

 

Thank you. Appreciate that.

[nhs67]

Just now, bnwtwg said:

Zare has entered the chat. The only person who can stop him in the forseeable future will be Masoumi.

At 24 years of age (just one year older) he has six medals w/ three Golds.  He is up on Amouzad and on pace to surpass Yazdani prior to his 30th Birthday.

[Shahin]

2 minutes ago, bnwtwg said:

Zare has entered the chat. The only person who can stop him in the forseeable future will be Masoumi.

Oh you are so correct about Zare. He is only a year older than Amouzad. They have to catch Abdollah Movahed and Yazdani to be considered Iran's GOAT.

[Window12]

10 minutes ago, bnwtwg said:

Zare has entered the chat. The only person who can stop him in the forseeable future will be Masoumi.

Surely you jest- I was being led to believe it would be Hendrickson. They even had a fancy press conference a meagre few days ago.

[bnwtwg]

3 minutes ago, Window12 said:

Surely you jest- I was being led to believe it would be Hendrickson. They even had a fancy press conference a meagre few days ago.

They should have been Kurban that Ov such a bad look

[nhs67]

22 minutes ago, Shahin said:

Oh you are so correct about Zare. He is only a year older than Amouzad. They have to catch Abdollah Movahed and Yazdani to be considered Iran's GOAT.

Now you're talking two different methods of analysis.

Movahed dominated the entire world for six straight years winning Gold in the 1960s a few times.  That is/was a different era, as well.  I don't think we've ever had an era where there is so much talent throughout the world.

I think right now Yazdani is a good standard, but I am not Iranian.  Zare is definitely going to surpass him, providing health holds strong.

[shiraz321]

Rahman has no chance of winning Olympic gold. His time was 2024 if he was going to do it.

[nhs67]

16 minutes ago, shiraz321 said:

Rahman has no chance of winning Olympic gold. His time was 2024 if he was going to do it.

How/why do you figure?

He just beat the guy that beat him last year at the Olympics.  Who is going to catch him by 2028?

When you say no shot, do you mean 0% or just a lower percentage in 2028 than he had in 2024?

[bnwtwg]

13 minutes ago, nhs67 said:

How/why do you figure?

He just beat the guy that beat him last year at the Olympics.  Who is going to catch him by 2028?

When you say no shot, do you mean 0% or just a lower percentage in 2028 than he had in 2024?

I don't think he will be able to make 65 in 2028, or at least not be effective to the level of his expectations. Friend of a friend of a friend of my neighbor's uncle's stepkid heard he was pulling very hard Sunday night.

[maligned]

32 minutes ago, shiraz321 said:

Rahman has no chance of winning Olympic gold. His time was 2024 if he was going to do it.

Assuming this means you think he has no chance to stay at 65kg and that he can't reach the same level when he grows into 74kg?

[Ragu]

I'd pump the brakes on GOAT talk, one of his teammates has better odds at a much weaker weight for the coming years. He'd have to go on THE all-time tear

[shiraz321]

21 minutes ago, nhs67 said:

How/why do you figure?

He just beat the guy that beat him last year at the Olympics.  Who is going to catch him by 2028?

When you say no shot, do you mean 0% or just a lower percentage in 2028 than he had in 2024?

How many people have been relevent at 65 for 6 years? I can't remember anyone recently and there has been some great wrestlers at this weight. That's what it would take, he won aged 20 in 2022. Yes, 0 chance. I'm 100% sure he wont be a gold winner in 2028. 

 

9 minutes ago, maligned said:

Assuming this means you think he has no chance to stay at 65kg and that he can't reach the same level when he grows into 74kg?

He cant replicate his success at 74

[Window12]

It seems a bit odd to write someone off so decidedly when he did a decent job of winning the title. He probably has as good a chance as anyone in 2028 if not better….

[bnwtwg]

55 minutes ago, Window12 said:

It seems a bit odd to write someone off so decidedly when he did a decent job of winning the title. He probably has as good a chance as anyone in 2028 if not better….

You are absolutely correct, simply not discounting the valid arguments that the cut is hard, 65 has a drastically short peak every 2-3 years before nearly full turnover (similar to the 1500 in track), and 26 is, relatively speaking, "old" for 65. Here is the complete history of champions over the age of 25 since the shift to 66kg in 2002 + 65kg in 2014.

Musukaev (30) 2023

Yonemitsu (turned 26 just six days prior to the date of competition) 2012

Sushil Kumar (27) 2010

Bill Zadick (33) 2006

Elbrus Tedeyev (30) 2004, 28 (2022). Side note that he was a 4x world/oly champ and 6x total medals. Outlier

 

 

 

[Irani]

For those of you who don't know @shiraz321, he has a history of always predicting the worst for Iranian wrestlers and always being nervous before big matches.

We want him that way.  The few times that he has been confident and positive, our wrestlers have been destroyed.  The @shiraz321 curse is real

[Window12]

1 hour ago, bnwtwg said:

You are absolutely correct, simply not discounting the valid arguments that the cut is hard, 65 has a drastically short peak every 2-3 years before nearly full turnover (similar to the 1500 in track), and 26 is, relatively speaking, "old" for 65. Here is the complete history of champions over the age of 25 since the shift to 66kg in 2002 + 65kg in 2014.

Musukaev (30) 2023

Yonemitsu (turned 26 just six days prior to the date of competition) 2012

Sushil Kumar (27) 2010

Bill Zadick (33) 2006

Elbrus Tedeyev (30) 2004, 28 (2022). Side note that he was a 4x world/oly champ and 6x total medals. Outlier

 

 

 

Thank you- this is very helpful statistics. Can I deduce that in 23 years there have been 6 occasions that the title was won by a wrestler older that 25 so an average probability of 26% per year to have a champ older than 25. I can see it gets harder as you get older but certainly not impossible?

[fishbane]

32 minutes ago, bnwtwg said:

You are absolutely correct, simply not discounting the valid arguments that the cut is hard, 65 has a drastically short peak every 2-3 years before nearly full turnover (similar to the 1500 in track), and 26 is, relatively speaking, "old" for 65. Here is the complete history of champions over the age of 25 since the shift to 66kg in 2002 + 65kg in 2014.

Musukaev (30) 2023

Yonemitsu (turned 26 just six days prior to the date of competition) 2012

Sushil Kumar (27) 2010

Bill Zadick (33) 2006

Elbrus Tedeyev (30) 2004, 28 (2022). Side note that he was a 4x world/oly champ and 6x total medals. Outlier

I am not sure how valid all of these arguments are.  Moving up I think will depend more on Amouzad as an individual than it being 65kg and 65kg wrestlers have a short peak.  You say Tedeyev did it and he is an outlier, but that is the question of the thread. If Amouzad is to be considered the best ever Iranian freestyle wrestler than he to will need to be an outlier. 

Right now Amouzad's medal haul compares very favorably to those he is chasing.  At age 23 Movahed had 0 world level medals and Yazdani had 2 golds, 1 silver, and 1 bronze.  Amouzad has 2 gold, 1 silver, and can't be seen as anything but the favorite to win next year.  

[fishbane]

44 minutes ago, Window12 said:

Thank you- this is very helpful statistics. Can I deduce that in 23 years there have been 6 occasions that the title was won by a wrestler older that 25 so an average probability of 26% per year to have a champ older than 25. I can see it gets harder as you get older but certainly not impossible?

Movahed has 0 world level titles on his 25th birthday and finished his career with 6. He wrestled a very similar weight to Amouzad.

[bnwtwg]

I appreciate your points about outliers which are valid for someone hoping to chase history. However, you can also look at the list and see how many won before 20, before 23, and disappeared entirely. 65 is so tough and has such a short shelf life but also such an amazing high-level peak. There is a reason it is consistently considered the toughest weight in the world. Here is to hoping that Amouzad makes history and we all witness a rarely seen sustained level of greatness.

 

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_World_and_Olympic_Champions_in_men's_freestyle_wrestling

Edited 28 minutes ago by bnwtwg
add URL of all champs

[BruceyB]

13 minutes ago, bnwtwg said:

I appreciate your points about outliers which are valid for someone hoping to chase history. However, you can also look at the list and see how many won before 20, before 23, and disappeared entirely. 65 is so tough and has such a short shelf life but also such an amazing high-level peak. There is a reason it is consistently considered the toughest weight in the world. Here is to hoping that Amouzad makes history and we all witness a rarely seen sustained level of greatness.

 

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_World_and_Olympic_Champions_in_men's_freestyle_wrestling

To be fair, a large part of the short shelf life for 65kg wrestlers is that they often come onto the scene in their very early 20s and then outgrow the weight while many still go on to have success at a higher weight class. So if you're simply looking at the podiums of 65kg, you are right that not many are around for more than a few years, but there are many that go on to have success at 70kg (Zane for example). It would be awesome if Amouzad could stay effective at 65kg, he is so damn tough that he could definitely be the "GOAT" of 65kg. But I highly doubt anyone will ever be the most decorated wrestler in the lighter weights. They just don't have the longevity.