maligned

Aitmukhan hasn't competed below 97kg since worlds last year. Before this thread moved here, other Iranians were commenting on how huge Aitmukhan looked at 97kg at U20s. Seems he took a while to mature physically. That could be why he jumped levels so fast last year--and could mean we won't see him at 92kg again.

It's been going strong the last 2 years on IndianaMat.com, ever since it had to leave The Mat--but the amount of people adding anything to the discussion outside of about 5 core Iranian fans is limited there.

Very good points. I'll just refine what I was saying by clarifying that 1) I was more talking about freestyle (some of which doesn't apply to your discussion...your points are valid for some of his free, plus his folk issues, nonetheless, of course), and 2) I'm talking about "anytime" setups and attacks rather than opportunistic ones (I think you'd agree an over/under trip generally falls into that category...it's telegraphed for miles late in a match if the other guy isn't looking for scores). His "lack", as you agreed, is "anytime" outside or upper-body setups and attacks.

Retire. No. But does he need to evolve considerably a la Kyle Dake in his mid/late 20s to become the best--definitely. It's not about "opening up" as so many say. The only attacks he has confidence with are straight-on, lower-half attacks off of ties in close. He's never developed an outside game and he's never developed any attacks above the waist. When he faces a long, athletic guy that can keep space or a physical guy with good head/hands defense, he looks like he's not "opening up" because he simply doesn't have the weapon in the holster to fire anything. If he'd ever added the constant threat of a strong Russian tie series for trips and throws, for example, he'd be an Olympic champ, in my opinion.

Tamyra Mensah-Stock was very dynamic and used a powerful blast double at times--although singles maybe more often. Kennedy Blades hits highlight reel doubles.

Japan are becoming 1980s/1990s Russia below 70kg. They are the first name you look for on the bracket. They're getting close to our and Russia's level at 70 and 74kg also, as evidenced by the waxing Dake took at the Olympics.

People are mocking you on this thread for this comment. To spell it out: freestyle is different from folk style. Getting caught in a trap-arm gut wrench in freestyle is the same as getting cradled with an arm trapped in folk. Either you did something stupid or your opponent set you up perfectly. Either way, it's a death sentence and you earned it, knowing ahead of time that it's lights out if you get caught there. I will say that someone's comment about possibly limiting leg laces to 2 or 3 turns isn't something I love (again, if you're not a freestyler, see my first paragraph to understand)--but it's something I could stomach. Most of the time, a multiple-time leg lace is earned. However there are cases where leg laces are awkward and the only way not to get injured is to give up the 4 turns. A wrestling match shouldn't be decided based on the equivalent of being forced to tap out. It should be the move itself that causes the scoring, not the necessity of avoiding injury. Still, 95% of leg laces are earned or naively given up and deserved by both participants.

I think you accidentally mislabeled that image: It's actually a picture of the lactic acid army that viciously attacked and slaughtered PD3 once his cardio defenses fell off a cliff.

My point was that he was openly discussing other changes that are on the table but made clear his personal closed-mindedness about changing weight classes.

Agreed, 100%. Sometimes we can get too caught up in future implications. They should definitely take pride in earning some hardware.

Exactly. It's just that. Even in women's, where they are more skilled compared to the rest of the competition--and where the weights don't go comparatively nearly as high--they've historically won 45% of gold medals available at 65kg and below and only 22% in the upper weights. In weightlifting, where China is so dominant worldwide, they just this year won their first men's Olympic medal higher than 81kg EVER. There just simply isn't the volume of taller, muscle-dense, naturally bone-dense, athletic individuals in these documented smaller stature Asian nations.

I agree with this, but I would ask the question: Which is more satisfying? 10 Top 5, 9 medals, 1 gold 8 Top 5, 7 medals, 3 gold We're very happy, but Iran aren't sulking much either. I admit I'm a little jealous of their 3 golds despite our hardware.

The Japan thing isn't a mystery. They have 2 medals in 150+ tries since 1984 over 74kg. Only 6 freestyle men in 650+ medals over 74kg since 1984 were from documented smaller stature Asian wrestling nations (i.e. Mongolia, China, Japan, India, N/S Korea). At U20s, Japan took 3rd place as a team with only 6 points from 5 weights above 74kg. Similar performance to their 3-man 2nd place finish at the Olympics.

In Flo's Paris interview with Uww president Lalovic, he made it seem like there was no reason to change anything and said it will take a very strong argument to persuade the board of any changes--despite being clear and open about other significant changes on the table that will probably pass. Maybe this was just his personal opinion, but it made me think nothing will change for this cycle.

In 150+ attempts since 1984, Japan has won 2 world-level men's freestyle medals above 74kg. In fact, from roughly 650 medals above 74kg since 1984, only 6 men have won medals from documented smaller stature Asian wrestling nations (meaning Japan, India, N/S Korea, China, Mongolia). With half of weights above 74kg, Japan's men will never come close to team gold again unless they can duplicate their perfect performance in a 6-weight olympic year like this year.

Where did you see this? He's listed on the brackets on Flo and UWW. He's also listed in the upcoming match list on UWW.

He was only up 6-4 before the fall in the quarters too.

You might be right that that's part of it. Their age-group performances are stronger than their senior performances. But their age-group performances have been gradually stronger since at least 2018. They've never done anything resembling the destruction they unleashed at U17s this year. I just mean, even if we sent our best 18 year olds instead of our best 16 year olds, would we win 8 of 10 medals and 5 golds? They're doing something right.

I don't know if anybody else noticed, but India's women will be a wrestling superpower going forward--clearly battling for top 2 or 3 and possibly battling Japan for team golds. They destroyed everyone at U17s, and they're in a nip-and-tuck battle with Japan for the U20 title today heading into the medal matches. U20: First after Day 1 of women's with 3 medals and 5 top 10s. Wrestling for 4 more medals and they're all Top 10 today. Again, it will be super tight between them and Japan for the team title. The U.S. will end up 3rd or 4th. At U17s, India took 8 medals--including 5 golds . They obviously ran away with the team title, far outdistancing Japan in 2nd. We were 5th at that event.

Small correction here: 11 guys finished in the Top 10 from the 20 Greco weights at U17s and U20s. And we got 2 medals at U17s and 3 medals at U20s. We got 8th as a team at U17s, and I'm guessing we'll land 6th or 7th in U20s after today's finals.

All of our U20 Greco athletes are eliminated for tomorrow, so we can start to evaluate: We ended up with 5 medals and 12 Top 10s from 20 weight classes at U17s and U20s. We had only 2, 3, and 1 on the podium from all 20 weights the last 3 years, and we had only 6 Top 10s as recently as 2021. (And, yes, Russia and Belarus were at these events in 2024 at the U17 and U20 level.) Are we finally seeing small Greco development improvements--or is this just luck or specific to a few certain athletes?

One theory could be that winning medals indicates a level of "seriousness", and perhaps in-country popularity of a given style. And the fact that a given style's medals are won by higher population nations could be construed as one statistical indicator of overall global popularity. Median population (not mean) of Olympic medal-winning nations by style: Women's freestyle: 125 million Men's freestyle: 65 million Greco: 19.5 million Average/mean population per medal would skew even much more strongly toward freestyle.

Sorry, Ukraine passed us at the last weight. We ended up 5th with our 6 entries.

I'm not sure there's a better metric out there. Wrestling is more than a second-class or niche sport in only a few nations on earth. In most nations it's like here--you watch wrestling or follow wrestling if you wrestled or are generally in the wrestling community. So if slightly more nations participate at the highest level in Greco, it's hard to argue by some other non-existent metric of attendance or participation that Greco isn't slightly more popular.

So I actually wasn't paying close enough attention. India ran away with the Women's team title here. They're about to pick up their 5th gold and 8th total medal. Does this mean something?? Japan is clearly 2nd. We end up 4th with only 6 ladies participating. Our 6 end up with a gold, a bronze, and a 5th. The other 3 were all tough-luck losers to the bronze medalist in the gold medalist bracket-half (meaning they may have been the 3rd best overall in their weights, but they got bad draws). Taina Fernandez at 61kg/134lb got a tech and 3 falls for our gold medal. Killer.