GrandOlm

The only other countries that are sufficiently strong and complex enough to make a foreigners time worthwhile would be Iran, Russia, and Japan. I don't think any of these countries have an end all be all team trial. Russia has the most straight forward process. They have a tournament called the Russian Nationals (it's a direct descendant of the Soviet National Championships) where citizens from the country compete under the flag of their province (multiple entrants per province are aloud). If you win that tournament you are either the world/olympic rep or if there is a highly decorated athlete in that weight class who did not win/participate, they'll have them wrestle off with the winner of the Russian Nationals. It's important to note that Russian wrestling is dominated by two ethnic minorities, an Iranic speaking people called Ossetians and the muslim ethnic groups that live around Dagestan (Dagestani is not an ethnicity). Flo would invite a Slavic Russian wrestler from St Petersburg to try to get inside scoops on the Russian scene and it ended up not working at all because he was as much of a stranger to these two communities as Christian Pyles was. He wasn't imbedded in either the Ossetian or Dagestan scenes, so he had no interesting information to give. Iran does not have a formal process. Whoever is in charge of the national team picks the team, and whatever process he does or does not want comes up on the fly. It will be something like they'll send 3 tough guys from 125 kg to this ranking series and its understood that if someone from Iran wins it they get the spot. They do have a domestic wrestling wrestling scene. From what I've seen it's like European in soccer in that there are clubs and they can buy and sell wrestlers for their club team. So Zara and Yazdanis have clubs that they represent. I don't know how often the top world teamer Iranians actually wrestle in this club system and it features a lot of lower level competitors. The club season exists independently from what happens in international wrestling. Oh and most of their wrestlers come from a province called Mazandaran. Japan's I know the least about. I think their wrestling is based around Universities (not that it's like American College wrestling, just that Unis are the entity which provides them the framework for training and being a team). They have a tournament called the Emperor's Cup which is involved with how they pick their team. I don't remember what their other tournaments are called but I think they have one or two other big ones. I also am not exactly sure how they chose the team. I remember reading something like if you win X and the Emperors cup you're guaranteed the spot. So for watching, the easiest place to start with is youtube. Typing in Russian Nationals in Cyrillic or trying to find the federations channels. If you can't find the whole, you might find clips. Twitter might be good to check out, both English speaking and local language. Wrestling is still very much niche in Russian and Japan, so even for native speakers it's not the easiest thing to get into.

I'm surprised by them asking for donations. The Askrens are a wealthy family. Ben has been involved with bitcoin, he's the partial owner AWA and I believe has 3 gyms that he directly owns, plus all the money he has made in the entertainment industry (mma, boxing).

So how long can they keep him like this? He's been sedated for like a month now.

There is and was "professional wrestling" in the USA. That it evolved into scripted theatrics like the modern WWE isn't just a coincidence and offers valuable insights. I think the main challenge would be to somehow win over college wrestling fans. I think wrestling lacks the knockout that boxing and mma have. Pinning or throwing someone isn't the same. Scoring points especially isn't. I don't think there's that much crossover or potential with those fanbases (the singlet doesn't help either).

I think it's pretty standard in a globalized world to try to learn from the best practitioners in whatever field you're in. They are unlikely to ever face each other for real and Snyder isn't Sadulaev's main obstacle anymore, as far as we can tell.

At the risk of sounding like a one note age determinist, the probability tables for Greco as you age are even worse than freestyle at the light and middle weights. It's only super heavyweights who can go into their early 40s (Roshcilin, Lopez), but they're almost practicing a different sport from the lighter weight classes. Light weight greco is an utter grind. So destructive on the body. It's not uncommon for a guy to have one olympic cycle in him before he gets to damaged to be champion level. Middleweights are like a milder version of that. I took a quick glance at the most successful light and middle weights and I think the oldest one was 32 when he medaled gold. Americans tend to be on the older side when they first medal because they have to take a decade to catch up and learn the style. Dake doesn't have that time. He'll have an easier go at making the world team. But I don't see him doing well at the world level. 77kg is young mans weight class with Nao Kusaka (who emerged as the nr1 and is 24 years old) plus Akzhol (who might be past his prime already). Russia will have a hungry guy at 77 kg. At 87 kg he'll be undersized and have to beat much naturally bigger and younger men like Bisultanov, Losnoczi, Komarov, Takacs. 6 ft+ men who walk around at over 200 lbs.

It looks like his page on wikipedia has a typo https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Chris_Campbell_(wrestler). I have seen mistakes from them before, but they usually get things like this right. I looked at UWWs database and it lists it as 82 kg, so that's probably correct. I guess he is an example of a middleweight turned heavyweight who aged gracefully. Though his is still not what Kyle wants.

Campbell was a career heavyweight though (and even he only managed a bronze). He won gold at 1981 worlds at 90 kg and then the bronze in 1992 at 90 kg as well. The general aging progressions for Freestyle are Lightweights start declining in their late 20s, Middleweights in their early 30s, and Heavyweights in their mid 30s. There are exceptions, but that's the general trend. Dake is a natural middleweight who aged out of 74 kg (just like Boroughs) and is now trying to force 86 kg to work because he can't stand the cut and has lost a step or two.

Dake is old. He is older than Saitiev was when he retired. But he wants that olympic gold, the holy grail of wrestling, to complete his career. Dake made the calculation that a 37 year old him will have a better chance winning at 86 kg than 74. He's probably right, but I don't think he'll win at 86 kg either. He choked at the Paris olympics. That was his chance. I think he'll just have to be content as one of the many great wrestlers who never won the olympics. The sport may force him out soon.

Really? Who is there besides Zare that's really good? Akgul retired, Geno is taking the year off, and Massoumi can't make a team or get his transfer approved. Who's left from the actual field? Big boring Monkhtor and grandpa Deng? Russia is mediocre at 125 kg, they don't have anyone good. Heavyweight is not looking strong.

Yasmani Acosta transfered. He is now an Olympics Silver medalist and a World Bronze medalist. No one would know his name if he stayed in Cuba. He probably secured a nice pension with that Silver medal. If wrestling has this silly structure, that the theoretical second best in the world can't compete, then it's not the athletes who are the problem.

I wasn't making a moral judgement ("how could this happen to such a good person....."). I'm not that naive. I was more pondering the biological mechanisms of his conditions, since it seems that he either has something very rare or was just very unlucky. If Ben had gotten cancer, I would not be surprised at all. I think cancer is still like the 4th biggest killer in young adults.

I still don't understand why this happened to him. Just really bad luck? It sounds like his immune system catastrophically failed on him and now all these infections are wrecking his body? He was losing weight, watching his diet, is still youngish, was exercising daily, his parents are both still alive.

I don't think it's that long. He's 21 now. So he'd be 24 when he comes back. That's still young, especially for a heavyweight. I can't think of any heavyweight who was medalist level at 21 (like he is now) and then wasn't in his mid 20s, barring extreme injuries. Gable wasn't training full time and we don't really know if he could have won a medal since he never committed to being a world teamer again. He crushed Mason Parris the same year that Mason who won a Bronze medal at worlds, so evidence points to him being world level medal, but choosing not to participate. Masoumi will presumably be training FS full time during his 3 year hiatus, I'd think. What's the alternative, trying to age out Zare who is in his mid 20s? That might take forever and rob Masoumi of a career. No one is going to care about your loyalty when you're in your late 30s and have no world level medals to show for it. The nice jobs and perks will go to people like Zare, who have medals.

There has to be an out. Or Russia would have blocked most of these transfers. 3 years in the grand scheme of things would be nothing. Masoumi would be 23? That's super young for a heavyweight.

Wow, sudden pneumonia that is that severe? For someone seemingly healthy, physically fit, and at a relatively young age like Ben. Hopefully he pulls through, stark reminder of just how moral we are despite advancements in medicine.

Both folkstyle and freestyle are decadents of catch can wrestling. Modified to be safer or more viewer friendly. Catch can wrestling was an anglo country activity, but it died out in the 20th century and its descendants today include the aforementioned wrestling styles as well as professional wresting (WWE, some catch can wrestlers emphasized theatrics, entertainment values and that line eventually evolved into full blown acting, theater).

Hasn't that all turned out to be noise and meaningless grandstanding? The flo people seem very sure that the 86 kg transfer will continue competing. Bulgaria have been like this for 30 years, it's not going to be easy to change. Bulgaria is also an extreme case of going from the second best greco nation in the world, to a complete paper tiger that only stays afloat by buying wrestlers from foreign countries. I don't think Armenia has that freestyle wrestling tradition. They didn't even send anyone to 125kg at 2023 worlds.

Azerbaijan are one the biggest mercenary teams around. I wouldn't be surprised if he ends up there.

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.

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.

He is a talented public speaker.

There is a decent amount of footage of him. Below is a match he had with Bruce. I think he had a strong case for being the best Freestyle wrestler to never win an Olympic Gold medal. We've lost a lot of great wrestlers recently. I think Medved and Saitiev both died within the past two years. Ivanitsky died not that long ago.

I dislike that term, all it means usually in common speak is the best current/very recently retired player (people like Christian Pyles revel in being prisoner of the moment hype mongers and will angrily dismiss anyone from older generations). People try to conflate it with most decorated. Even when the modern athlete is objectively not the most decorated, some like Pyles will still just lie about that or proudly spout wrong information. If you corner the Pyles of the world, they love the strategy of saying current athletes are objectively higher level so the facts, details don't matter (by that logic, nothing he is hyping now matters since 50 years from now today's athletes will be inferior to the future ones, but funny enough he doesn't take that stand). So the "GOAT" is Yazdani. And in 15 years it will be someone else. The closest thing to Gable might be Takhti. He was one of the (or the first?) Iranian Olympic gold medalists. He transcended just wrestling by becoming something of a political figure, revered as an ideal of a courteous-chivalrous wrestler. He had a famous exhibition match against Medved. I think the cultural impact is most Gable esque. Of course Takhti had silverware to back it up, but that's how I associate it more. If it's just most decorated, Movahed is a six time world level medalist, with 2 asian games, and won the Olympics. He's objectively number one in that regard, pretty clearly imo. But Gable is not America's most decorated wrestler, so I wouldn't think of Movahed as an Iranian Gable.

The only nations or regions that can churn out elite wrestlers across the weight spectrum (light, middle heavy) are the US, Mazandaran, and Dagestan/Ossetia. So everyone else has a problem, somewhere (or everywhere). I think Arsan Fadzaev was an example of a dominant wrestler from this weight range historically. It's probably still true that average man in high level wrestling regions, when in shape, is somewhere around 70ish kg. This lends itself to 65 kg for competition purposes.