GrandOlm

Nolf has mentioned on Flo that he coaches at a wrestling academy. I think Nolf is functionally done. He might wing it at the next olympic trials, but I don't think Nolf will ever put in the grind of being a world level wrestler again. Nolf is 30 and has never made a world team. I know Tom "the big cat" didn't make his first (and only) team until like 33, but that's really old in wrestling terms. It's just a brutal sport past the college level. That someone at Nolf's never had a real career.

I had no idea Iran was so divided between the shia and secular segments of society. I'm not aware of any other middle eastern country where divisions run so deep between those two groups? Yazdani is a great wrestler, but 86 kg distorted the reality of how far separated was from everyone but Taylor.

I glanced at the 130 kg entrants. It looks like a wasteland. Too bad he wasn't at Zagreb to face the ear ringer.

No. I think they were the number ones and favorites at their weights though.

Well you said that, not me. I never said I expected a wrestler to become world on the street famous. By transcend the sport, I just meant something like Karelin or even Sadualev. Meaning that at least some non wrestling interest spheres have heard of you. I think it's reasonable to expect Hungary to have a Mirzazadeh, Borrerro, type wrestler. They haven't had one solid favorite or clear number one at an olympic weight class that I can think of in a long time. Which is strange given how they produce so many quality wrestlers.

He retired right after his olympic gold by which point he was in his mid 30s and a 1x world champion. So he was never a transcended his sport star or even the towering figure in his weight classes. He's exactly the mold that I am talking about.

Oh my Kampfringins

Hungary has a lot of these tier 2 level wrestlers (Zoltan, Szoke, Takas....) without a break through star. The curse of Bardos.

The problem is you never faced Hagen Faircorn. He is a greco wrestler who eats hema reenactors for breakfast.

As simple as it is. His style worked against multiple olympic medalists.

Yazdani may only be in his early 30s, but he is long in the tooth wrestling wise. A lot of wear and tear and years of wrestling has gone into that body. I'm disappointed Iran didn't send Yousefi or one of their top competitors at 130 kg. I wanted to so see them against Riza.

Why would Dabir be in trouble? The GR team are the best in the world by miles and the FS team won the world title. How much better can you perform?

I do wonder how famous Sadulaev actually is. I think he is the most known foreign wrestler by a good margin (not saying much), but I would hazard a guess that the doesn't have the name ID of even a Gordon Ryan among the MMA crowd, Rogan+Jocko-bjj sphere, and college only wrestlings fans.

Neither do I, but my mind immediately went to Russia when I saw the original comment that I replied to.

I am guessing most of those women came from a big city. I think in heavily muslim areas, part of the reason women don't wrestle is the singlet and the hijab. I don't know how where Mazandaran falls culturally on those issues. They don't appear to be in what looks like the religious Persian heartland, just based on the maps I saw.

I know it doesn't map one to one in many places. Russia is a famous example. Their wrestling strongholds are devout sunni muslim areas that do not like it. I think a lot of areas in Iran will still be rural, Persian Shiite muslim, and religious even if the government changes. Most Iranian wrestlers come from Mazandaran. So I think it would depend on what it's like over there.

Well Russian Greco was already on a steady decline since before the war, thought the pace of the decline has accelerated. It's Freestyle that has fallen off a cliff, from a solid pre war standing.

A watered down version of the Soviet system. There is a network of state funded coaches spread throughout the country that through a combination of nepotism, happenstance, and sometimes merit select a small group of kids who they exclusively train up to be future Olympics wrestlers. Add to that there are some coaches that run military affiliated clubs, which since Russia has a draft, where they get a broad look at the population for anyone with high potential athletic talent. Problems with this approach is that it's completely reliant on state funding. So if these coaching networks aren't getting paid enough by the state because the economy tanked (war), wrestling goes down the tube. Also Russia is developing a stronger middle class, a lot of kids don't want to go thought this monk like intense training outside the most deprived areas of the country. They'd rather work easier, boring middle class jobs. The military is busy fighting a war, not reciting soldiers for extracurricular clubs. Most of the great soviet coaches are finally retired or in the grave. Freestyle is completely different. Wrestling in a couple Caucus Republics is like Rugby Union in New Zealand. Almost every boy wrestlers there. Mass participation. They train a lot and they're super competitive about being the best. Wrestling is a ticket out of the economic drudgery of their homes. I agree that the massive club scene and the embrace of Freestyle has made the US a lot better (along with actually paying senior level athletes).

Russia are not doing well at the age level events either. Some people think the war may be negatively impacting wrestling. Their greco program is run in a completely different manner, and the greco team is doing even worse than their freestyle team. Hard to say without boots on the ground in the Caucus republics.

Oh yeah, I forgot about that. That story actually broke out of the greco ecosystem a little bit at the time. I saw so many comments about being sorry for him and so on, that don't follow the sport. Little did they know it was just a ranking series and in the grand scheme of things mean next to nothing in his career. It would be quite a trivia questions if Esmaeili somehow went on a years long unbeaten streak (I don't think he will, given the nature of light weight wrestling at that style). Maybe it would matter then!

Oh, the same Bulgaria that made such a big fuss over no new transfers. Looks like they were really serious about that push for home grown only.

I don't think it ever made sense, even 50 years ago. In the 1970s the soviet national championship was the arguably the highest level tournament in the world. On paper that should have been the Olympics......

I think it's also plain economics. Japan is much richer than Dagestan. If you don't make a world team or two but are still really good, then you still move on with your life and get a normal job. Wrestling in Japan is tied to higher education (like the USA, just with no fans), so it's not like wrestlers are shut off from other opportunities . Whereas in a these place like the caucus, wrestling is a ticket out of poverty or drudgery.Wrestling overseas is better than being stuck home with options This is a bit of curricular logic, but Japanese wrestlers don't have these foreign wrestler networks to recruit and bring them in.

It's a bit of beating a dead horse. For homegrown, there are a few countries that consistently produce olympic champion level wrestlers (Russia, USA, Iran, Japan), a couple that can churn out a few champions over a period of time (Georgia, Turkey....), places that are happy with one bronze (Poland, Hungary, Kazakhstan...), and a bunch of no hopers ( Spain, France....). As long as that balance holds and it's one country per slot, I think the transfers will find ways around (unless the world economy collapses or international travel ends).

It has gotten really bad. The European Championships were the all caucus open this year. Russia doesn't make any money from sponsoring wrestling. It's all about Olympic prestige against other nations. If something is hurting them in that regard, and they have levers to pull to combat it. They will.