GrandOlm

Almost everyone who won at least 5 world golds has one.

Mirzazadeh is the best Greco 130 kg in the world. He turned Semenov and beat him. He now has wins over every other top ranked wreslter. Mirzazadeh is not at the level of a Lopez or Balboshin, he is more like this era's Baroev. Still he should win the next Olympic gold barring some Russian/Cuban prodigy emerging or an upset.

It's funny you say that, but I have a belief that there has been a general societal age shift of about 10 years from what societal age expectations used to be in the 1970s to mid 2000s. In the modern sense, yeah, 24 year olds today are viewed more like teenagers were back then. So, Gable is still just a "kid".

So I checked 2023 worlds, especially since they were an Olympic qualifier and would get the best turnout you can hope for. Romania does not have a 125 kg entrant. Hungary does not have a 79 kg entrant. Neither sent a full team. Federations are not as generous as the United States, which happily sends full Greco teams that get crushed tournament after tournament. They want results (which means someone who can win Olympics Bronze or better at that tournament). The cold hard truth is that the only thing most of these national sporting federations actually care about is making these numbers go up. Wrestling is just one means to an end for that. If wrestling were ever removed from the olympics, it would regress to something like what amateur sumo exists as. The amount of countries with culturally healthy and relevant wrestling cultures, you can count on one or two hands (maybe). And Freestyle is a terrible investment from a homegrown prospective. Greco is a much better bet for a country if you want to try wrestling, you don't have to deal with Greco versions of these Freestyle/Folk crazed regions pumping out athletes who have been training since 5.

I'm just happy he failed at his other two ventures so he could disprove the celebrity worshippers who are convinced that because you are good/successful in a field, that means you can cross over to everything. Gable could have been a world champion in chess and software development pioneer!

Do Romania, Hungary, Italy actually have anyone? Italy is just Cuban transfers recently. Even Poland which, is the shining star of second tier nations, managed to produce someone like Robert Baran. Still not good enough to medal for the program. It's just really hard to challenge American's youth system or Dagestan's live, breath, drink, sleep wrestling for a non wrestling nation. It depends how generous their federation is. Poland for example sends near full teams so transfers absolutely take. A lot of nations don't even bother unless they feel they have a medal contender (which transfers impact even if your country does not take them).

Well this is sport ,not public policy. People are most invested in outliers anyway. And two, I'm not doing the research and work to track something like 70 years worth of 3 times medalists and their ages (even if it was very relevant). Too much effort for no real reward. I don't think 3 world medals signal dominance and longevity anyway, so I disagree with the premise. Speaking of oldest olympic champs, you know who the oldest olympic wrestling champ was before Lopez, Anatoly Roshcilin (at least I think he was unless you can find some older example ). A super heavyweight (what are the odds) who won at 40. You can win a lot of medals through a very long career, without being dominant. Kind of like Bruce Buamgertner. Medved had only two international losses (and two domestic losses to a legend once his career really got going) and went undefeated for his last 7 years. Considering Medved probably only started wrestling when he was drafted to the army at 18 years old, it's not surprising it took him that long for his first medals. It's not like slavs had some ancient traditional link to wresting, Medved wouldn't have encountered wrestling in the 40s/50s in his ancestral village. Yordanov by comparison had about 8 international losses by my count (just judging by his medals, though draws were a thing and we don't have scores). Saitiev is not an upper weight. Nor is Faedzaev, or Belgalzov.

Neither do I. The only wrestlers I feel sorry for are people with terrible luck with injuries, a super heavy weight or two in the pre transfer era, and wrestlers whose careers were derailed by politics (war, national bans on the sport). Burroughs falls under none of those things.

Of the Greco Roman Wrestlers who have won more than 5 world level golds, only one was a light weight (Sourian). And the one light weight was the least dominant of that group by far. He never went more than a year or two without taking a loss. I checked the pre WW2 era (it get's more complicated because European championships were the real world championships while some of the "World Champions" were bogus with the host country sweeping the medals). Carl Westergren was the stand out at the Olympics (eventually an upper weight), with Rudolf the runner up with 2x gold 1x sliver (an upper weight as well). When looking at the Euros (de facto world championships of that time). Ivar Johansson (middle weight 79 kg) and Kustaa (a light weight) were the standout medalists, but I think Olympics should be weighted heavier in that era. Travel and just having a day job were real impediments back before WW2. So even if the Euros were the strongest tournament in a given year they wouldn't have been important enough for a wrestler like Westergren to attend. a lot of the time. So no, upper eight are notably more dominant and have better longevity in Greco than light weights. I also wouldn't call someone like Yordanov "dominant". His medals are the entire spectrum of colors.

From what I've heard, wrestling is not popular at all in Japan. They are just high a GDP country with excellent programs for developing Olympic "technical, non ball " athletes. There might be some synergy with Judo, where they poach certain preteen/teens . Throw in some Japanese cultural attitudes to explain a bit more. If popularity were king, the US, Turkey and Iran would have dominated wrestling throughout history. Countries like Russia/Soviets, Romania, Bulgaria, Poland were all succesfull without mass appeal for wrestling .

Spencer will be 29? That's old for a lightweight. And Spencer is injury prone. It's not that rare for the smaller weights to have one cycle in them. Dake would be 37, that's old even for a super heavy. It's paleolithic for a 70 kger. He'd have to go up I think.

I saw that mainly from the flo people. They are the same crew that said that Sadulaev's career would not be complete unless he beat Cox, that's how they these things out. It was just shallow hype and prisoner of the moment. He has half the medals of some wrestlers and was losing at team trials in his mid 20s. But because Pyles woke up one day and said so, that means Taylor had a better career than Saitiev.

Neither is at the height of powers though. Taylor is coming off of the Brooks losses and Sad after a beating from Taz and a "weird " wrestle off win. It might be the most credentialed match, but it does lack that unbeatable force v immovable object hype.

I was thinking about the most credentialed match in FS history and wether DT vs Sad would be it. Off the top of my head Medved's was Ivanitsky at Soviet Nationals in 1966 - 9 world level golds and a Euro gold heading into the match. This would be 11 world level golds and 4 euro golds. Don't think Saitiev, Beloglazov or Yordanov had super marquee matches in a big tournament.

I think Greco is down, not just in the US. Freestyle is going to have Sadulaev, Taylor, Burroughs; Greco has only people hard cores would know about or badly struggling wrestlers. Just not many stars left in Greco. I guess Aleksanjan, and RIza are the closest things left. Besides that there is a lot of parity, new champions: I don't think that's good. Decline could be the new normal for Russia in this style. They don't have a single gold medalist (again). Center of Greco is moving firmly east, past Eastern Europe.

Vlasov, Emelin, and Evloev are all probably gone. The only name left is Semenov and he has trouble with his weight and motivation. Greco sub 80ish kg is such a meat grinder. Just one cycle can finish a great wrestler. Maybe they have a young star or even better in the pipeline, but I'm doubtful. Russian Greco doesn't have the reservoir of their FS system.

No. Sad has only 3 losses in his career. Snyder, Taz, and an early career defeat in small tournament.

That's not what David meant. He wasn't just talking about Americans.

Not enough titles and way too many losses to be in the same tier as people like Medved, Saitiev, or Fadzaev. They have double his (or more) medal count. Maybe if he went 4/4 undefeated but no, he has a lot of domestic losses and those count as well.

He looks old. A lot of the wrestlers that won 7+ medals kept themselves in tremendous shape and were always so disciplined. Sadulaev likes to balloon up and get chunky. The flo people were saying that Sadulaev might not go because he doesn't want to take a loss? He doesn't care about that. Maybe he did before the Snyder loss and a little before the Taz loss. Undefeated Sadulaev ship sailed already. He is chasing Medved's 10 medals. It's why he wrestled worlds after the Olympics in 2021.

A lot of the things people believe about him are word of mouth things American coaches and wrestlers from that time said. These people were truthfully not in a good position to know these things. The only time they would have seen Karelin is at worlds or a random tournament once or twice a year. I've never seen a Russian originating source claim that he went un scored on for X (6 or 10) years. They do say that he went undefeated for a long period and that his only two losses were controversial. And this un scored on claim from the English speaking internet can be debunked. See this (time stamp 2:22). So he was scored on in 1996 and the olympics, which keep good records, say Karelin was scored on in 1992. So there goes the 10 and 6 years possibility working back from Rulon. See, how could an American wrestler/coach have known about what happened at the Euros let alone internal Russian marches, but they still make these claims. I think the 13 years undefeated part is true, at least for his official record. In that he went undefeated in big tournaments (let's say Olympics, Worlds, Euros, Soviet/Russian nationals). Karelin did have a couple controversial wins (who hasn't to be honest) and I think they all happened with Sergei Mureiko. Ahokas, a Finnish wrestler, said this about Karelin's match in 1997 worlds against Murekio "was a gift from the referee". Karelin then had the match in 1999 with Mureiko that was overturned. To be fair to Karelin though, Ahokas could just be sour grapes, and that was there challenge system in the 90s. You couldn't challenge a live call so if a mistake did happen that was your only recourse. The article I saw regarding this did not go into specifics of the match and I don't think there is footage so who knows what happened. The only thing you can do is interview the wrestlers that took part in the match, but they will have their biases. Mureiko for his part does not seem to feel he was cheated with his career by Karelin. I saw an interview where Mureiko was asked about always losing to Karelin and he said something to the effect of "what can I do was facing a super man". And Karelin did demolish Mureiko on many occasions, including pinning him multiple times. The 887-2 was probably another American coach/wrestler tall tale that spread on the internet. Karelin lived for a while and competed in Sweden, who is recording these matches in 1991 and also following him around in Russia ha. Maybe you can come up with something close to 887 but who knows what the real number is.

I've often wondered about Karelin's 887-2 record. It's plausible, but who on Earth was keeping track of this. It's not like the mainstream sports where everything is recorded in print or even digitally. And how was this compiled? Newspaper clippings and interviewing the athlete to confirm some random tour or small tournament wasn't missed?

I think for this thread to work you'd need at least 3 active users who follow Iranian wrestling media.

I think that group might be winding down. The Olympics were happening and there was barely any posting activity.

Sick Soviet team as well. Most decorated freestyle wrestler in history at +100 kg capping his career off with a 7 year undefeated streak. Absolute monster Ivan Yarygin who pinned everyone in his gold run that tournament . Levan was in the beginning of his 5 year unbeaten run. Big Dagestan contingent as well.