GrandOlm

I don't think that's a coincidence. I think Greco has been begging for some country to take advantage of the weak international scene since the fall of the eastern bloc (and now Cuba with their financial problems). Iran also has the 97 kg champion and the 67 kg champ? I've said it so many times but there is no Greco version of Dagestan, Ossetia, American folk system or Mazandaran. So any country that trains kids from a decently young age, well, and does it to a wide enough talent pool, should dominate. Russia has been coasting on fumes for over 30 year, and it looks like Iran is kind of stepping up slowly.

Sometimes people are just bad matchups. Zare and Taha always wrestled each other close and while Taha and Gwiz could have decently competitive matches, Zare always absolutely destroyed Gwiz.

Freestyle is popular in certain Caucus countries/regions. Greco is somewhat popular in Hungary. Greco also has marginal followings in Scandinavia, Estonia, Germany, Georgia, and Russia. That's about it. I don't think any European country comes anywhere close to the US in terms of wrestling popularity. Maybe Iran does. No one in Europe though.

Yousefi is facing Semonov tomorrow. I wonder how it goes. i could easily see Semenov coming in fat and way out of shape and Yousefi just pushing and cardioing him to death. But then again Yousefi has taken some bad losses himself. If Semenov does lose, that means Iran has maybe the three best Super heavyweights in the world and they are all keeping each other off medal winning runs.

Truer representation of the "world level" than the American, Dagestan, and Ossetian transfer artificially boosted version.

Sumo is most analogous to baseball in America, a national past time with an aging fan base and decreasing youth interest. Like baseball, a lot of grey heads at games and events. It also has religious-cultural aspects not found in any American or European sports (maybe bullfighting aside, though they call themselves an art not sport). It's also being dominated by Mongolians. This new yokozuna is the nephew of another mongolian yokozuna who along with a fellow mongolian dominated the sport in the 00s and 10s. The last ethnic Japanese super champion, Takanohana, was reigning all the way back in the 90s. So you'd have to be well into your 40s to remember a great Japanese champion. I think until Japan produces another Takanohana, Chiyonofuji, Kitnoumi, or Taiho like wrestler, the sport will continue losing popularity (maybe long term even a great champion wont save it from deeper rooted trends).

You'd either need a really good young heavyweight to emerge (like someone who goes on to win 5+ world championships and not in the Riza Kayaalp way) who could beat him or Lopez's age would need to make him too injured, diminished to gut people or make weight. The Soviets and the Bulgarians used to produce good to great heavyweights. They're both gone. Russia hasn't filled the gap left by those two. And the center of Greco is moving east, to regions not slanted towards heavyweights.

I wonder what Riza's plan is. He has an enormous ego and I wouldn't put it past him to return just to get the European medal record. The continent is still pitiful at that weight (a lot of weights now) and he probably would be favorite. I don't think old man Kayaalp fancies his chances against Iran's heavyweights in 28, maybe for the better for Riza since he'd put himself through the grind again. Riza's not a naturally big guy, holding all that weight can't be healthy for him.

People say that (and I agree for FS), but what about Bulgaria and Romania collapsing during Gogi's time? How is that not weaker competition in the 90s and and 2000s? Bulgaria was an excellent Greco Roman country, they could beat the Soviet 2s (and run of the mill 1s). Romania was really good. Nothing replaced those two countries... which is probably why America had a golden era in the during those decades. It took also took Cuba a while to arise and they don't like sending full teams. Tomov is easily the best GR wrestler without a gold medal imo. 3x Olympic Silver Medalist, faced strong competition (Soviets, Romanians), beat great wrestlers, and was probably denied a gold because of politics in 84. He was voted into the hall of fame in the inaugural class.

I purposely left out wrestlers who got popped.

I think I remember him. He is the one who bear Kayaalp in his last tournament before the drug ban. Maybe he will beat Mirzazadeh . That's why I think Mirzazadeh is this era's Baroev.

I purposely left Greco out since 1. I thought barely anyone here would care about GR wrestlers. 2. FS and GR are different sports. If it's Greco though I think Tomov wins easily. Dominant Superheavy of the 70s. 5x world gold 5x euro gold. Dominated h2h against fellow Bulgarian and strong wreslter Nikola Dinev. Has a win against Rostortorky (Karelin's greatest foe) during a comeback when Rosotsky was destroying everyone. But a terrible choker with 3 Olympic silver medals. And he would have been teh favorite in 84, but the boycott derailed that.

So which one is it? You listed 4 wrestlers.

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.