Undefeated

Hamid Sourian, Takhti, Dabir - all Olympic champs, all from Tehran. And then Olympic medalists like Molaghasemi, Naser Givehchi, Mojtabavi, Khojastehpour, Seyfpour, Sanatkaran, Ali Akbar Heydari, Alireza Heydari, SeyedAbbasi, Abbas Jadidi ....

You are right.

Voting doesn’t really help them. They might always end up voting for Hamas. Lots of people living under dictatorships develop something called Stockholm Syndrome - I’ve seen it up close in Iran. People with that need help and healing, not to be killed.

You’re living with some relative peace, your belly is full, and you have free access to information, yet you vote for people like Trump and Biden. After that, what do you expect from those poor folks?

The starvation in Gaza has a lot of causes - Israel, U.S. backing for the Zionists, Hamas itself, the stupidity of Arab leaders, you name it. But here’s the thing - what’s the actual fault of the people in Gaza here? There’s this dumb take that keeps popping up from people talking out of their well-fed mouths: “Well, if you don’t like your rulers, why don’t you just overthrow them?” Folks… please, read a couple of history books before saying stuff like that. Show me one starving, bombed-to-hell population that managed to overthrow leaders backed by foreign powers. Even the Germans didn’t take down Hitler themselves - outside powers did. And even the Russians didn’t bring down the Soviet Union - outside pressure did that. This is what not understanding life under a dictatorship looks like - just empty talk.

Yeah. Even though I’ve got a lot of issues with Dabir, I gotta admit he’s done some good for wrestling - even if it’s mostly for his own political gain. I mean, he could’ve easily gotten just as much funding (or more) from the regime and done nothing useful at all. Take Arash Miresmaeili, for example - he’s politically aligned with Dabir, but we all know how he’s pretty much wrecked judo. But honestly, do you think countries like Armenia, Japan, or Russia are actually gonna pay us to compete? I doubt it. Football’s a whole different beast. The thing is, wrestling doesn’t even have the revenue potential that the MMA world does, because people - especially in wealthy countries - just don’t have the patience to watch two guys pushing each other around the mat for six minutes. That’s not Dabir’s fault though. To really make money off wrestling, the whole UWW’s policies and wrestling rules have gotta change.

Yeah, you might be right. Honestly, I can only really see Dabir’s moves through a political lens - but I’m not gonna get into that here, ‘cause I don’t want this thread going off-topic. You don’t wanna see Hasan vs. Sadulaev? If that match goes down, it’s gonna be way more exciting than just winning a title, don’t you think?

http://iawf.ir/?th=contentdetail&PageCode=81751 Look at these two pics - in both of them, first and second/third place are Iranians, and the other spot is a guy from either Romania (the host country) or somewhere else, I’m not sure Now, if I were the head of Iran’s wrestling federation, the only way I’d send my wrestlers to a tournament like this is if Romania was paying me a fat stack of cash… or if the wrestling trip was just a cover for sending over something else. I’m not trying to sound like some conspiracy nut, but seriously - how else are you supposed to look at this? And Romania’s already kinda known as the Islamic Republic’s backyard. Remember that judge they dragged over from France to Romania, and then he just “fell” out of his hotel window? And I have no idea how the federation had the guts to post the following picture. This is straight-up a meme. I'm guessing that’s Abolfazl Mohmadi, right? The federation’s own post says he got silver - and yeah, you can see the silver medal on him - so why the heck is he standing on the gold podium? Where’s the guy who actually won? This picture is a meme all by itself.

Did you guys follow the Ion Corneanu tournament today? I honestly don’t get why our guys are even going to some of these tournaments. I mean, we all know what the situation’s like back home - folks are dealing with all kinds of financial and economic pressure. You’d think the federation would try to manage its expenses a bit better. Now, I’m not naive enough to think that if they didn’t waste the money on pointless tournaments, it’d magically get spent on the people. But at least they could send our wrestlers to better events… or throw some support to the wrestling boards in remote provinces. Take a few months ago - they sent Azarpira to the Sassari tournament. How many matches did he wrestle? Just one, against a guy from Moldova! Anyone here know how much that trip cost? And now Ion Corneanu tournament... Seven Iranian wrestlers went. The level was so low the federation’s website kept editing and re-editing the results - they didn’t even know how to cover this embarrassing event. Example: the 97 kg bracket had only three wrestlers - two Iranians and one guy from Romania, the host country! Most other weights had two, maybe three competitors max. And you all know how it goes - when the federation sends a team, they send about twice as many “security” and “protection” staff as actual wrestlers, just to make sure no one tries to defect. Plus the coaching staff… and a few mystery folks nobody talks about. I seriously don’t see the point in wasting time and money on tournaments like these.

If you’ve got a thousand good reasons for doing something wrong, that just makes it a thousand and one wrongs. Avicenna

Man, he’s really packed on the weight. Wish he’d made the move earlier - I would’ve loved to see him wrestle Sadulaev when he was at his peak.

I’m guessing the Germans didn’t mean any harm, but yeah… mini golf doesn’t seem like the best way to build warm relations between two countries.

So just sharing "-ism" doesn’t automatically make ’em the same?

Russia’s always trying to mess things up wherever it can, but I think America should probably be more worried about China and the Zionists than Russia. That said, America really needs to figure out what to do about Russia, but China’s playing a whole different game - sneaky, everywhere, and way scarier than Russia. You can’t just push China aside like Russia. The only way to beat China is if those self-obsessed American presidents stop with the empty talk and hero poses on camera and actually take them down economically. And that’s a really tough job

If you meant my previous profile pic, that was Levan Tediashvili.

Rachel Corrie - I’ve got her Wikipedia link in my signature. I think she’s a real hero. An American who didn’t just swallow what the Zionist-leaning U.S. media was feeding her, went to Palestine with a few other Americans, stood in front of an Israeli bulldozer that was tearing down Palestinian homes, and sadly got killed. The U.S. government swept it under the rug because of its ties with Israel. And that says a lot about how toxic the American media space is - Americans can tell you the name, age, and story of a girl killed in Iran, but they’ve never even heard of Rachel. I put her picture up - so maybe a few more people will know who she was. And honestly, I think this matters not just for Americans - for us Iranians too. We’ve got to make sure we don’t fall for the lies of our own corrupt, terrorist regime, but also not tumble straight into the trap of the Zionists who’ve wormed their way into the U.S. and Europe like zombies.

A pic of Zare from today’s training at the national camp. I just hope Masoumi’s move overseas doesn’t mess with Zare’s form. Heavyweight isn’t really as solid as people think. Besides Zare, who else do we even have in this weight class right now?