shiraz321

He can easily go 86 at the very least.

Shamsipour wont be a 74, he is already wrestling 79kg. He is a big boy. I was very impressed he jumped from cadets to juniors and also jumped from 71 to 79 in a matter of a few months and was still was able to win the junior trials in a good field.

2024 71kg Cadet FS world champ? If so, yes, he won junior nationals over Hosseini ( 2023 cadet world silver at 71kg, lost to Lockett USA in the final) and then won a junior tournament in Armenia also. He would be going to junior asians and junior worlds but I don't see Iran sending a team, so his year is probably over as far as wrestling goes but we will see. I said in the iran news thread that I think he has a good future.

Japan has a 2 step process. First stage is the Emperor's cup in December and second step is the Meiji cup in June. If you win both you are guaranteed a spot on the world team. If the winner of the Meiji cup is different to the Emperor's cup then they will wrestle off for the spot. The wrestle off is just a 1 off match, not best 2 of 3. The wrestle off is held on the same day as the gold medal match of that weight in the Meiji cup, probably about an hour or so after the gold medal match concludes. The winner of the Emperor's cup could even lose in the first round of the Meiji cup and still come back and get the world team spot as winning the Emperor's cup guarantees you the wrestle off opportunity no matter how poorly you do in the Meiji cup. They give no advantage at all to returning world medalists except for olympic years where if you win a medal at the last world championships prior the the Olympics(or maybe even just qualify the weight?) you are automatically on the Olympic team. As for the Iran process, yes, it is decided by the coaches and federation. If they don't trust a particular wrestler they can make it extremely difficult for them to make a team. The federation has written out a process for this year and last year to make the world team but it varies from weight to weight. They placed importance on the Takhti cup initially and said everyone has to compete at it but a bunch of guys ( Javan (61kg), Amouzad, a few guys at 70, Nokhodi, Ghasempour, Firouzpour, Azarpira) missed it for various reasons like injury or good performances in previous tournaments excusing them from the Takhti cup. All these wrestlers are either confirmed to be on the world team ( that probably won't even go to worlds) or still have a chance to be on the world team. Its usually a mix of past international performances and performance in foreign tournaments. Having won prior world medals, even if not directly from the previous year's worlds championships, gives you a big advantage in the process as coaches will go out of there way to make it easier for you to be on the team.

They will wrestle the USA if they go to worlds. But I also doubt they will make it to the tournament.

I think Zare has been Iran's best gold hope for a while. In fact it was interesting to read that even going back to the Tokyo Olympics the coaches considered him the best chance for gold out of the entire Iranian wrestling team, freestyle and greco. He'd never even made a world team at that point. He just doesn't seem able to win the gold in back to back years.

Not sure. Thought it was last UWW tournament. Maybe someone can enlighten us.

I think the rule is you need to sit out 2 years from the last date you represented your original country internationally, which for Masoumi would be the 2025 Asian championships. But i'm not a 100% sure on that.

Well it seems there is at least some possibility of him going to Armenia. Very surprising. Maybe they recently increased funding for their wrestling program because I would think there are far more lucrative offers from other countries.

Does Armenia even recruit foreign wrestlers? Off the top of my head all their guys are home grown. I don't think they pay their medalists well either. I would guess Masoumi will wrestle for another country, but I don't think it will be Armenia.

That's from asian champs last month

Yones Emami beats Yazdani 4 - 3 to make the world team.

Yes, Hassan Yazdani is technically correct. Cherat is a place in Mazandaran that I believe his parents or grandparents are from and it would not really be used when referring to him in Iran. But I do think it's cool that @Husker_Du calls him Cherati, lol.

We will see. From interviews I have read it seems the coaches more convinced him to come to 86 while he would have preferred to stay at 92.

He made a lot of progress. He was second in Asian juniors last year and won asian seniors this year. He is on an upward path. I think we will see him at junior worlds again in a few months. 86 this year depends a lot on how Ghasempour looks after actually making 86kg.

They weighed around 89kg I think.

Ghasempour beats Rahmani 3‌- 1 and makes the world team at 86kg. A good match. It had a weight allowance, though.

It was two stories. He deleted them.

Yes, you are wrong, lol. They don't transfer nearly as much as Russians, but it does happen. We had a HW greco guy wrestling for Azerbaijan. He won them an olympic bronze in 2016 if I remember right without googling. Another GR guy is wrestling for Qatar or Bahrain at the moment and another for Serbia. Masoumi is posting angry stories on his instagram. I think he will switch countries in the coming years. 57 - Momeni def Valizadeh 9 - 4 61 - Uulu ( Kyrgzstan) def Reza Momeni 4 - 3 65 - Indian dude spoken about previously def Yasin Rezaei 11 - 11 criteria 70 - Abdulkadyrov ( Russia) def Mohamad Amouzad by pin 74 - Yazdani def Emami 7 - 4 79 - Babai def Yousefi 5 - 3 86 - Rahmani def Kavousi 7 - 1 92 - Azimi def Sorabi 5 - 2 97 - Bazri def Babaloo 3 - 1 125 - Zare def Masoumi 8 - 2 A lot of names were missing even though everyone was meant to compete here. Some of the weight classes were pointless as the world team member had already been selected. This was supposed to be a very important step in the selection process with everyone competing but that did not happen in the end. I think only Zare and Momeni at 57 are guaranteed the world team spot based off this tournament. So the 2025 world team so far for Iran is 57 - Momeni 61 - Javan 65 - Amouzad 70 - Undecided 74 - Undecided between Yazdani and Emami 79 - Undecided between Nokhodi and Babai 86 - Undecided - I will assume they will send Rahmani and Ghasempour to a tournament somewhere 92 - Firouzpour 97 - Bazri will need to somehow make the team over Azarpira. I don't see it happening. I guess they will send them to a tournament. Or just send Bazri to a tournament on his own and if he does not win they send Azarpira automatically. 125 - Zare

I wonder if Masoumi will switch country.

Reza Atri is still alive? News to me. He is old. No way he can do anything at 57 internationally. If he was he would have done it by now. Did he even try and make the Paris Olympic team? He is from the same generation as Yazdani, Karimi, Taheri and Iman Sadeghi. Karimi is the most underrated Iranian wrestler of all time, btw.

Firstly I would like to say I always appreciate your posts. You are very knowledgeable and they are always interesting. Of course they are both unpopular sports, I just assumed GR having no female divisions AND being unpopular would push it over the edge. Also wrestling is the only combat sport to have multiple styles, and we have to most weight classes of any sport that has weight classes in the games. Tae Kwon Do has 8, Weightlifting has 10, Judo has 15, Boxing has 14 and we have 18. Your point about it surviving off legacy must be accurate. I wonder how much longer it can go.

12 weights is over kill. 9 or 10 is good. Maybe keep them the same but get rid of 92 and adjust 86 and 97 accordingly. As for GR, credit to UWW. No clue how a unpopular sport with no women's division continues to survive in the olympics. The only sport in the games that women can not participate in. I'd be interested if anyone can shed some light on this. Unfortunately I think that if/when it finally does get cut, the weights wont go to FS, but to beach wrestling.

57 - No clue. I don't expect much from whoever emerges at worlds. Seems Momeni is the front runner. 61- Javan selected 65 - Amouzad selected. Emrahimzadeh seems to be the best of the rest and will probably go to U23 worlds again. 70 - Sina Khalili, but I am interested to see him wrestle Shakeri. 74 - Emami is still probably the best guy we have. 79 - Yousefi 86- Ghasempour, but I am interested in seeing Rahmani. He is very talented and improving rapidly. 92 - Firouzpour selected and Azimi at 97. Who is even left at this weight? 97 - Probably still Goleij 125 - Zare, but hopefully Masoumi

May 6th