Lucho

Kadiev is Dagestani. I think Dagestan still has the majority of the top Russian youngsters imo if we count Tazhudinov as well. Aside from Eltemirov I can't really think of any top level Chechens. It's been a while since a really high level chechen guy has made the Russian team (at least from the last 3/4 years).

Yeah I heard about that a while back. How does that even happen? How can they just change what province they represent it seems kinda strange. Mazandaran has extra spots at national level tournaments so why would a guy like him switch unless he actually grew up there.

Wrestling as a whole might be the national sport of the country but like Russia other sports are far more popular and widespread. Football is very widespread and everyone plays it and follows it. The only other sport I think has mass appeal is volleyball and even then that is hyper focussed in the West Azerbaijan and Golestan provinces. Urmia the capital city of West Azerbaijan province is essentially Volleyball's Jouybar. The vast majority of top talent in Iran have come from one city in one province. Going back to wrestling, absolutely Persian's do wrestle think the Geraei's, Khadem's, Hamid Sourian etc and more recently Gholamreza Farrokhi, Abbas Ebrahimzadeh, Amir Ali Azarpira. It's just that if you want to be a top tier wrestler the likelihood of achieving that in Freestyle and not being from Mazandaran is incredibly low. Every suburb has at least one wrestling gym with top tier coaches and pretty much every kid wrestles. You would have more chance of doing so in Greco which Mazani's don't really do. Wrestling isn't really one ethnic groups' sport pretty much every ethnic group in the country has some form of wrestling. Whether that's Kurd's (Azimi), Bakhtiari's (Mirzazadeh, Esmaeili), Mazani's (Yazdani's, Ghasempour), Baloch, Turkmen etc. It just so happens that in certain regions greater investment and development has been done to translate their wrestling style into olympic styles so that's why Bakhtiari's in Khuzestan pretty much all do Greco and Mazani's pretty much only freestyle. Of course there are exceptions to that rule such as Saravi and Ghasem Rezaei but for the most part they don't really mix styles. Ethno-linguistic identity is quite complex in Iran as most of the ethnic groups mix together and are far less socially isolated nowadays. So even the term Persian is quite ambiguous as it more or less includes everyone but Arabs, Kurds, Baloch, Armenians/Assyrian/Chaldean and Turkic groups (Turkmen, Azeri etc). However, even then I imagine that is up for discussion and debate as well. Of course those who are more knowledgeable on this topic can also chime in and correct me but I think that's a relatively accurate assessment.

It was for the most part Dagestan and North Ossetia but other republics have also done decently well in the last couple of years. Lev Pavlov and Konstantin Kapyrnov are Yakutsk, Nachyn Mongush is Tuvan, Magomed Eltemirov, Khalid Yakhiev, Azamat Zakuev and the Khizriev brothers are all Chechen. These guys have all either won or ended up on the podium at Yaryguin and/or Russian Nationals in the last 2 years. Of course this is a very isolated sample and not all the top guys compete at these tournaments but it shows that it's not just Dagestan and North Ossetia over there whereas in Iran it's pretty much Mazandaran and sometimes Tehran.

When was the last time we've had someone from Hormozgan making a team? I imagine this is a incredibly exceptional case. I like seeing guys from weaker wrestling provinces making the team as I feel like one of our biggest problems is our super concentrated talent pool in Mazandaran and Tehran. If Dabir invests in traditionally strong wrestling provinces like Lorestan and Kermanshah I feel like we will have a more competitive domestic talent pool. If the Russians can do it, so can we.

No I know that logic is completely flawed what I meant was if Sadulaev was "struggling" against those guys and there style, Yazdani who is a better wrestler should have a good chance. In saying that I don't think he should move up to 97kg he would be better off at 92kg but I guess he wants 4 olympic medals.

Ah ok that makes more sense. I was trying to remember if I saw Tat anywhere so that makes sense tbh. Hopefully he does well in worlds. Is he Mazani or is he Tehrani? I remember Khateri going to Armenia and doing poorly but I think everyone that went was really bad even Dadmarz. It's a shame that khateri has fallen off since he won u17 worlds but he is still super young so he may end up being a world beater in a couple years time. Maybe the higher weight suits him better than 57kg

I mean Russia did the whole PWL thing with us and USA so I wouldn't be surprised if similar events happen again. But I reckon smaller wrestling countries might for example Hungary or Serbia. I agree those with established wrestling traditions probably not but those developing or want to be potentially. But it is a stretch tbh.

For the record I'm absolutely against Dabir and his political agenda. I also believe that some aspects of his leadership have been a net positive for Iranian wrestling. Both things can be true at the same time. However, I also agree with you that this is probably not the right place for politics especially Iranian given the recent couple of years. My personal opinion is that Dabir uses wrestling as a way for him to establish political legitimacy within the regime and by extension gain more soft power within Iran's sporting bodies. However, generating income through such partnerships with other countries is not a bad idea at all. For example if Armenia wants to pay us money to train with them we should definitely take that up same with Japan, Russia etc. In football, the top countries demand money to play friendly matches why can't we do the same thing?

For sure I'm just saying that for Yazdani the only thing that matters is an olympic and world title. Beating Tazhudinov in Asians and then losing to him at worlds and olympics is meaningless. Tazhudinov is entering his prime whilst Yazdani is slowly entering out of it so by the time they meet I'm worried it might end up a mauling by Tazhudinov.

Its interesting that apart from the one off matches against Snyder and Tazhudinov, the only other guys who have been able to nearly beat him have been our own (Goleij and Ghasempour). With all due respect to both guys Yazdani is a class above them both so you would expect Yazdani being capable to beat Sadulaev. From now on his team should be analysing and developing game plans on how to beat the top guys at 97kg and preparing him for when he steps back onto the mat. I know that Mohammadian is now a coach so maybe him and Reza Yazdani can work alongside him to prep for the transition to 97kg. The only thing that matters to Iranians is world and olympic medals and Asia is pretty shallow at the heavier weight classes even if you are Russian transfers. But its possible the first Yazdani vs Tazhudinov match up will happen at Asians in 2026/2027.

This is really strange tbh. However it sort of tracks with what they've been doing in recent years. It seems that they are trying to establish soft power within the wrestling world by inviting other countries' wrestling teams to Iran and sending their own guys there as well. From memory Tajikistan, Hungary and Armenia have brought their wrestling teams to train in Iran with our senior guys. I reckon they must have received some sort of benefits to send these guys there either financially or politically. Dabir was talking about making the wrestling federation self funded and developing revenue streams so I imagine this might be a part of that either directly or indirectly.

Yeah I think the US guys' biggest problem is translating their style to international wrestling initially but I think that's largely being overcome with FS being more integrated into US wrestling from an earlier age. Also the new gen of coaches like J'den Cox are going to be passing on their knowledge as well so I don't think its going to be a major problem by the 2028 olympics as you said but I think you guys will still be a force this year too. When it comes to Iran light weights they are incredibly inconsistent one tournament they look unbeatable and another one they look like its their first time wrestling on the mat. Ahmad Javan is quite young and I think he has potential to be a medal threat at 61kg but that largely hinges upon him not being leg laced back to Iran every time he gets taken down. Considering he isn't Mazani as well I'm curious to see his performance. His province Khorasan Razavi has been doing quite well in the lighter weight classes at junior levels domestically so it would be nice to see their hard work bring home a world medal.

Yeah I had a look at the roster and it looks like 86kg is Abolfazl Rahmani and 79kg is Mehdi Yousefi. I feel like at the minimum we should win 2 golds. Alp Arsalan Begenjow I think is the turkmen guy right? I'm hoping he gets to wrestle him again as I really like Yousefi I think he has a bright future for us but the turkmen guy is legit. I think Ahora Khateri is back which will be interesting to see. I'm hoping he ends up surprising us and win gold but that will be incredibly tough to do. At this age group and above US, Russia, Japan and India out develop us in the light weight categories. Do you know much about the 65 guy? I think its the first time I've seen his name.

Who even was sent to Romania? Why aren't we instead sending more guys to ranking tournaments? At the very least I feel like we should be sending guys to Yarygin for FS and also send 2-3 guys per weight class to ranking series tournaments especially for greco. The federation clearly has money to spend so might as well do it when there is the best possible competition apart from worlds and olympics. I didn't even know we were sending guys over there as none of the Iranian wrestling outlets even talked about it.