Lucho

Historically selection for the national team was much more opaque than it is now. They have now adopted a mixture of the US and Russian approach which I think has worked out better. Essentially the way it works is as others have mentioned world/olympic medalists have to win one match against a competitor who has met the requirements to be a challenger (win Iran nationals, ranking tournaments etc). Azarpira beat Yoshida by faking injury time in a competition no one cares about. Once Yoshida and Azarpira's careers are over no one will look at Asian games medals as important. Only worlds and olympics matters. Azarpira had advantage over Yazdani in selection and still couldn't beat Yazdani once. This argument that Azarpira would have beaten Yoshida is ridiculous. Sujeet looked unstoppable in the Asian games teching Kudiev and then lost to him here. Worlds and Olympics is a different level.

Another interesting storyline can emerge at worlds this year if Dake wins worlds. He could become the greatest wrestler to never win olympic gold with 5 world titles at 3 different weights. Looks like the Burroughs, Taylor and Dake rivalry created absolute monsters. The US old guard are unstoppable so it seems.

The 97 guy is Magomed Kurbanov who lost to Ghasempour at 92 worlds in Oslo. This is Abdulla Kurbanov who was a guy Masoumi beat a couple times in U20 and U23 worlds. He is a younger guy that has dominated the Russian 125 circuit for a while.

Day 2 had way too much going on so I'm going to break it down by weight class. Javan 61kg: He did what he had to do to make his second finals appearance. Honestly exceeded my expectations and wrestled very smartly against Blaze (although I didn't like the fake injury) and Kazakh. Against India he was getting gassed and pulled the same shenanigans and managed to recover some energy. Against Uguev he needs to wrestle with much more temp and speed if he wants a chance to beat Uguev. But is becoming a consistent medal threat at this weight class which we haven't had in a while. Amouzad 65kg: Deserved to be in the final against Bassett. Again beat Mamedov who was more interested in defending than attacking. How there was no shot clock or warning is beyond me. Amouzad was clearly the better wrestler. Khalili 70kg: As expected loses to Ochir. Not too shocked or surprised here. He needs to build more strength to survive in this weight class. Ghasempour 86kg: I don't have any words. I don't want to talk about it. Yazdani 97kg: He bullied Tazhudinov for 6 minutes straight and won points the way he was at 86 in the whizzer. Tazhudinov couldn't do anything. Also amazing moment with Sadulaev afterwards in front of the crowd. Zare 125kg: He dominated Hendrickson who looked really in form. I guess he has learned from his mistake from previous years against shooters. He kept a very low guard and prevented Hendrickson from creating much. Very mature style of wrestling.

I think Amouzad was gassed tbh. He didn't have enough energy to wrestle with Tevanyan aggressively and it bit him. I don't think Tevanyan's strategy is going to work again though if they wrestle again but I think Amouzad is going to move up a weight class imo.

Respectfully Khaniev would get murdered. The only guy that can hang with Snyder for 6 minutes straight is Yoshida. Even Sadulaev took "injury" time as he was gassed out. Khaniev gassed to Azimi at u23s imagine what Snyder would do.

If Snyder wins worlds this year where does he stack up all time for USA wrestling? I think 2-3 years ago the narrative was that Snyder is below guys like Burroughs, Smith, Baumgartner and Taylor due to his losses to Sadulaev preventing that era of dominance these guys had. But I think now that Snyder pinned Sadulaev and beat him again at worlds this year maybe that narrative has changed? If he wins his 5th gold I think there could be an argument here. Also the US has developed an incredible generation of Burroughs, Dake, Snyder and Taylor. 3 Olympic Golds and 17 world championships is an insane medal haul from 4 wrestlers. Also I hope Bassett techs Tevanyan. He robbed his way to the final. Amouzad and Mamedov are much better wrestlers than him. Would be crazy to see a 20 year old win senior worlds at 65.

Yes winning the team title is incredibly important especially now that Russia's results count at worlds. Amouzad was the reigning world champ and he had already beaten all of those wrestlers on his side. So you would expect him to win if his body was in shape. His draw wasn't as bad compared to 86 for example. 125 is nowhere near as competitive as the other weights so you can't compare Zare's situation to Amouzad. Nokhodi is also not the favourite against Haines and Khaniev so his chance of winning gold is less than Amouzad and Zare too irrespective of the draw.

Yazdani and Amouzad are not favoured against Mamedov and Tazhudinov. Not by a long shot. Both matches are going to be incredibly tough and those two need to give everything they have to win them. Javan is getting teched by Blaze and Ghasempour might not even get to the quarters. The US sending 2 to the final on day 1 more or less seals the title for them. They have good draws at 57, 61, 79 and 92 where they have very very good wrestlers. US is going to do an Iran greco on the freestyle field.

Iran's best chance was 65 in terms of gold and Yazdani could've made the finals on paper. Iran's team is very poorly conditioned this year. Unless they bounce back today the US is winning by a landslide. Russia's 57, 74 and 125 reps are not great and will probably DNP this year. They need to rely on Uguev, Ibragimov, Khaniev and Kadiev to get to the final but it won't be easy at all. The Russian team like Iran have poor conditioning and will gas out if the match gets close. I can see Uguev and Ibragimov making finals tbh. Kadiev and Khaniev have very bad draws stylistically.

Tevanyan didn't even attack from the start of the match it was Amouzad initiating. The first shot clock shouldn't have even went on Amouzad in the first place. One thing I'm concerned about it is the weight cut. It seems like Amouzad has grown out of 65. The weight cut has also worsened his gas tank a lot. He isn't as aggressive which hurt him in this match especially.

I think today's results sealed the US team title tbh. For both Russia and Iran this is practically impossible to recover from. There is still Spencer Lee, Marcus Blaze, Levi Haines, Kyle Dake and Trent Hidlay to wrestle. Very big reality check for Iran freestyle. We are getting rinsed LA Olympics if this continues for the whole tournament.

How Amouzad was called for fleeing is beyond me. Tevanyan was defending the whole match and they gave Amouzad the passivity call is ridiculous. Not to mention the multiple head buts by Tevanyan. Awful start for Iran.

It depends I'm not too sure what the coaches will think after this loss tbh. They would probably both be sent to ranking series events and then the winner is who performs the best probably.

Yazdani just lost to Yoshida in a match he was controlling for large portions of. I'm not even sure if he will get pulled back in Yoshida didn't look that special. Yazdani needs another year or two to properly fill out at 97. Yoshida gassed him out.