Lucho

I'm pretty sure it is the same Aoyagi he just moved up a weight class to 74kg. The interesting part is that arguably the best Japanese 74 (Narikuni) is wrestling greco instead of freestyle. If Narikuni focussed on freestyle instead of greco guys like Takatani and Takahashi wouldn't even have the medals they have today. Their depth in some of these weight classes is wild.

Yeah Elahi sort of fell off but now he is doing well which is great to see. In saying that I think he gave PJ Duke his closest match at U20 worlds though, Duke won on criteria 2-2. He lost a close match to Rassadin as well it was 7-5 and Rassadin is pretty tough. I'm wondering why Khorramdel doesn't come down to 65kg anymore he would be a much better wrestler there imo unless the weight cut is too much for him now. He only moved up to 70kg last year because Iran's actual rep at 70kg was injured (I forgot his name).

Yeah I saw it was quite impressive to be honest. I think he lost to Rassadin not Sheriev in the finals I think Sheriev went up to 74kg. If he keeps this up it will be interesting to see who ends up our 70kg rep between him and Khalili. I'm a bit disappointed in Khorramdel he should be doing better considering his junior level results.

I don't think they've wrestled but I could be wrong. I imagine if they did it wouldn't have been to competitive anyways considering how good Masoumi is. The harsh reality is even if Mohammadnezhad is a top prospect unless he can beat Zare he isn't making the team. To even get to that point he has to beat Masoumi to make it to wrestle off's. What makes it ridiculous is that Zare is only 24 so it's not like these guys can just wait for him to retire he still has another 10 years in him.

Would have been nice to see a McEnelly vs Rahmani rematch at u23s but I'll be looking forward to seeing a potential Welsh vs Rahmani matchup. No Masoumi at 125 makes the field very open tbh I feel like anyone can win it as Yedige Kassimbek isn't also competing. Even if you guys were sending the other 2 instead at 97 and 125 I feel like the team title is wrapped up for you guys barring a severe underperformance. Marcus Blaze, Luke Lilledahl, Jax Forrest, PJ Duke, Mitch Messenbrink and Levi Haines are all top tier prospects can develop into world/olympic champions. In saying that I reckon our boys will give the US guys a hard time and might be able to beat a couple of them.

The US team is really really strong this year. It seems like from 57-92kg they have gold medal contenders and have medal contenders at 97 and 125kg. Your guys' talent development in recent years is scary. It's going to be an interesting tournament seeing how our guys match up with yours.

The moment Khabib called Azarpira the Iranian is the moment I call 0 chance on him competing. If you are running a wrestling tournament you need to know the names of the guys you are inviting. Especially since that "Iranian guy" is an olympic bronze and world silver medallist. That sort of attitude is why wrestling hasn't grown internationally as it should have. It's a shame because Khabib could be really key to growing the sport but I don't think the Iranian federation will allow it anyways since Azarpira is competing at the Islamic Solidarity Games.

If grass roots wrestling can be developed in those countries instead of relying on foreign imports there will be more eyes on the sport of wrestling. The Greek guy that just won at 79kg is going to bring far more eyes to the sport of wrestling in Greece than Kurugliev ever could. Part of international sport is having a connection to the athlete that is representing your country. If they don't speak the language or understand the culture how are you going to make people interested in the sport. Look at the Hungarian greco team support vs freestyle the Hungarians come in big numbers supporting their guys whilst they don't do that for Baitcaev and Kuramagomedov in freestyle. There is a reason for that. The more eyes on the sport the more money and excitement as a result.

Thanks for that. It seems like UWW is stepping in the right direction with regards to these transfers. It would be much more worth it if these countries brought in coaches to train their own wrestlers as opposed to importing them and it would also make the competitions more exciting in the process.

Bulgaria is really the exception rather than the rule unfortunately. Azerbaijan, Serbia, Hungary, Bahrain and now Qatar are still options for foreign wrestlers. In some cases it makes sense for example the Amine brothers and Micic because they actually have ties to the countries they represent. However, for the vast majority of the cases it is an actual joke. The only solution is for UWW to allow multiple wrestlers from each country compete. This way it would not only improve the quality of wrestling in tournaments but also stop this circus show from continuing.

We will see I think there will be a couple surprises as usual with these sorts of things. But I more or less agree with what you have put if those are the guys competing. Probably have Azimi winning 92 over khaniev tbh.

According to an interview they just had he said he will be competing at u23 worlds for some reason. Not too sure why I would rather some other guy go and wrestle.

Who are the US and Russia sending. I feel like you are underestimating some of the guys. Azimi is a U20 world champ at this weight class and Yousefi is the reigning u23 and u20 champ.

Not a bad list tbh I could see maybe 3-4 golds and 7 medals total from this team. Sina Khalili, Mehdi Yousefi, Abolfazal Rahmani and Mobin Azimi are very good wrestlers. I wonder what our Greco team is going to look like. I think Farokhi will be our 82kg rep apparently.

I think Mamedov stays in Russia tbh. They don't really have anyone else at 65 that can compete internationally. It seems overall Russia's new generation is much weaker than their previous which doesn't seem that surprising given who headlined that era (Sadulaev, Sidakov, Gatsalov etc). Even their transfers are around the same age as their main team guys. I wonder if the MMA hype has shifted their best grappling talent over there and the rest of the guys competing are their next best alternatives. Apart from Tazhudinov, Kadiev and Ozdamirov they don't have anyone that is super super impressive coming through.

I completely agree with what you said. Aside from Russia there isn't really any other country with both the resources, interest and population size to compete with Iran across a 10 weight world championships. Olympics definitely but not worlds. It would be nice if the US could develop some high quality greco guys to make the competition more competitive. Raney looks really promising and I think he could fill out to be a solid 60kg or 67kg guy in the future with the right coaching. Maybe he could come to Iran and we send some of our light weights to the US to train FS.

I felt like before the tournament we could send 5 guys to the finals (Esmaeili, Farokhi, Mohmedi, Saravi and Mirzazadeh). The over performance was more so I think at 55 and 63kg. Ahmadi beating Azizli and Keshtkar teching Muradov were completely out of nowhere results. Ahmadi is good but I didn't think he was that good shame he lost his finals match to another incredibly talented wrestler. 60 and 77 performed more or less to how I thought it would turn out in terms of not medalling. Its more a combination of Azerbaijan doing incredibly poorly and other heavy hitters losing early (Alexanyan, Luis Orta Sanchez etc).

The Sohrabi match was an absolute disgrace. Ghanem continuously hit him and made him bleed causing them to run out of injury time so Ghanem won by medical forfeit. The medical staff didn't stop the bleeding in time and just tried to wipe it off when they should have put tape around it from the beginning. Why that isn't protocol from the start I don't know. Ahmadi Vafa was too inexperienced and lost because of that. I'm sure next year he will do better. Him and Payam Ahmadi are future world champions.

Overall I feel like our MFS did quite well and its nice that we won the team title back. Here is my ratings for each of our guys. Ali Momeni (57kg): C-, I don't think he under or over achieved he was never going to beat RBY but I was hoping he might have been able to at least competitive. How much longer do we have to wait for a good 57?? Ahmad Mohamadnezhad Javan (61kg): A-, He navigated his way quite well through to the final (even if it was an easy draw) and showed a lot of fight which I liked, I hope he continues to work hard and stay at this weight class because he might become a consistent medal threat with a couple more years of experience. Rahman Amouzad (65kg): A+, absolutely phenomenal performance in the final against Kiyooka, it seems like he managed the cut better this time around. As many people have already said, when he is on he is unstoppable. Not much more to say about my favourite wrestler. Amirmohammad Yazdani (70kg): F, I don't really have much to say he has been a complete disappointment. Can Ebrahimzadeh or Khalili take his spot for next year so he doesn't embarrass us. He ruins an incredibly good draw and chance for us to get a medal. I don't want to see him competing for us again. Younes Emami (74kg): B, he did well enough to make the repechage and lost what looked like a close match (scoreline) against Salkazanov. He looked rejuvenated, I saw him hit some nice duck unders that he used to do but unfortunately he just doesn't have the quality to compete against the world at 74kg. Mohammad Nokhodi (79kg): C+, for a guy that had won 4 medals at this weight class previously you would hope he can finally get the job done and win gold. Overall a poor showing by him but I think he hasn't had enough time since his surgery. Still doesn't excuse his loss to the Greek guy. Nokhodi has a weird habit of loosing to eventual champions every year, it seems like he is always the second best guy in the world. Hopefully in the future he can get it together and win it all. Kamran Ghasempour (86kg): D, I might be a little harsh but the truth is for a 2 time world champ you can't be performing like that against Valencia. Sure the draw screwed him over a little but the champ wins regardless of who is in front of him. Zahid outmuscled him and completely shut his offence down. He needs a complete re-work of his tactics because that was embarrassing. Amirhossein Firouzpour (92kg): D+, again like Nokhodi and Ghasempour he really should be doing better. How he lost to the Russian guy is beyond me, with Yazdani and Ghasempour's weight situation not certain its quite likely this will be his last worlds for a couple years, he blew his golden shot to win gold. Amirali Azarpira (97kg): A-, Day 1 I think he was an A+ after being Tazhudinov, Day 2 I'm not so sure. Overall, I thought he would win bronze so he over achieved but considering he had beaten Snyder twice previously this was a disappointing result, however he is only 23 so he has enough time to make up for it. Amirhossein Zare (125kg): A+, really not much to say. 3x world champ is not for everyone, he is maturing very well at 125kg and is head and shoulders above everyone else. With Gable going to MMA and Geno hiding there isn't anyone internationally that can challenge him. Considering the oldest guys amongst this group is Ghasempour and Emami who are 28 the future is quite bright for our guys. Obviously 2026 and 2027 worlds are much more telling on how we match up against the rest of the world but so far we outperformed the field. Hopefully our guys use this as motivation to continue to get better and improve.

This is the problem, how are the guys you select underperforming if they are the "right guy" for the weight compared to those who earned it. I feel like they should just do a Final X style of competition to select guys and then send the top 3/5 out to international tournaments for experience. That way no one feels is robbed. They could just make everyone come to Takhti or Nationals. The so called charkhe they have is one of the most bizarre ways of selecting guys I've ever seen.

I watched that match live, it was a deserved win but I don't think that had anything particularly down to the coaching staff. If for example he beat Uguev then I would be saying that there was exceptional coaching at play which helped him. One thing I did like from him though was that he was just quite disciplined and fought hard. His mentality was really good imo and I think we will hear more from him in the future. The coaching staff made the right choice with selecting him. Ali Momeni and Amir Mohammad Yazdani on the otherhand... the less I say the better.

I think he just got out wrestled by Harutyunyan. I'm just as shocked as you tbh. I thought him and Zare were guaranteed gold medals but it looks like you can't bet on light weights at all. Harutyunyan is a super tricky wrestler so its not that surprising he won its just that I would've thought the American strength and conditioning would have kept it a lot closer. Maybe Lee needs to go train at PSU or OSU as Iowa's ability to consistently produce international hammers has diminished in the modern era.

How much of that was due to the bracket though? If he was on the other side the best he could have gotten was bronze and if Ono and Vito were here he wouldn't be medalling. Him and Ahoura Khateri sort of had identical results they both navigated their way to the final only to get dominated by the number one guy in the field. Have we started to develop decent 61s or is it just a fluke result.

The expectation in Iran at least for Firouzpour and Ghasempour was gold. The fact that American guys won rubs more salt in the wound especially in the absence of Yazdani and Ghasempour going down just to lose to Valencia. Every year the expectation is the team title and multiple gold medals especially since both the US and Russia are in a rebuild.

I hope Nokhodi goes to 74 and Ghasempour goes up to 92. As I've been saying Zahid is the kind of guy who could win it all. I don't think anyone is touching him if he continues to have Taylor as his coach. Firouzpour realistically needs to go down to 86kg if he wants to make the team.