Lucho

Yeah he had a crazy drop in performance last year. He lost to Kusaka in the Asians then Zhadrayev beats him in Paris. LA is his last chance for gold and I really hope he wins it if one of own guys doesn't do it. Still I think Paris was his best chance tbh, he will be what 29/30 next olympics and there will definitely be killers in that weight class who will be younger and entering their prime years. It would be upsetting but not surprising if Akzhol retires without an olympic gold in his resume. In my eyes he is still an all time great whether or not he wins olympic gold.

I'm surprised that you guys think Khateri is making the finals. If he makes 61kg finals I would be incredibly impressed. He has fallen off since his u17 world title imo. The rest of it I more or less agree with I think US takes the team title relatively easily.

For those that can't read farsi, Amirreza Masoumi signed a contract to wrestle in the Iranian wrestling league. I think Sina Khalili is also competing. I'm not really sure what the implications are of this but I think he still wants to leave its just that the federation isn't letting him.

Yeah I feel like heavy weight is such a big stylistic difference that he will probably struggle. In saying that he is an incredible wrestler with a fantastic coaching staff behind him, I reckon if he goes up he will still be a problem just the Iranian wrestling style might be a match up disadvantage.

I wonder if Tazhudinov's wrestling style will translate well at 125... He would probably be able to beat the average heavy relatively easily but I think the stylistic difference at heavy weight might cause him some problems against a Masoumi, Zare level wrestler. Those guys have been heavies all their lives whereas I think Tazhudinov grew into a 97kg. I think the amount of injuries he has already racked up might cause him problems as well. The heavies are stronger and more physical.

Also Akzhol Makhmudov is apparently not competing this year at worlds which is huge. I'm not sure if Kusaka is competing but this is a massive chance for Abdevali to win gold. Him and Sharshenbekov are two of my favourite non-Iranian greco guys so its a shame one of them isn't competing but interesting to see who Kyrgzstan send in his absence. They have been developing some killers at junior levels in recent years.

Yeah the Treaty of Turkmenchay was probably the most monumental moment in Persian history in terms of future ramifications. It strengthened Russia to become a superpower and led to our deteriorating political influence within the region. Wrestling wise we would be unstoppable but I guess that's not as important to be honest in this context.

Yeah I reckon Tazhudinov fills out to 125 by 2032 he is too big to not eventually go to heavy weight. So I think that's why Bahrain didn't go for him.

Azerbaijan historically was a part of Iran and a large portion of Iranians self identify as Azeri. Russia took it alongside a couple other places in the caucaus during the Russian-Iranian ward. We still have two provinces called East and West Azerbaijan. The tension comes from the fact Azerbaijan wants to take the rest of the provinces as part of their own and push Pan-Turk identity. That's where my problem lies with them. They are turkish nationalists who have persian heritage. It's kinda weird.

I moreso have an issue with him wrestling for Azerbaijan of all places than anything else. Why compete and win medals for a country so hostile to your own? I personally feel that instead of transfers UWW can just let more than one athlete from a country per weight class to compete. This solves both the transfer issues and improves the quality of the competition. If you want to improve your wrestling medal tally do what India, China and Japan are doing. Invest in infrastructure and top quality coaching. Don't bring in foreign mercenaries who don't have a single understanding about your countries' culture and are only there for the money. If everyone on the podium is Russian/Iranian/American so be it, that happens already in olympic diving, athletics, swimming etc and no one cares because its good quality TV. If wrestling wants to grow they shouldn't care about whether they have enough quotas for South American wrestlers they should more be worried about how their best talent is watching the worlds from home. This flawed thinking is why wrestling nearly got removed from the olympics. Yes its the "world" championships but the world in wrestling means the countries around the Caspian Sea, Japan and US. What we see in the modern sport is essentially that anyways with these transfers.

With all due respect to him that is an awful idea. I understand that Masoumi at the moment isn't good enough and probably feels frustrated and upset but he is only 21. Ali Arsalan was deemed "not good enough" and then became a world champion wrestling for Serbia. We still haven't produced a world champion in that weight class btw (hoping Sohrabi changes that). I fully understand that history will only remember guys who win world/olympic medals but at what cost? Is Sabah Shariati a respected wrestler in Iran winning medals for Azerbaijan? Is Saman Tahmasbi? They are going to be remembered as guys who won medals for other countries not their own. For once I agree with Dabir there should be no way he gets to leave. Masoumi is a generational talent that has the potential to win multiple world and olympic medals. If we lose him to another country that would be disastrous to our wrestling program. If he can't beat Zare now he won't do it wrestling for another country either. I get that those guys feel disrespected but if I was in that position I would never change my flag even if I had the chance of winning medals.

Yes the world cup would be amazing and I think it would actually bring a lot more eyes to the sport. Imagine Iran, US, Russia, Georgia, Azerbaijan etc bringing their best guys out to wrestle. I reckon it should be every 2 years for both freestyle and greco. I think with proper marketing this could draw more traction than the typical wrestling format that we currently have. The problem with wrestling at the moment is because it is an individual sport its hard to rally behind a "team" so making it a team format might be a bit more digestible for casuals.

I knew about the Khanievs but I thought they were Ingush. I forgot about Baitukaev he also wrestles at 70kg so it would be interesting seeing him wrestle against Eltemirov. I need to have a look at Ozdamirov and Ktsoev by the sounds of things. It's crazy the amount of talent being churned out from the Caucasus and to think the US and Iran are also producing guys that can match them is crazy. I wish wrestling had more mainstream appeal because we are truly doing a disservice to these athletes by only have 6 weight classes at the olympics and 1 rep per country.

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.