Wrasslin

True, this happened. Zepeda also beat Nininger, and since you mention Bassett, 2 of Zepeda's 3 matches with Bassett were competitive (pinned Bassett and lost in a very entertaining overtime match). One loss to Nininger on the backside of a bracket with nothing at stake does little to disparage my original statement. Only my opinion!

UWW ranking points are a little weird. To break down the above so they're understandable, it's based on the tournament (A,B,C level...A being highest) and # of competitors in those tournaments. Both received 26,000 points from Olympic bronze plus 3,000 bonus points for the 57kg bracket having 13-16 competitors in an "A" event (Olympics). Aman placed 3rd in Ranking series Mongolian Open "C" event, which gave him 5,200 points. Because there were only 10 competitors, he doesn't get bonus points. Here's the crazy part...Aman didn't wrestle in Senior Asian Championships, whereas Gulomjon did, and he placed 8th without winning a match! By fortuitous draw, he skipped qualification round and was drawn into Quarters where he lost to Kalzhan of Kazakhstan who was then beaten in the next round and Gulomjon was eliminated,but got 8th having wrestled (and lost) one match. Because continental championships are "B" events, points are worth more than ranking "C" events, so he received 4,000 for 8th, plus a bonus of 3,000 points for having 13-16 competitors in the bracket, so 7,000 total points. Not bad for losing a match! Good news is, they're 2 and 3 seeds, so it really matters very little as they'll eventually meet in semis if they win out.

Uri Kalashnikov at 92kg (Freestyle) and Melkamu Fetene at 60kg (Greco) are both unseeded and will be drawn in...so there's that.

Definitely Fadzaev. Dude dominated 65kg for a decade straight, winning World/Olympic gold from '83 to '92. The only year in there he missed was '84 due to boycott. No one since has come close to that. The most recent streak is likely Gevorgyan from Armenia who won world gold consecutively in '95, '97 and '98, but placed 5th in 1996 Olympics, losing to our very own Townsend Saunders in the semis, effectively breaking his streak. Crazy to think that's been almost 30 years ago...Yikes!

I'm not sure how much you have watched Zepeda wrestle. . .when Zepeda is in shape and motivated, he is capable of beating anyone in this age group. I look at this as a quality win for Stanich, regardless of the score.

Maybe a little off the national radar, but I think Stanford at 141 between Aden Valencia and Jack Consiglio is intriguing. Both Freshman, but I think both could AA this year, minimum R12.

Seems like you're getting the kind of attention you are looking for... But still super dumb- you're doing a disservice to Iranian wrestling fans.

Will all due respect AnklePicker, I think Mphillips is right, and you'd have a hard time convincing the rest of the world that Seniors isn't the litmus test. A couple of things . . . Hard to consider us the best wrestling country right now given our poor showing at 2024 Olympics...three total medals and no gold- the first time in 56 years. We finished 3rd (4th if you count Russia), so that doesn't equal best. And no golds in non-Olympic weights either. As OP suggested, I believe Jordan Burroughs was a catalyst for this recent "Golden Age." I was at Worlds in Budapest in 2013 for the dark days- when we only had one total world medal, a gold by Burroughs on a bum leg. At that point, he was USA Wrestling, and these kids now at U17/U20/U23 were grade schoolers who idolized him. I'm just as excited about this young crop as you (and everyone) are- I'm very hopeful that they can have the same impact in college and at the Senior level...time will tell, but we've never assembled this much talent at one time. It's exciting!

Blaze made easy work of this tournament- he has senior level class. Also, congrats to Puerto Rico's Omar Ayoub (by way of Ohio and Nebraska Huskers), who brought home Bronze hardware in this same weight class!

Here's the final team totals heading into the final day of men's freestyle. Anticlimactic really...unlike U17s. It'll be USA, followed by Russia, then Iran...

Congrats to Stanich! I'm officially a fan! Also with that win, USA has clinched the team title!

I (seriously) have a T-shirt that says, "Russians don't do cardio"

Good for McEnelly- outwrestled Rahmani. Deserved that win!

Bump... I didn't see this, especially given the gauntlet he had, but kudos to you for calling it! Hopefully he has one more in him. Uchida looks pretty tough, but I've learned my lesson, not counting Stanich out!

I don't know why he wouldn't compete at 2026 U20s. He competed this year at US Open U20s and took 4th (lost to Sonny Sasso in Quarters and Dillon Bechtold in 3rd Place Match). If he's repping another country, it's the first I've heard of it, but yeah, I think he has potential to be pretty good.