Sulyvahn

A non in depth brief overview of his career. Bruce talks about his best opponents, gives a surprising answer. My pet peeve of wrestling commentators, pundits, having utter tunnel vision for anything non American in International wrestling was on full display. I could tell the interviewer was surprised when Bruce said he won thanks to the boycott in 84, c'mon man. I feel like these interviews could be so much better if the interveiwee actually knew his stuff and could ask follow up questions or dig into the details. Instead he's just nodding along when Bruce mentions Sandurski Gobishivili, Salman, because he has no idea who any of these people are or their history with Bruce.

I remember how rampant the athlete hero worship was. Oh Gable can do anything, he'll be a tech billionaire if he wants to go that route. Everyone tearfully wave your handkerchief in gratitude as he steps into the sunset to be crowned the king of WWE. Meanwhile WWE: A particular subtype of live theater (acting). No indications Gable would gain a massive following in this subculture. Was cut after performing in middling shows, largely forgotten already I would assume. NFL: Did not have the right body type for lineman - the only realistic position for wrestlers. Was invited by a wresting loving football coach to the practice squad (which his acolytes tried to spin as some great achievement, when it was not). Promptly cut. MMA: This was the only path that intrigued me (well intrigued me in the sense of this might work out for Gable, I am not an MMA fan) as it has has some overlap with wrestling. Pyles was crowning him the UFC champ already. Gets knocked out in 12 seconds by a, no offense (I am sure he is tough compared to regular 9 to 5 people but....), a dad bod unknown meant to pad his record and generate hype. Athletes are normal people. They are not cross disciplinarian savants. He was a gold medalist level wrestler. That oes not mean he was destined to succeed in everything else he tried, and it was obvious he wouldn't in some cases.

Why do water polo players make pennies compared to soccer players? Popularity and wealth of the sport. Same issue applies in wrestling. But to entertain the comparison. The US open and the tournaments that the players on TV play are already long qualification processes with several filters that players got though. The players on TV have already made it. The actual trenches of pro tennis is the futures tour (I think they rebranded recently but it's the same). These are tournaments around the world that offer open entry to the general public in exchange for atp points (and a trivial amount of prize money). As a player, you have to pay for the flights, hotels, costs, equipment, and organize your travel all on your own. You play in front of no one usually (hey it's starting to sounds like international wrestling). The typical high level player that gives pro tennis a shot lasts about 3 futures tournaments before they hang it up and quit. It's a grinder that spits aspiring pros out quickly. That's different from wrestling where besides the Olympics they have no qualification process? It's really just up to whether a particular wresting federation wants to send athletes to an event. And you don't even need a trials, some countries just pick someone out of a hat. Also I think the wrestlers almost always get permission from there federation before they go to tournaments. Their travel and basic expenses are handled. I don't think anyone is self funding trips to the Spanish grand prix or Thor masters. Whereas in tennis it is absolutely up to the individual player to pay for their own travel and expenses at futures. The national federations don't help at all.

There are not enough big men participating in international wrestling. Vitek is nowhere near 130kg. He's undersized (theoretically), not that athletic, and not a very skilled wrestler. But he's tough, gritty, has the fundamentals down, and that's enough to medal against the 130 kg fields he's facing. There are definitely people playing as NFL linemen or in Rugby Union who are both athletic and would weigh 130 kg without loads excess body fat.

Geno looks like a middle aged businessman with college aged children, but he's still only in his early 30s. Snyder looks old and Zare looks old. With wrestlers it's more, who doesn't look old for their age?

How injured was Mirzazadeh in his match against Hedayati? The international field at 130 kg is a wasteland. If Hedayati really is 5-1 better than an in form Mirzazadeh, he should destroy everyone at worlds and the olympics. Old man Riza and perpetually out of shape Semenov are the biggest threats? Slim pickings. Hungary's Vitek is medaling a lot and he is so basic and mediocre.

The Poles have placed better in Freestyle than Greco for the past decade. Poland used to be a "greco nation" ( I hesitate to use that word as it implies a level of improtance to greco that it does not have n the country), now even the meager successes often come from foreigners transferring. Poland is in that tier 3 of nations along with maybe Hungary or Germany. Not as good as Georigia or Turkey. They will have a few guys medals at Euros and sometimes one stand out who is an outside threat for bronze at the biggest tournaments (like Robert Baran). Poland also sends a big team to the top events. You need nations like Poland to fill out brackets (jk who am I kidding, that's what Russian transfers are for).

Does Ross have some kind of spinal deformity? He has a noticeable hump about halfway down his upper back.

Russia was there in 2025, when Iran dominated. They might be suffering from systemic problems due to the war. Does Russia even have a favorite at an Olympics weight. I don't think they do. Iran has three, at least. Even before that though, they have not been unbeatable post soviet collapse. 6 different countries have won the team race pre war bans.

Wrestling is not a major revenue/cultural power house sport. Wrestling also has no appeal in France, northern Italy, Belgium, Switzerland, Austria these places where the EU aristocrats that run these sport governing bodies are from (*yes I know Switzerland has this belt wrestling folk style in some areas, it really has no meaningful connection to olympic wresting). So swimming, sailing, horse events get a lot of love and favors while wrestling, weight weightlifting are treated like the step children. To be fair even though Judo gets a lot of favorable treatment through the French connection, they still only have on competitor per weight. Maybe going head to head in the combat sports is a sticking point for them (countries fixing matches).

I watch both FRL and Baschmania on my way to and from work. I think FRL is better for international (mainly because of Kozak). Basch does not care about International wrestling outside of Americans at all, so it's up to Willie to carry those segments and half the time Willie admits that he hasn't been keeping up with it. Kozak does the international rankings so it forces him to be in the know more. Both podcasts have a news of the week format that makes up the bulk of the content. FRL will make up these hypothetical games (usually they'll just recycle greatest X team/wrestlers of the past Z years) to fill in the rest of the time. Baschmania has the Willie rants and deep dives into youth/obscure wrestling. I prefer FRL, mainly due to their international coverage. For the personalities and vibes: Basch and Pyles are both the upbeat hypemen, willie is kind of like Ben where he'll get distracted or change the subject. Baschmania is a two man show so they don't have a roster like JD, Spey, Brey (I think they are ok for the most part, I like Spey's non wrestling knowledge that gives context at times). FRL is about as good of a wrestling podcast as I can expect. I think. The only part that really annoys me with them is that they talk like wrestling began in 2003. They are practially young wrestling creationists, anything that happened before the late 90s might as well no exist to them. For Baschmania, they talk a lot about bigboards and they go over so many minor tournaments college/youth tournies round by round (just not my type of content).

Does Europe have wrestling fans outside the Russian or former Russian areas? I've seen Russia put on some events with something resembling crowds. In the heart of the continent, it's usually mostly empty stands with some combination foreigners, competitors/coaches, bussed in school kids on a field trip . I know Germany used to have a wrestling magazine back in the 80s, I don't know if any of that exists anymore.

I think the amount of US wrestling fans who know more than Sad, Uguev, Sidakov, Yazdani and maybe Zare+Geno is a trivially small amount. And a lot of the "know group" just recognize the name or some past accomplishment, they have no idea how their career is going currently. They don't know how they did at the last worlds or continentals or how active they have been.

Russia has a solid team, but they don't have that aura anymore. Other wrestlers believe they can beat them. Iran has the scarier names right now.

I listened to the clip. Nothing particularly insightful or of substance was said. What came across to me was that he did not grow up with greco, so he finds it weird. Fair enough, but it's a dismissive sentiment that a non wrestling person would have to freestyle or folk. I don't agree that greco is somehow contrived or an accident of history. A grappling style focused on the upper body is a natural rule set to land on. It would be strange if we did not have a sport very similar to modern greco. I was wondering if maybe he would make an analogy with pickleball, since I don't think the two sports are analogous at all. Nope, a half second throw away line.

MMA isn't run like a pure sport, so it doesn't surprise me "champions" are older. In these popularity incentivized systems, it takes time to build up the brand and reputation for the match makers to give you the path. So they'll always be artificially old. If MMA had normal tournaments and standard meritocratic structures, we'd see much younger success I don't think early to mid 30s are old for upper weight wrestlers, not back then or today. Big Bruce medaled at the olympics at 36 in the 90s and peaked from 31-35, Medved won gold at 35 in the 70s. Roschillin won gold at the Olympics at 40 in 1972. Djokovich has declined though and is generally a big under dog when the top 2 payers are in form. Tennis players were retiring at unusually young ages in the 80s-2000s, but that wasn't the case in the 70s and before. Laver, Rosewall, Connors all had long careers. Part of that is World Cup inflation, they expanded the amount of teams and added an extra game. So these players have had more chances to stat pad against garbage squads. Messi is having a great world cup, Ronaldo from my understanding did not have a good one at all and was a burden on his team. I do think there is a general trend for longer careers (a multitude of reasons), but maybe it is also a cyclical rebound form the stunted length of the previous era, a revision to lengths before that.

Russia is bringing a strong team. Semenov and Emelin are there, Evloev is back. I heard Evloev can't get his lifts anymore. These more dynamic styles of wreslitng have shorter careers. It's what happened to Karelin.

UWW cracks me up "is back and will battle youngster Marat KAMPAROV (RUS) "

I don't think it's true. The statistic to back this up is either that more Greco programs are registered with FILA/UWW than any other style or that Greco has more entrants (wrestlers) at worlds than every other style. It's not hard to poke holes into how that is not the best measurement of popularity. I think Kozak had a a pretty good rebuttal to this which I could pull up. Greco is mainly a participant only interest sport, including in the countries where it is the only style for men (like Croatia, Finland, Serbia, Sweden etc). But it's very niche. Only coaches and wrestlers are into greco. Most of the populace doesn't care and most have never wrestled. When these countries host worlds or euros, they'll bus in elementary school kids to fill in the empty stands. Meanwhile FS gets lively Iranian fans (this might change though if Iran keeps dominating greco). Freestyle has a big following in Iran where it is treated like a mainstream. America obviously has folkstyle and the whole college fandom which doesn't exist anywhere else in the world. So I'd say freestyle is more popular. Greco just doesn't have these strongholds.

Greco's traditional powers are Sweden, Finland, Germany, and to a lesser extent Hungary and Estonia. During the Cold war era the Soviets, Bulgarians, and Romanians were the best teams. A lot of these countries have weak programs today, and wrestling has declined substantially. Iran has leap frogged everyone, they are not a traditional greco power. Russia is still a top team. The sport has shifted east. Azerbaijan, Kyrgyzstan, Japan are winning golds.

There is something to be said about a sport not being popular enough and talent pool, but I don't agree with this transitive property of "athlete". It's not true. Sports are different with different rules and can require different attributes to succeed. They also have different emphasizes on three broad categories which I would call athleticism, skill, and the mental aspect. For some being large, strong, fast, nimble and you're on your way to being great. Other sports require thousands of hours of muscle memory, skill devloplment. For soccer. Other countries have it as the universal sport, while the US does not (p2p suburbs etc). I think it's that simple. And this where skill/technique and sport specificity come into play. Is messi a great athlete? He's short (even with growth hormone injections) and not particularly strong or fast . But he has incredible first touch, dribbling ability, passing, and can read the game very well. All very soccer specific. Yet he wouldn't have made it in the other major sports. That's not unique to him, it's an feature of soccer. Was Thomas Muller a great athlete (lol no), soccer has a whole host of people like him. Even Ronaldo who is a good athlete for a soccer player, I don't think he would have made the NFL as a runningback (one of the most athleticism selection positions). Tennis. Tennis is a highly skill dependent sport where you need thousands of hours to develop specific muscle memory. They are not competing against that many other people, a couple thousand who have been groomed to be tennis players since they were 2-4 years old. Djokovich is not that elite of an athlete. There are many people who are a combinations of faster, stronger, more agile than him (athleticism). Greco is very niche, I agree with that.