Window12

Sina Khalili also seems to have been inconsistent. He is young though and I think has a great future. To be honest if we take consistency as someone who medals every year at the world level in the past 5-10 years in freestyle we have had only 2 ( Hassan Y. And Zare). Others even Ghassempour or Amouzad will be considered inconsistent by that definition.But I think having someone that medals every year for more than five years or so coming along about once every 5-10 years is about as much as we can expect for Iranian freestyle wrestling. I think this is where Iran as at. Given the presence of Russia Japan USA Cuba and the central Asian republics realistically we can not expect more.

The Iranian wrestling commentators always say that you have to give due respect to whoever represents the USA as they will be good regardless and I think it applies to Hendrickson too. He may be even number 2 or 1 etc internationally but he is untested at that level and hopefully his future results will speak for his abilities and put my questioning things to rest in an emphatic way. I’m sure time will tell.

Also - U23… lol

Ah yes that’s the year the Iranians did not get a visa for Albania. Attenuated

Something seems off with all this hyping up of Hendrickson on the Iranian wrestling thread at the intuitive level. The logical part of my brain is asking if he that good why he is not getting his own thread on the main international thread where all the homerism can run rampant for a wrestler who as yet has no international credentials to speak of (though I guess he is likely to have done well in an attenuated competition like the pan am).

They say because of his shoulder surgery he is advised by his medical team not to cut weight. I get this as if he develops a more muscular build the additional strength afforded by stronger rotator cuff muscles will offer additional stability. In any case apparently he is now about 100kg. The counter argument is that whilst his shoulder will be more stable with more muscular support at 97 kg - his opponents will be also be much stronger and will subject his shoulder to greater stress. I mean Ghassempour found out that Kyle Snyder is in a different class from strength point of view a couple of times that they wrestled. I think there will be some mileage if they got Reza Yazdani to help him build up to that weight as he was a smaller more muscular build and he might have some tricks to pass on. Who knows what might happen- he may pull of a great comeback or things may end up disappointing. I guess the Iranian wrestling establishment are just letting him rehabilitate and see how things pan out ….

I think team USA has two amazing stars this year- Wyatt Hendrickson and Zahid Valencia. They will achieve the greatest of the greatest feats in wrestling. They are unquestionably unique and unparalleled. The likes of their talents has never been seen… Anything I missed out there?

I think you are kidding right about Hendrickson- he must undisputedly be world number one at 125kg freestyle. I would not accept anything less than number 1 !

Shame for Masoumi to have to wait for 3 years though. Hopefully we see him in Olympic qualifying and other tournaments in the meantime

Shame he did not sign up for Israel - he not only would have annoyed the regime supporters more but also would had the added bonus of guaranteed winning over Zare in future encounters.

I think there are 2 definitions of impossible. Mathematical and practical. I agree if we took the mathematical definition ( ie a non zero chance) then I would agree it is not impossible.

He would have to face at least Azarpira domestically en route to the international arena. Don’t get me wrong, I’d love to see him do it as I am a fan but avoiding wishful thinking and being realistic I think the odds are heavily weighted against him.

I would translate incredible as impossible given the presence of folks like Sadulaev Tazhudinov Azarpira and Snyder together with a highly suspect shoulder-and not to mention Father Time.

I suspect it comes from the philosophy that is drilled into them from a young age that it’s best to let your wrestling do the talking on the mat rather than talk a lot off the mat. It probably is ok for wrestling but perhaps less so for mma etc where hyping things up is conducive to the excitement around match and financial benefits.

60 million years ago the dinosaurs went extinct and here we are now because rodent like mammals survived then thrived then evolved.