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This rings true, though I would remind everyone how much better his mat wrestling got at Iowa, so an optimist would hope he retained the ability to improve and has become a more dynamic wrestler on his feet. He has been shut down by the top guys, but he wouldn't need much more diversity of offense to be a hand full for anybody.

He took third last year, dominantly. He's an underdog to win the title, but he definitely could. Given the constitution of the weight, it's going to be tough, of course, and he would probably be the 4th betting favorite

I asked Yaz and he said he will come to Serbia over AG. But it's a long time until then and things can change, it may not entirely be his own choice. His next step is focusing on the league, I imagine a lot of teams will be battling over his signature and whoever forks out the most cash will get him. His stock has risen since the Gold. Also Bana gave Mardani a bollocking for not winning his match as it would have sent Iran top. Big Rasoul Jalili comforted him though which was nice lol. What a tournament and was an absolute unbelievable time to be a part of it. Iran's most successful combined results in the worlds ever. Historic moments such as Yaz getting revenge. That Sunday when Iran just kept winning. The comeback victories. Geraei winning worlds 2 months after winning olympics, and in dramatic fashion! Was great stuff. Also Iran might not have officially finished top in both styles with the scoring system. But I would say most countries and fans of differing nationalities felt Iran was the country of the tournament throughout. Great result.

Love it. Even more so when he enrolls in CBUS. It'll be like, "No soup for you." vs "'Top 'O' The Muffin."

This thread is like a Seinfeld episode...

I understand (and hate) why the Olympics have limited the weight classes to 6 I cannot comprehend for the life of me why the AG are limited to to 6 weights.

Could be bit more, he might replace with the heavy duty units. ;)

I totally thought we already had that. Now I'm encouraged again. You happen to have our roster handy ? I believe the US roster for FS is 57 - P Glory 61 -C Cannon 65 - D Demas 70 - J teemer 74 - P Robb 79 - M Labriola 86 - M Wilson 92 - N Bonacorsi 97 - J Aiello 125 - A Cassioppi Also I forgot to mention the Veterans Worlds are going on from Oct 19th to 24th for all those guys who can't take a hint ;) - I'm kidding - I was one of them until I aged out - Best of luck to all those diehards.

AG will be held only in Olympic weights. he has to cut weight for 86kg (which will be easy for him) or move up to 97kg if he wants to go to Hangzhou. 97kg will be easy, Mohammadian, Goleij or Shabani they all can tech everybody in Asia. 125kg is a bit harder with that Mongolian guy (and probably Deng of China) not sure who is #2 in Iran at the moment. Mohebbi lost to Foroutan in Takhti Cup, Foroutan lost the U23 trials to Hashemi. and Taheri lost to Egypt lol so I say let's send Zare to both events, he doesn't cut weight after all. having back to back tournaments in 2 weeks won't hurt him.

U 23 World in the 1st week of November.

Taheri is 6 years older and has never won a major tournament that I know of, I don't see how you can say there isn't a big difference between them, H2H results aside they are leagues apart in international tournaments, which is all that matters

Did Frank approve this "venture?" :)

You left? Is it weird that somehow my soul suddenly feels a little less full?

Yea completely forgot about that, he’s dropping to 133 and Alvarez is moving up Rby, Fix, Micic, Seabass, Desanto, Vito then guys like Myers, Bird, Cannon, Paetzall, McGee might be the deepest weight this year

There is nothing. Just the reality of the international scene. Only stuff for hardcores or the personally involved. I'll stop by here again when the Euros come by, but until then it will be a graveyard or repetitive "GOAT" nonsense talk.

He was injured at Big Tens. I'd wouldn't base a ton off the results there.

There's no reason for Focus to go hwt this year, he will stay subcompact.

I know, but that's Russia's lowest team score. Had to compare it with something lol

Tenacity is great but to navigate what that bracket could end up being, he’s going to have to have the technique…and tactics….to get through a number of individuals competing on a world class level, and the defending champ, who has his number. Going to take more than being tenacious.

Byrd and Myers wrestled DeSanto tough in the Big Tens and NCAA respectively. 133 is my favorite/most anticipated weight class for this year.

ahh ... didn't he do that once already?

Hahaha, I can guess pretty closely about that story

winning 4 gold medals is a great result for the Greco team but what a pity they lost the team title to Russia (with just 1 gold medal) only because of 6 points. interestingly right now Iran has more depth in Greco which is weird because freestyle is still much more popular. except 2 or 3 wrestlers the rest aren't absolute #1 in the country and can lose to someone else in any competition. Yousefi was #3 few months ago, he is #2 at the moment but now he is the world champion lol Iran could win the team title with just one more win, I still can't believe how come Abbaspour (who was a gold medal prospect) lost like that. the Armenian who beat Mardani was leading Moldova in the SF 6-0 before that choking thing. his win would send Mardani to the repechage and eliminate the Russian Maryanyan. (who eventually won the bronze) they already have to make a decision about the next year for both Greco and freestyle. Asian Games is only few days after the World Championships and we know Asian games is a big deal for the sport system in Iran and wrestling always brings the most number of gold medals for Iran. but Worlds is a big deal too. they can't send a weak team to Serbia. for example I'm sure Yazdani wants to defend his world title in 2022 but on other hand winning gold in AG means prize money. maybe Ghasempour finally gets to wrestle Taylor after all lol (even though I highly doubt Yazdani prefers AG over WCh)

Totally agree. The reality here- there are almost as many world class wrestlers at 65 kg than there are at the other five Olympic weights combined. At 86 and 97 kg you basically have to worry about the Russian and the Iranian these days. At 65 kg, virtually every wrestler in the 32 man bracket is a threat. Typically Russia has a half dozen guys that can beat our best guy on any given day. There's a reason we haven't medaled here in 15 years, despite sending a variety of guys that were considered legends. What's ironic is that it's arguably the least heralded guys we sent (Zadick and Molinaro) that did the best. Go figure.

This was in deed the best combined performance (Freestyle, Greco-Roman) Iran has had in History. Within the 20 wrestlers in both styles, they accomplished 13 Medals (7 Gold, 3 Silver, 3 Bronze). It’s above and beyond gratifying watching them perform that great! Plus a young team that can show great potential for Paris 2024, especially with 5 of the 6 Olympic Weights winning Medals. I’m beyond proud of what this team accomplished. I look forward to seeing most of them next September in Serbia.

Hart.

Bo "Bounty" Nickal Bounty the paper towel brands slogan is 'the quicker picker upper' and we all know Bo likes to help his opponents up cause he's such a gentleman.

I see a situation where the wrestle off might not necessarily settle the lineup. I’m guessing they will look at the open results against other competition as well as potential matchups between teammates at opens.

No. I think she moved to NLWC during covid at some point and left immediately following the tune up tournament. If we're being honest, the resurgence was probably 75% getting healthy and 25% being around several other high level women wrestlers at Sunkist. I don't think she had a consistent high level training environment since Kalika before that.

If we're assigning credit, basically none. She almost didn't make the team when she was at NLWC and got smashed at her tuneup. She quickly turned things around once she moved to Sunkist with Perry. Good work by Perry to undo the damage NLWC did.

It's in the hands of USCIS. I wouldn't want to let her on top of me in par terre though. Once I saw that, I promised myself it'll never happen with me. Not just the gut but everything. Very Brands like with her approach, if she can't turn you, you're going to feel very bad and possibly feel like you're being suffocated. Nothing nice about it.

This 100%. You can't be the GOAT when you only have one Olympic gold (Burroughs) or zero (Adeline) and there is someone else with more Olympic gold (Smith and Baum, and on the women's side, Helen and Mensah).

I cant even begin to speculate. I just wrote a longer posts explaining the clear reasons freestyle has improved. But it didnt explain the state of Greco at all. I just don't know how we can remain as bad as we are with all the resources. It's not that we don't win medals for me, it's just that there hasn't been anyone on the team in awhile where you'd be genuinely surprised to see they got teched. There's no way we should be that uncompetitive

Mineo has correctly called 35 of the last 4 transfer rumors.

10 weights makes a huge difference. Some come down ala Kyle Dake and keep 5 time world champs off the team. I’m not sure how you can argue otherwise.

I wish both had much bigger brackets, like Fargo-style 160-man round-robin double-elimination. . . Or, like a Grand Slam tennis tournament, wrestled over a fortnight . . . Weigh-in every other day. Your body/career would probably only survive 1 year.

it's called post-match adrenaline. terry told him to tell everybody as he was walking over to the interview. he wasn't planning to. he's spoken about this.

Spencer wrestled 5??? hell he wrestled for 2 years on one before he told anybody. yianni also told everybody he tore his acl after the tournament lmao. not your best work jammen

I don't disagree with anything you've posted. Kemp's the man and a legend, no doubt. It's a shame we boycotted the 1980 Olympics because there is no question in my mind he would have won. But the American GOAT is John Smith. 6 for 6, all consecutive.

84 yes. 92 was full strength. A lopsided draw that produces a weak finalist doesn't change that. Bruce beat his rival Gobe at 92 who was a great wrestler.

I would like to see us evolve the headgear to also include a mask. But each wrestler will have a customized design like in Mexican Lucha Libre. Just have the N95 technology over the mouth hole and problem solved

A counter-argument:

I think this will properly summarize our performance at this year's worlds.

Dake gets a title at 74 KG. He is going to keep moving down in weight as he gets younger and secure titles consecutively at 70 KG and 65 KG. The reverse of what he did in his former NCAA life. Good job, Benjamin Button!