One-Man Teams Manned by Americans

[NJDan 415]

In freestlye, there are 14 one-man teams: Jamaica, Lebanon, Madagascar, Nauru, New  Zealand, Peru, Philippines, Qatar,  Singapore, Sierra Leone, Slovenia, Serbia and Yemen. Also San Marino has a two-man team. 

A lot of these teams are staffed by an American wrestler: Jamaica  has Angus Patrick Arthur, Lebanon has Domenic Michael Abounader, Slovenia has David Habat, Serbia has Steven Micic and San Marino has Myles and Malik Amine. 

Wrestlers are USA's newest export!

 

 

 

 

Edited September 14 by NJDan
delete unintended pix

[The Genius 164]

Abounader sounds familiar, isn't he a 86kg Lebanese wrestler? Lost to Yazdani (teched) in the final of something in 2017 or 2018, maybe Asian champs... 

[spladle 142]

Good for them.  Take advantage of any and all opportunities available.

[gimpeltf 940]

8 minutes ago, The Genius said:

Abounader sounds familiar, isn't he a 86kg Lebanese wrestler? Lost to Yazdani (teched) in the final of something in 2017 or 2018, maybe Asian champs... 

Yup. Born here, father from Lebanon. Wrestled for Michigan AA 

[Graverobber 35]

Not exactly on topic but 27 wrestlers from Dagestan will wrestle at world's but only 6 for Russia. 

[maligned 409]

Greco brackets are full of Armenian names that aren't representing Armenia. Lots of "exporting" or heritage ties bringing more good wrestlers into the mix. I don't have a problem with it as long as federations/nations follow the rules.

[Katie 610]

Frankly, I wouldn’t mind seeing more US wrestlers take their talents to Canada, Australia, the UK, or wherever else. It would just make for a better show, as far as I’m concerned.

Edited September 14 by Katie

[scribe 1,632]

Make San Marino great again!

[scribe 1,632]

I'd love to see Yianni entered for Greece.

[TripNSweep 336]

20 minutes ago, scribe said:

Make San Marino great again!

That's the most random country ever.  I mean I know the history behind it, but it's just odd that a couple of Americans wrestle for them.  

 

It kind of reminds me of Gennady Tulbea deciding to wrestle for Monaco, a country that is about 2 square km.  Is Andorra or Leichtenstein next?  Maybe Vatican City?  

Edited September 15 by TripNSweep

[nhs67 317]

3 hours ago, TripNSweep said:

That's the most random country ever.  I mean I know the history behind it, but it's just odd that a couple of Americans wrestle for them.  

 

It kind of reminds me of Gennady Tulbea deciding to wrestle for Monaco, a country that is about 2 square km.  Is Andorra or Leichtenstein next?  Maybe Vatican City?  

Would like to throw this out there:

http://www.bloodround.com/playlist

Myles and Malik's father talks about this a bit.

Also interesting is that while most people here follow results and college wrestling I found his bit about traveling to practice with Dake and Dean super interesting. It just shows their dedication to be the best.

[hammerlockthree 1,519]

This is clearly a Michigan thing....I find it to be sorta gross.

[Housebuye 1,778]

6 hours ago, hammerlockthree said:

This is clearly a Michigan thing....I find it to be sorta gross.

Why?

[hammerlockthree 1,519]

11 hours ago, Housebuye said:

Why?

I don't quite get the motivation behind it I guess. If they had a world #1 would they let him try out for the USA team? There is some aspect of it that strikes me as sorta cheesy, also sorta unpatriotic.....variety of weird vibes.

[scribe 1,632]

Dumb question: how did they qualify the weights?

[NJDan 415]

50 minutes ago, scribe said:

Dumb question: how did they qualify the weights?

Do you have to qualify for Worlds? It's not the Olympics.

 

[AHamilton 110]

2 minutes ago, NJDan said:

Do you have to qualify for Worlds? It's not the Olympics.

 

No.

[NJDan 415]

6 minutes ago, AHamilton said:

No.

That's what I thought. But it  does not seem that anyone totally unqualified shows up. Or do we just not see those matches?

[whaletail 102]

On 9/13/2019 at 8:48 PM, gimpeltf said:

Yup. Born here, father from Lebanon. Wrestled for Michigan AA 

and St. Edward's (Ohio) prior to Michigan.  Surprised he only AA'd once.

[whaletail 102]

On 9/14/2019 at 8:29 PM, TripNSweep said:

That's the most random country ever.  I mean I know the history behind it, but it's just odd that a couple of Americans wrestle for them.  

 

It kind of reminds me of Gennady Tulbea deciding to wrestle for Monaco, a country that is about 2 square km.  Is Andorra or Leichtenstein next?  Maybe Vatican City?  

I've never even heard of Nauru, but wrestling for Monaco would be fantastic.  Can't beat the French Riviera, and a tax haven as well.

[JasonBryant 1,457]

Do you have to qualify for Worlds? It's not the Olympics.

 

 

Your country first has to wrestle at a continental championship. There are exceptions based on individual circumstances.

[NJDan 415]

2 minutes ago, JasonBryant said:

 

Your country first has to wrestle at a continental championship. There are exceptions based on individual circumstances.

But all you need do is enter at the continentals? You don't have to place or do  well?

[Housebuye 1,778]

2 hours ago, NJDan said:

That's what I thought. But it  does not seem that anyone totally unqualified shows up. Or do we just not see those matches?

It happens.  Mostly prelims. 

Most countries won’t send a rep if he isn’t on the same playing field though. Their federations normally have poor funding also, as most rely on government support and the government isn’t going to throw money at a sport they suck at. 

Mid you look at the African continental, you see wrestlers from all sorts of African countries. Few show up to worlds, even though they are allowed to. It makes sense. I wouldn’t want to be the guy to eat up half of South Africa’s freestyle budget to get teched in 30 seconds by a Canadian

[TripNSweep 336]

3 hours ago, whaletail said:

I've never even heard of Nauru, but wrestling for Monaco would be fantastic.  Can't beat the French Riviera, and a tax haven as well.

Nauru is an interesting place. At one time it was one of if not the richest per capita nation in the world.  Mostly due to phosphate mining, which after it was depleted left their island a wasteland.  The money earned by this was placed into a series of trusts, which were invested and mismanaged awfully.  One of their investments was a multimillion dollar backing of a stage production on the life of Leonardo DaVinci.  So now Nauru is dirt poor and mostly relies on handouts from the Australian government to get by.  They were also at the center of some major financial scandals since at one point their banking laws were so open that if you had a couple grand to throw down, you could own your own charter bank in Nauru.  Also since they had no desire to enforce or investigate subpoenas about banks that existed there, it made laundering money very easy to do.  Russians pumped billions of dollars through banks that were chartered in Nauru.  Now only about 7 or 8 thousand people live there and the interior of the island is ruined from mining phosphate.  

 

The prince of Monaco, I'm not sure if it was Rainier or Albert at the time, offered Dave Schultz a lot of money to move there and help them start a wrestling program.  He turned it down to stay at Foxcatcher.  Also living there is a real pain in the ass since it's so expensive.  A studio apartment sells for well into the 6 figures and that's like only about 300-400 square feet. The tax breaks are nice, but it only makes sense to live there if you're a multimillionaire.  Less than half the people who live there are natives or Monegasque citizens.    

[JasonBryant 1,457]

4 hours ago, NJDan said:

But all you need do is enter at the continentals? You don't have to place or do  well?

Yup. Exception would be Abounader last year. The Asian continental was during the NCAA Championships, so he got a waiver to quality since he competed at the Asian Games.