Hardest weight class ever?

[wrestlingnerd 2,997]

It occurred to me that 74 kg this year has to be in the running and might take it. Which others are close or better?

[Billyhoyle 2,472]

74 kg this year isn't even close to the toughest ever.  97 Kg this year is better than 74 kg this year.  It has 3 different olympic champs in the weight.  

[wrestlingnerd 2,997]

1 minute ago, Billyhoyle said:

74 kg this year isn't even close to the toughest ever.  97 Kg this year is better than 74 kg this year.  It has 3 different olympic champs in the weight.  

I don't know about that being the metric. Recency matters.

[HawkY 112]

86 kg. 

[Billyhoyle 2,472]

1 minute ago, wrestlingnerd said:

I don't know about that being the metric. Recency matters.

The guy who beat Dake and is the finals didn't really have many great recent results.  Snyder and Sharifov are both probably better than the 2nd best at 74 kg.  Sidakov is outstanding though, no doubt about it, but Sadulaev is better. 

 

What metric makes you think 74 kg is so difficult?

 

[Grecojones 203]

65 is pretty damn tough.

[NJDan 1,067]

Any class I was ever in. That's why I never won.

[wrestlingnerd 2,997]

Part of the argument relies on using JB and others as a measuring stick. It's imprecise, but I don't know if you'd get too many to argue that JB is a top 10 all-timer at any weight and was either at peak or close within the last 2-3 or so years (2021, it's pretty clear he's on the decline, at least to me). When the average senior career is about 5-6 years, performance at a 4-year event does not automatically trump recent performance to me. Sidakov is not just a world champ, for example. He has two wins over JB with no losses. Chamizo has a lot of hardware, but also 2 wins over JB (2-3 in the series, I believe). Dake obviously has hardware too and kept JB at home, which to me offsets the argument that the 79 kg medals don't really count. The Uzbek came out of nowhere somewhat, but he crushed Dake and soundly beat Chamizo back to back and is now an Olympic silver medalist at worst. He clearly proved that he is of that caliber and better.  Others include 2 recent world medalists (Abdurakmanov and Kaisanov). 

That's a very stacked weight class. Not saying it's the hardest ever, but got me wondering which one was.

 

[Drew87 349]

I would choose 65kg this year over 74kg. 

[wrestlingnerd 2,997]

31 minutes ago, Drew87 said:

I would choose 65kg this year over 74kg. 

Tough argument to make. Rashidov and Otoguro are one-time world champs, Very good, but are they really better than Sidakov, Chamizo, Dake, etc.? Then you have only two other former medalists, I believe. Aliyev is of course very credentialed but all significant results at smaller weights. It's a weight with a lot of parity, but not harder than 74.

Edited August 6, 2021 by wrestlingnerd

[GoNotQuietly 1,168]

65kgs is so hard you don’t even get to be a multiple time champion…


Sent from my iPhone using Tapatalk

[Billyhoyle 2,472]

58 minutes ago, wrestlingnerd said:

Part of the argument relies on using JB and others as a measuring stick. It's imprecise, but I don't know if you'd get too many to argue that JB is a top 10 all-timer at any weight and was either at peak or close within the last 2-3 or so years (2021, it's pretty clear he's on the decline, at least to me). When the average senior career is about 5-6 years, performance at a 4-year event does not automatically trump recent performance to me. Sidakov is not just a world champ, for example. He has two wins over JB with no losses. Chamizo has a lot of hardware, but also 2 wins over JB (2-3 in the series, I believe). Dake obviously has hardware too and kept JB at home, which to me offsets the argument that the 79 kg medals don't really count. The Uzbek came out of nowhere somewhat, but he crushed Dake and soundly beat Chamizo back to back and is now an Olympic silver medalist at worst. He clearly proved that he is of that caliber and better.  Others include 2 recent world medalists (Abdurakmanov and Kaisanov). 

That's a very stacked weight class. Not saying it's the hardest ever, but got me wondering which one was.

 

The 4 middle weights are all stacked ever since they moved to 6 weight classes.  As far as the best ever, I do not know.  I just know that 74 kg is not even the best this year, as that belongs to 97 kg. I think  74 vs 86  or 65 is an interesting argument.  86 contains the defending 74 olympic champ, but  74 has more depth. And then 65  just  has so much parity that it's difficult to measure.   

This would be a great topic for @Husker_Du to chime in on as far as what he thinks is the best in his memory at an olympics.  

Edited August 6, 2021 by Billyhoyle

[wrestlingnerd 2,997]

17 minutes ago, Billyhoyle said:

The 4 middle weights are all stacked ever since they moved to 6 weight classes. 

I just know that 74 kg is not even the best this year, as that belongs to 97 kg. I think  74 vs 86  or 65 is an interesting argument.  86 contains the defending 74 olympic champ, but  74 has more depth. And then 65  just  has so much parity that it's difficult to measure.  

That first sentence is what made me think about which the hardest ever was. You would think it's one of the 6-weight era weights given the concentration in talent, especially at 74 kg. 

I don't agree with the second sentence unless you take the approach that one GOAT-level talent is the hardest to beat of any weight, so that makes that weight automatically the toughest to win. Toughest doesn't necessarily mean toughest to win. Could also mean toughest to medal in or even advance in. I think 97 kg and 86 kg are really about two guys each much more than 74 kg.

 

 

[Billyhoyle 2,472]

Just now, wrestlingnerd said:

That first sentence is what made me think about which the hardest ever was. You would think it's one of the 6-weight era weights given the concentration in talent, especially at 74 kg. 

Yeah, it has to be, but 97 Kg has always been stacked.  Think back to the Gatsalov, Yazdani, Varner, etc days. So I think all 4 middle ones are stacked, with the toughest just depending on the year. 

 

Just now, wrestlingnerd said:

I don't agree with the second sentence unless you take the approach that one GOAT-level talent is the hardest to beat of any weight, so that makes that weight automatically the toughest to win. Toughest doesn't necessarily mean toughest to win. Could also mean toughest to medal in or even advance in. I think 97 kg and 86 kg are really about two guys each much more than 74 kg.

 

 

I think when you combine having arguably the best ever in Sadulaev, with Snyder who may be the fourth best US wrestler ever and still in his prime age wise.  Both are probably better than everyone at 74 kg.  And then guys like Sharifov and Perez, who are comparable to everyone other than Sidakov..That's why I go 97 clearly as the best weight this year.  

[Eddie Orozco 0]

I don’t agree with you on Snyder being better than everyone at 74kg. Let’s take a step back and think about how ridiculously good Dake is at wrestling from all positions and the fact that he was not able to get past JB until this year. In my opinion both Dake and JB are ahead of Snyder on the p4p list. I would also put David Taylor ahead of Snyder and Dake has never lost to Taylor in freestyle. Sidakov’s results in the last several years should also put him ahead of Snyder in the p4p rankings. Now, let’s add Chamizo whose wrestling technique is among the very best in the world and the arrival of Kadimagomedov and 74kg is looking a lot tougher than a 97kg class where the majority of the field (except for Sadulaev and Snyder) does not have a gas tank that would hold up in back to back tough matches on short rest (Olympics are tough).

[Husker_Du 838]

1 hour ago, Billyhoyle said:

The 4 middle weights are all stacked ever since they moved to 6 weight classes.  As far as the best ever, I do not know.  I just know that 74 kg is not even the best this year, as that belongs to 97 kg. I think  74 vs 86  or 65 is an interesting argument.  86 contains the defending 74 olympic champ, but  74 has more depth. And then 65  just  has so much parity that it's difficult to measure.   

This would be a great topic for @Husker_Du to chime in on as far as what he thinks is the best in his memory at an olympics.  

i'd have to dig in to best olympic bracket ever, but for this year i wouldn't say it's 74. it quite literally has one OLY medal in it (Chamizo, Bronze, at lower weight)

74 in Rio was better than 74 in Tokyo with JB and Charati and then Hasanov and Demirtas. 

that being said - i think it's fair to say that 65/74 are always so much deeper that it's more difficult to medal consistently. 

i would say 65 is the deepest this year. 97 is most credentialed. 

Edited August 6, 2021 by Husker_Du

[wrestlingnerd 2,997]

17 minutes ago, Husker_Du said:

i'd have to dig in to best olympic bracket ever, but for this year i wouldn't say it's 74. it quite literally has one OLY medal in it (Chamizo, Bronze, at lower weight)

74 in Rio was better than 74 in Tokyo with JB and Charati and then Hasanov and Demirtas. 

that being said - i think it's fair to say that 65/74 are always so much deeper that it's more difficult to medal consistently. 

i would say 65 is the deepest this year. 97 is most credentialed. 

Agree 97 is most credentialed. Impossible to argue otherwise. I still think 74 is deeper, and deeper than 65 kg, and only one of Dake and Chamizo medaling is decent evidence of that. 
 

74 in Rio with JB in it looks better in retrospect. But Yazdani was not who he was now back then, much like the Belarusian isn’t regarded at that level until he beat Dake and Chamizo back to back. He didn’t have any senior level hardware that I recall (had junior gold though). Geduev’s best prior to the Olympics was a world bronze. If peak JB is a big part of the case for Rio over Tokyo (has to be), Tokyo has THREE guys who have beaten JB more than once and all are world champs. Dake not at an Olympic weight is a factor but it’s a higher weight he’s descending from (unlike Aliyev at 65) and he’s the reason JB isn’t in Tokyo to begin with.

[Jrr277 141]

I'm not even sure you could consider any of the tournaments after 1992, regardless of weight, as the hardest just due to tournament format. Some formats like 1988 were brutal. John Smith had to win seven matches for his gold and I think (may be mistaken) it used to be a single day. 

[Eddie Orozco 0]

19 minutes ago, Jrr277 said:

I'm not even sure you could consider any of the tournaments after 1992, regardless of weight, as the hardest just due to tournament format. Some formats like 1988 were brutal. John Smith had to win seven matches for his gold and I think (may be mistaken) it used to be a single day. 

I think today’s format is a lot tougher as you can’t win gold if you take a loss under the current format. Plus, there are a lot more Russian wrestlers in a given bracket these days.

[denger 339]

I don't know my history well enough to comment on the hardest ever.

This year:

Credentialed: 97, 76 women's had a ton of veteran experience that deserves its own thread...

Parity: we presumed 65, but 74 changed when the top half got wrecked. It's probably still 65 this year. 

Hardest to win: We can't say whether it's harder to beat someone as dominant at Sadulaev or someone at gritty as Uguev, or harder to win the Olympics in any given year/weight. There is ballast, though, when credentialed people are present - a weight that is presumably impossible to win when someone like Lopez or Karelin is there. There might be parity until you reach that dominant wrestler, but no bronze medalist this year is getting out of a match with Taylor without giving up 10pts. So, measuring parity within the hardest to win is all screwed up. 

Hopefully someone with a better knowledge of history will give us more examples. 

[jackwebster 292]

5 hours ago, Grecojones said:

65 is pretty damn tough.

Every year

[Husker_Du 838]

2 hours ago, wrestlingnerd said:

Agree 97 is most credentialed. Impossible to argue otherwise. I still think 74 is deeper, and deeper than 65 kg, and only one of Dake and Chamizo medaling is decent evidence of that. 
 

74 in Rio with JB in it looks better in retrospect. But Yazdani was not who he was now back then, much like the Belarusian isn’t regarded at that level until he beat Dake and Chamizo back to back. He didn’t have any senior level hardware that I recall (had junior gold though). Geduev’s best prior to the Olympics was a world bronze. If peak JB is a big part of the case for Rio over Tokyo (has to be), Tokyo has THREE guys who have beaten JB more than once and all are world champs. Dake not at an Olympic weight is a factor but it’s a higher weight he’s descending from (unlike Aliyev at 65) and he’s the reason JB isn’t in Tokyo to begin with.

The emergence of the Belarussian muddies the waters a bit in an attempt to measure these brackets. i agree. 

that being said, you can't say that he is THIS DUDE while also saying Charati 'wasn't what he is now'. Charati was a World Silver already and won that bracket.

Edited August 6, 2021 by Husker_Du

[pa in taiwan 159]

Damn, Willie, are you in the Lehigh Valley? What are you doing making posts at 4:40am?  

Here in Taiwan it's 4:40 in the afternoon.

I wish I was in Pa. and I could take a drive up to Allentown. I know a great Lebanese store that has fantastic olives, Shwarma, Baba Ghanouj, and other prepared foods.

Nice time to be in Pennsylvania.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

[Husker_Du 838]

haha. we're 30 minutes away from semi's!

im now in the routine where i wake up a 9pm ish and watch the day's wrestling.

and yes - good lebanese food in the valley. 

[jackwebster 292]

66 kg at 2010 Worlds was scary: bronze = Garzon, bronze = Hasanov, silver = Gogaev, gold = legit murderee

66 kg at 2004 Olympics: gold= Tedeyev, silver=kelly, bronze = murta

60 kg at 2012 Olympics: gold asgarov, silver kudukhov, bronze scott, bronze dutt.