Wrestling 2019 Discussion Thread

[MHSN 3,778]

in another news ,we had Yarygin tournament in Russia which finished today, Yarygin used to be the hardest freestyle competition in the world but not anymore . since it's now a World Ranking event. each country is allowed to have only 3 wrestlers per weight. and we can't see something like 10-20 VERY good Russian wrestlers in the competition. still a good competition,

 

we had some huge surprises. mostly Taka Akgul losing to Anzor Khizriev !!! and Kyle Snyder losing in first round to some random Russian wrestler.

 

all results available here

https://unitedworldwrestling.org/sites/default/files/2019-01/grand_prix_ivan_yariguin_final_book.pdf

[MHSN 3,778]

the UWW 2019 Freestyle World Cup will start in Russia in few hours. rosters are available here

https://unitedworldwrestling.org/article/freestyle-world-cup-rosters

 

first this is a sure thing Russia will win the title. this is not their very best team but still some of their top wrestlers. to me the only country could challenge Russia was USA and they are sending a very weak team. even Iran is sending a not-good team. there are 2-3 veterans in the list but the rest aren't even a B team member. the same goes to Georgia and Turkey. they also didn't bring all of their top wrestlers. I think only Japan, Cuba and Mongolia took this very seriously but they usually don't have a "full team" to compete for a title like this.

 

I think Russia-Cuba match in the first round is probably the real final here. almost the whole last year World team of Cuba is here. but there is one interesting name for Cuba. Oscar Pino ! two time World bronze medalist in Greco-Roman !! looks like they made him switch to freestyle. guess why ? I only can guess the king Mijain Lopez is back ! in past 50 years only one wrestler could get results in both styles which was Bilyal Makhov in super heavyweight. but still he was a freestyle wrestler trying Greco. which makes more sense. we will see what Pino can do here but I don't expect good results for him. freestyle is not only about power (unlike Greco)

[ChandlerMne 1,204]

2 hours ago, MHSN said:

the UWW 2019 Freestyle World Cup will start in Russia in few hours. rosters are available here

https://unitedworldwrestling.org/article/freestyle-world-cup-rosters

 

first this is a sure thing Russia will win the title. this is not their very best team but still some of their top wrestlers. to me the only country could challenge Russia was USA and they are sending a very weak team. even Iran is sending a not-good team. there are 2-3 veterans in the list but the rest aren't even a B team member. the same goes to Georgia and Turkey. they also didn't bring all of their top wrestlers. I think only Japan, Cuba and Mongolia took this very seriously but they usually don't have a "full team" to compete for a title like this.

 

I think Russia-Cuba match in the first round is probably the real final here. almost the whole last year World team of Cuba is here. but there is one interesting name for Cuba. Oscar Pino ! two time World bronze medalist in Greco-Roman !! looks like they made him switch to freestyle. guess why ? I only can guess the king Mijain Lopez is back ! in past 50 years only one wrestler could get results in both styles which was Bilyal Makhov in super heavyweight. but still he was a freestyle wrestler trying Greco. which makes more sense. we will see what Pino can do here but I don't expect good results for him. freestyle is not only about power (unlike Greco)

Yes,with his GR abillities he shouldnt be good in defending leg attacks,unlike FS to GR transfer.

Even though strength and importance of competitions cant be compared, i remember Radomir Petkovic winning medals in both GR and FS at Mediteranean games. 

[heywoodu 16,004]

If all this means Mijain Lopez is back, please for the love of everything mention me when he's gonna fight

[MHSN 3,778]

18 minutes ago, heywoodu said:

If all this means Mijain Lopez is back, please for the love of everything mention me when he's gonna fight

 

This guy Pino was in Iran few weeks ago for Takhti Cup and journalists asked him about Lopez and he said Lopez is going to come back for the Olympics and I will challenge him for the Cuban Olympic spot. but it seems he either already lost to Lopez somewhere in Cuba or Cuban coaches forced him to switch style to have both of them.

 

Lopez is much heavier than 130kg. he has to cut lots of kilos. that's why we don't see him much in international competitions. for that single reason I assume we will only see him at the Worlds in Kazakhstan which is the first Olympic qualification tournament.

[MHSN 3,778]

just finished watching the first round. Russia destroyed Cuba 9-1 ! Cuba's only win for the World Champion Bonne and even that was a very close match. I was expecting much more from Cuba A team. it seems there are some wrestlers from the host city in the Russian team but still they put some big names like Sidakov, Rashidov and Sadulaev to the team to make sure about winning the title.

 

and that was quite a freestyle lesson for Pino !  he lost 10-0 to Russia and remember Russia is very weak in this weight. Pino was just pushing and pushing the whole match while the Russian wrestler easily threw him couple times using some leg techniques. as I said before there is absolutely no future for him in freestyle.

 

Iran also beat Mongolia 9-1 which was very very surprising for me. some unknown young Iranian wrestlers managed to beat World medalists from Mongolia. I was expecting a close win (since Mongolia is no good in heavier weights) but yet Iran managed to win couple of very close matches early for a huge win. now I expect Iran-Russia final. even though Iran still has to beat USA in the 2nd round. American wrestlers are mostly unknown to me but they are apparently good as they beat Georgia relatively easily. Iran-USA will be the battle for the 2nd place. Russia looks unbeatable IMO.

[MHSN 3,778]

so it seems the Iran-Russia final is already confirmed. Iran beat Mongolia and USA and since both of them beat Georgia. I think Iran will be in the final no matter what. the same goes to Russia. as they beat Cuba and Japan and they both beat Turkey.

 

Iran-USA was quite a battle. it was 5-5 and Iran won on criteria. while some of our more experienced wrestlers were TERRIBLE. specially Afzali, Sadeghi and Ebrahimi but youngster Marghzari sent Iran to the final. he won his match and also pinned his opponent by a great throw. which helped Iran eventually to win the criteria.

 

Russia will win the final 99%. but I just hope with a respectable score. I would be glad with 3 individual wins. I think 55, 70, 92 and 125 are winnable for Iran. also 97 if Russia don't use Sadulaev (he didn't wrestle today but his name is in the list)

[MHSN 3,778]

Russia won the title beating Iran 9-1 in the final USA won the bronze 6-4 over Japan.

 

even our coach didn't try hard. as he used two reserve wrestlers in 97 and 125 where both matches were quite winnable. it could be 7-3 but he knew that's impossible to beat Russia so he gave chance to some youngsters.

 

this is the 7th title for Russia. interestingly they hosted this 6 times and won all of them. and only once Russia won the World Cup outside of Russia ! that's not because they need home advantage to win the Cup. simply because they care about this only when they are the host.

[hckošice 15,522]

David Musulbes today officially returned the Beijing 2008 Bronze medal , directly into the hands of Thomas Bach in Lausanne..(well, actually our NOC delegation did it during todays official visit of the IOC headquarter in Switzerland) and Thomas Bach gave them the silver medal  

 

So David will receive his Silver medal officially the 26th April in Bratislava during the traditional general assembly of our NOC. The medal will be awarded by Danka Barteková

[Federer91 3,024]

Our former wrestler Borislav Novachkov has switched to MMA and has signed with Bellator. It seems he made some ninja videos, which made him somewhat popular in the US and he decided to drop wrestling. It's a shame really, that he didn't truly fulfill his potential. He could have been way more accomplished, but had some close matches and bad refereeing (i remember at one particular Worlds, when he was hugely screwed).