Andy Bisek celebrates after winning bronze (Photo/Larry Slater)"I'm still striving to be the best and I'm not there yet," said Bisek, a native of Chaska, Minnesota.
Bisek opened his tournament on Monday with relatively close victories -- by two points and three points -- before suffering a loss to eventual silver medalist Mark Madsen of Denmark in the quarterfinals.
"I started the day slower," said Bisek. "I got a little down on myself maybe. Then I lost in the quarters to a tough guy. I was really able to fire myself up and get it taken care of."
It was the second consecutive year that Bisek defeated a World champion at the World Championships. Last year Bisek stunned Russia's Roman Vlasov, a World and Olympic champion, in the second round. On Monday night, Vlasov defeated Madsen 6-0 in the gold-medal match.
"Anybody can be a World champion on any day," said Bisek. "It's just like getting it done on that day, being the guy, whoever you have to beat, that's when it's awesome. That's when it matters."
Bisek now turns his attention to 2016 and becoming an Olympic gold medalist in Rio de Janeiro, Brazil.
"I got one more big stage to do … the Olympics, and I've got to be able to put it together for that," said Bisek, who attended Northern Michigan and wrestled in the USOEC Greco-Roman program. "I believe I'm fully capbable. I'm going to train like hell to make it, to win."
Team USA finished Day 1 with a combined record of 7-4. Four more U.S. Greco-Roman wrestlers will compete on Tuesday: Spenser Mango (59 kilos), Justin Lester (71 kilos), Patrick Martinez (80 kilos) and Robby Smith (130 kilos).
In addition to Vlasov (75 kilos), Germany's Frank Staebler (66 kilos) and Armenia's Artur Aleksanyan won World titles on Monday night.
Staebler defeated Han-Soo Ryu of Korea 4-1 in the gold-medal match and becomes Germany's first World champion in Greco-Roman since 1994.
The 23-year-old Aleksanyan won his second straight World title with a 3-0 victory over Ghasem Rezaei of Iran. Aleksanyan's last loss came in 2013 when he fell in the gold-medal match at the World Championships to Nikita Melnikov of Russia.
Day 1 (Monday) Medalists
66 kilos:
Gold: Frank Staebler (Germany)
Silver: Hansu Ryu (Korea)
Bronze: Davor Stefanek (Serbia)
Bronze: Artem Surkov (Russia)
75 kilos:
Gold: Roman Vlasov (Russia)
Silver: Mark Madsen (Denmark)
Bronze: Andy Bisek (USA)
Bronze: Doszhan Kartikov (Kazakhstan)
98 kilos:
Gold: Artur Aleksanyan (Armenia)
Silver: Ghasem Rezaei (Iran)
Bronze: Islam Magomedov (Russia)
Bronze: Dimitriy Timchenko (Ukraine)
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