Cherkov

Potential Yousofi v Hinds match. Hope it happens.

He did. Thats what happened at 97 worlds. Karelin threw Rulon and beat him 6-0. He talked about it on Conan. Karelin's irreversible decline started at 1999 worlds, he was never the same physically after. Mureiko had his hand raised against Karelin at those worlds in 99 (it was later overturned my understanding is no one scored). He then had a tough 3-0 win in the final against Hector, a man he destroyed in his prime multiple times. It kept happening after. 2000 euros Mureiko again stalemates him, Karelin wins Russian nationals 1-0 against a good but not great opponent. He lost his offense and that's why he retired immediately after. No one could score against him but, close matches became a regular thing. I don't put that much stock in Rulon's defense of the lift. Karelin didn't pull one off against anyone at those Olympics and many medalist level wrestlers defended it during that portion of Karelin's career. Rulon was good, well conditioned. But he was never unquestionably best in the world. Some people always had his number, like a very young Lopez or Ghafarri. Rulon had bad losses in him too.

The youngest Spencer could achieve his own goals is 36.

If Spencer dominates everyone domestically at FS, it's not like there's an international big bad at 57 kg.

I suspected that with his physical attributes he wouldn't last long. Not that it really matters for football, but Coon was not as good at GR as Neal was in FS

Tbilisi and Poddubny were major tournaments that are no longer relevant that I'm aware of. It's hard to say because so many tournaments during that previous time period were poorly archived. A lot of them would have also been one offs for tours and those sorts of events. Many Soviet related tournaments are obviously also gone.

Not a cycle, I exaggerated for convenience. But yes most of the current tournaments are much younger than the posters here and most of ones from the 70s, 80s are no longer around. Tbilisi used to be a big tournament, gone. Some may carry a name, but new location, management, and dubious connections to the previous event.

Lack of prize money- by far the number one reason. They are not essential for the established wrestlers to get ready for big events. Especially if you have high level domestic training partners. It also doesn't help that most of these tournaments disappear after a cycle, so they're never around long enough to develop an identity.

Besides worlds and some continentals, is there such a thing as a prestigious tourney in international wrestling? Just kind of who from the world shows up in a particular year, no?

Something that sounds good on paper and in small talk (Oh you're big, lineman, you know Stephen Neal) but in reality almost always leads to dead ends instead of the aspirational reassurances. The whole NFL endeavor was always a long shot, that world silver and his size could only help so much in the turnover saturated lower rungs of football. A Greco return isn't smooth sailing on paper. Coon is a world silver. A world silver who couldn't qualify for the Olympics; not in an unlucky way.

This sounds like a really polite way of saying Coon was cut and is exploring his options going forward.

I can't think of a skill based discipline where a hard split makes you better than if you had continuously trained.

How could he be focusing on Greco if he's wrestling in college? It would take a separate practice designed just for him and good training partners. He's senior level age, it doesn't cut it to have your best bro on the team go an extra 45 minutes upper body with you after practice. That's not focusing on Greco.

Snyder could Big Bruce it, retire never losing to an American again. Why the 125 kg talk? Not a tall 97 kg. And he has Sadulaev at his weight. I'm sure Snyder would love to beat the p4p #1 and stop the projected most decorated wrestler of this generation. Snyder has won everything already (Oly+ World Gold), and he doesn't strike me as someone who'd calculate ahead ways to sneakily get the most medals; he'd prefer the chance to beat the best wrestler that he could face. Snyder has never shy'd away from risking losses he wants to beat the best or lose trying. There are some good 125s but neither Taha or Geno are dominant (getting old too) and Zare looks much closer to them than Sadulaev. I only see him moving to 125 if Sad retires and 97kg becomes the new 86 or someone domestic forces him out of 97 and he can't win back his spot after multiple attempts. And I don't think Sadulaev is retiring until he overtakes Medved and possibly a fourth gold.

It's not always that simple. There are some skill heavy sports where the "started at high school off of own accord" type has no chance to catch up to the "private individual lessons since the age of four" player. So everyone serious about it does it.

It's hard to get quality international wrestling info without people who follow international wrestling. Almost all of the posters here so far are college wrestling fans, some of which occasionally talk about international wrestling (usually with a college bent to the way it's discussed).

You get this every once in a while with a high profile person. Watanabe tried a comeback at 46. The oldest and longest away person that I know of who did something notable was a 35 year old after 4 years of retirement. Gardner is over 50, has been gone for two decades, and has health issues. There are a lot of myths about Rulon and his career. A lot of people think he left Greco on the same terms as Gable Steveson, that was not the case at all.

Of the two weight classes I know most about. The landscape and where the US fits into it. 130 kg #1 Kayaalp- The default number one, until someone can beat him for a world or european title and then back it up with another gold. Possibly declining with age already. #2 Semenov- There is no clear number 2. Went with Semenov because of some h2h results. Most offensive stylistically super heavy and only one who really incorporates throws into his repertoire. #3 Pino- Giant, strong. Almost always medals. Low activity since 2019. #4 Mirzazadeh- Defensively hard to score on. Almost beat Riza. Has a lot of close matches though. Like to see him against #2 and #3. #5 Yousefi- Took some bad losses in minor tournaments this year. Struggles against Mirzazadeh. Still young. Won a weak worlds field. #6 Yildrim- Best 130 kg wrestler with no world medals. Wins a lot of minor tournaments and has beaten a lot of medalists, solid all around but not great. #7 Zurabi- Flukish silver, took some scalps. Terrible cardio. Put him here since he still wrestled Semenov close recently. #8 Kajaia- Took some bad losses this year, but wrestled other break out stars tough. He's been the most consistent wrestler not named Riza until 2022. Could be aging out, if he looks bad at euros, may be over for him. #9 Acosta- Tough to score on. Injuries and age have taken their toll on him. #10 Alin- Kayaalp's punching bag. Has a knack for picking his moments, rises to occasions when the draw works out kindly to him. Colton Schultz. -Right now is a one and done or one more and done type. Doesn't have a reliable way of scoring and gives up points too easily. Good news is that he's still young and there is no great young champion on the horizon (yet). 97 kg #1 Evloev- Best par terre offence at the weight. Best thrower from par terre. Amazing defense and positioning from neutral. Only real weakness is par terre defense. Hasn't lost a big tournament since 2017. #2 Aleksanjan- Only Evloev can match him when he is in form. Injury prone but looked good at worlds. #3 Saravi- Separated himself the rest of the field. Has a bad matchup issue against Aleksanjan. Wrestled Evloev close. Youngish. #4. Sargsyan- Swept age groups and medaled in first senior outing. Saravi exposed his current ceiling though. #5 Melnikov- Last man to have beaten Evloev (in a warm up tournament of dubious importance). Old. #6 Golovin- Probably better than most other countries rep. Places at Russian events but is in a stacked weight and gets few chances. #7 Milov- First of the wrestlers of the 'lower tier'. Good medal year in 2022. Loses comfortably to the very top wrestlers. #8 Balduaf- Has nice past wins like Aleksanjan at euros. Inconsistent #9 Slavonian- Youngish wrestler. Once considered of the most potential among his age group. Has made finals in top tournaments. #10 Szoke- Beat Hancock and wrestled Saravi+ Evloev to respectable scores. A large 97. Amos- been winging it and hoping his toughness and athleticism win him the day in greco. He is years of greco exposure behind his competitors. With him still not training greco it will take till his late 20s, just to catch up to the technical side of where his rivals are now (most who have focused on Greco since at least 15). It will only get harder to learn with age. Possible that his athletic ceiling isn't high enough to match the top 3 even if he does train up.

People are more likely to attend things that they were either formerly involved in (college wrestling) or have a strong connection to like being alums of the same institution. No one wrestled at the senior level. And they're just individuals outside of the Olympics and maybe (maybe) Worlds where they take on a national representative function. Even in the greco Baku example that world cup field did not have close to world championship level strength, all star team or not. I doubt the in arena fans cared (or knew in many cases). More like, here's this event lets go and be patriotic, cheer, have some fun type of mindset.

They still exist and no one has a clue about them. You can find plenty of 15-0 terrible boxers that no one has ever heard of on boxrec. That's not their fault though, it's just the screwed up structure of pro boxing.

Most of them have normal jobs and box or do mma on the side.

I don't know if it's harder to win in today's USSR collapse era as opposed to the Soviet Era. The US only world medaled 16 times (excluding a weak boycott year) in Greco during the USSR's time. They only had one gold medalist, who barely won his gold and lost a match on route. The US has already lapped that amount a in far shorter span post USSR collapse. The Soviet Union was much better than Russia in GR, I don't think that's as clear cut in MFS. There used to be strong eastern bloc GR programs in Bulgaria, Poland, Romania and they all suck now compared to what they were. And with only 3 medals available you had to beat them to get on the podium. Maybe you could say Turkey, Cuba, and Iran have recently replaced some of those old winning countries, but a lot has happened other than it just getting harder.

I don't think it's fair to compare MFS to GR in the United States. MFS was winning gold medals in the 40s. It took until the 1980s for the first GR gold medal from an American. It's not that MFS is run by geniuses and Greco all by clowns, MFS has a massive in built advantage that Greco can't access the same way.

What's the highest ranked potential match by your world rankings? #2 v #3?

There is some naivety about what foreigners are and aren't. Just going overseas to "Europe" isn't necessarily exposing you to a higher plane of greco wrestling. Continental Europe for the most part has greco programs that aren't any discernibly higher in level than America, most are worse. I've noticed a Scandinavian and Bulgarian connection with Americans? But both those regions have fallen off cliffs greco wise. Bulgaria is a catastrophe compared to the Greco power they were decades ago and Scandinavia doesn't do any better than the US now.