Made even crazier with Taylor out and Downey being a zero chance medalist. Probably going to have to qualify that weight and then nobody with a bye to the OTT
He had a rough season last year, got abused by Hadi(IRI) at didn't medal after 4 straight finals. Gwiz is what he is, decent, medal threat with great draws(which he's had the last 2 years) but zero shot at the top guys. Pretty big gulf between him and the top 4
Pretty much, but last year is when he had the God draw. He literally wrestled one decent guy at worlds in China and he lost. in 2017 he actually beat some pretty good wrestlers in Mohebi and Ligeti.
Wonder why the Dogu flamed out this year? Iran and Azerbaijan registered full teams but mostly pulled out, even some of the top Turks skipped.
Still amazed at how the Turkish trainers thought they could fix their guy with magic spray after he decimated his knee. That was like 7 hours ago, I've been up a long time and need sleep.
Also Akgul didn't have a "bad" year imo. Only by his standards. He lost two close matches against top tier guys in Hadi and Khizriev. Hadi is the undisputed #3 guy in the world, Khizriev is probably #4 or maybe #5 at worst. This was his first time dropping a match to anyone not named Petriashvili in the last 5-6 years. He's now lost a total of 4 matches. He's still the best 125 in the world. Should add that he also beat Khizriev and Petriashvili easily at Euros this year.
I meant last season, but, yeah, bad is relative. He wasn't the same leading up the world's and went down fairly comfortably to Hadi(watched that match live and was stunned by how easily Hadi shrugged him off). He's one of the best ever at 125kg/Heavy. 4-time finalist in a deep era, without the taint that Taymayzov's reign has now after his doping issues.
I wouldn't say it flamed out, USA brought their top guys, turkey always sends their top guys obviously. Other countries don't necessarily send A squads but there are top guys sprinkled in. This year, with the way the schedule lined up, it didn't make sense for a lot of guys to come to the Dogu with the Euro games just taking place a couple weeks ago. A lot of the Russians are going to be wrestling in the Medved in a few weeks instead, why would they go to Turkey?
I never expected any Russians, but the preliminary entries had the A teams for both Azerbaijan and Iran in there in full, neither sent many of those top guys. And even Turkey didn't have Atli, Topal, Demirtas, Kaya, etc...
Shit, I forgot about that, whoops. Still would have liked to see more IRI and more non-Euro games AZE participants. A few guys did double duty but that's pretty tight scheduling there.
Got up in the middle of the night for nothing... Chamizo forfeiting to Burroughs. Has the top seed locked up now so it makes sense but that’s annoying
There seems to be some speculation that based on recent comments by Cox he is going to 97kg for the Olympic trials to face Snyder.
Yes, please. Let's get some real competition at every Olympic weight. It's too bad for J'Den as he's never looked better than at 92kg, seems like a perfect weight for him. Pretty sure he can handle the size factor at 97 though
Saw a few months back he said the plan was 86 and Bader at Flo seems to be under the impression that he's going 86, and he's a Mizzou guy and obviously very well connected to J'den and crew. What are the recent comments?
It's not official yet but Yianni D is taking an olympic redshirt next year. Will come back at 149 in '20-'21.
New shit from Russia. Usually they just select the team from Nationals and then any grey area they just enter an international competition or just choose their guy. Now they are doing wrestle offs.
Imagine fleeing after getting caught committing a crime and being chased down by a 2x all american. http://www.fox5atlanta.com/news/pol...ct-down?utm_source=dlvr.it&utm_medium=twitter
It's so fucking sad it got to that point. Give Zain a lead with a minute left and nobody is waving pitchforks even though I wouldn't agree with the scoring, just amazing incompetence to get to this point
Pretty disastrous outcome for cadets at worlds. McGowan is in the gold medal match at 45kg, Facundo is in repechage and needs to win 3 matches for bronze. No other chances for medals.
We couldn't even make it past the weekend without controversy involving the ages of Russian cadets! This instagram account is alleging that two Russian cadets that won Gold and Silver medals this weekend are in fact not cadets, and were born three years earlier than they let on (much like we now know Sadulaev did). Tigiev won gold at 71kg (beat Facundo in a close match early) Skhovrebov took silver at 65kg.
Yianni about to wrestle Musukaev again. Last time they wrestled a couple weeks ago Musukaev was up 9-0 on the verge of a tech before Yianni gassed him out and came back to win via cautions. Match is next, should be a little bit over 5 minutes away
He won’t be seeded, so the draw will be interesting, but I’m stoked to see Naifonov against Yazdani the greatest.
GGCD did you listen to the FRLs this week? I can't believe people want to get rid of the RTC programs. This is crazy.
Fix beats Andreu-Ortega at Pan-AM's, gives me hope we can get 57kg qualified at worlds. Those Olympic weights all look stacked, save for 97 which is basically a 2 man weight class. 57 and 65 are the biggest worries as 86 is a zero chancer with Downey
Granted he's not a favorite, but Fix is definitely a threat at 57kg at Nur-Sultan. I don't want to say it's a weak weight but there's no far-and-away favorites like there are at other weights. Uguev is good, Amiraslanov is good, Atli is good...all are inconsistent though. Anyone can win, anyone can medal. We could see Micic winning a medal tbh.
There’s definitely no clear cut favorite, but it’s a deep weight with Takahashi and Andreu thrown in, Sanayev if he’s down again. The kind of weight where it’s easy to not qualify if you are not on your A game at your first worlds. 57 and 65 especially as there are legit medal/title threats from Japan, Cuba, India, etc... making the minefield that much trickier than just the Russian and Azeri/Iranian/Turk top dogs
Right. It's very deep, but no top end dominant talent like you see at other weight classes. Don't see India as a threat at all at 57kg though. He just took another loss today to Andreev.
I meant Bajrang at 65, but I did think India's 57 had something to watch out for. Atri and Erdenebat are medal threats too at 57 and there's always a shot the PRK rep at 57 does some damage. Just not a lot of fluff there, hard to expect Fix to make a run as he's really only wrestled Gilman and Andreu at this point on the Senior level.
Deepest weights right now: 65 - I mean, holy hell. Otoguro, Bajrang, Aliev, Valdes-Tobier, Rashidov/Chakaev, Khinchegashvili, Zain/Yianni. Couldn't pick a favorite, absolute hammers everywhere 57 - Not as star studded at the top but the whole list is crazy deep: Amiraslanov, Uguev, Takahashi, Atli, Atri, Erdenebat, Kang, Daton, Andreu. I count at least 8 guys that are Medalist level at any tournament they enter(well, besides Russian Nationals ha) 74 - 3 absolute beasts at the top, but plenty of depth there behind Sidakov, Burroughs, and Chamizo. Abdurakhmanov and Kentchadze are consistently tough outs, doesn't even include guys like Nurykau, Demirtas, and Hosseinkhani who are medal threats with a lot of draws. 86 - Still upset we don't have the Taylor/Yazdani/Naifonov trio battling it out this year. Shabanau, Erdin, Takatani all solid vets and Baranowski just beat Kurugliev so who knows. 125 - An all time great rivalry with Akgul and Petriashvili, with the Georgian the only guy left who can sweep the quad in the world. Hadi and Khizriev really improved lately as well. 97 - Unreal top 2, but the rest has cleared out a bit this cycle. Solid vets like Odikadze, Andritseev, Alborov and the wild card return of Reza Yazdani All the non-Olympic weights are about the same, we obviously have big favorites at 92 and 79, but 92 has an in form Karimimachi and the Russian entrant, along with the solid vet Sharipov. 61 and 70 looked pretty cleared out.
65 and 57 have the greatest depth when it comes to talent. 74, 86, 125, 97....all of those weights are a 2-3 man race. If we're talking about weights where the greatest number of wrestlers have a chance to win, outside of 65 and 57, 70 and 92 need to be mentioned. 79 is pretty open too because of injuries.
Next Saturday in Austin, crazy that we had this deep of a weight in a non-Olympic class and fucking Downey is our rep 1 weight up
Not watching but Vito has advanced to the Junior World finals. He smoked the returning gold medalist Idrisov of Russia 8-1 in the semis, and a former cadet silver/bronze from Georgia in the first round. Dat boy good. He gets Japan in the finals. Aaron Brooks, unfortunately, was upset by AZE in the first round and was eliminated when Russia beat AZE in the next round. Disappointing worlds for Brooks. Yahya Thomas went 1-1 and was eliminated Brayton lee went 0-1 and was eliminated. Tanner Sloan went 0-1 and is still alive, but will likely be eliminated when Faroutanrami of Iran takes out Turkey in the semis.
Just looked up Brooks' opponent and the loss isn't as bad as thought. He took JR Silver last year to Mekhi Lewis and won Euro JR gold this year. He was AZE's SR world rep last year at 74kg, took 8th, and beat the two time bronze medalist from Mongolia who was infamously robbed of the bronze in Rio. He took 5th at the Dogu this year as well. Doesn't look like it was an upset after all.
I thought AZE previously beat Brooks 10-0 so this was a better performance I guess. Very down year for our cadets and Juniors
Think about how many of our studs aren't competing in the age level tournaments. The rest of the world is sending their absolute best. We're sending b, c, and d teams. A bunch of guys who did not attempt to make age level world teams this year: 57kg: Spencer Lee (JR) 61kg: Nick Suriano (Not sure if he's JR eligible or not, I vaguely recall reading he's young for his age) 65kg: Yianni D (JR), Joey McKenna (U23) 70kg: Jason Nolf (U23), Ryan Deakin (U23) 74kg: Mekhi Lewis (JR) 79kg: Zahid Valencia (U23), Mark Hall (U23) 86kg: Myles Martin (U23) 92kg: Sending the best U23 guy here at least, even if he's an 86. Where was Kollin Moore? 97kg: Jacob Warner (JR) 125kg: Gable Steveson (JR), Cassioppi (JR) If Spencer, Suriano, Yianni, Lewis, Warner, Steveson, etc are wrestling this week we're taking home some hardware. They didn't even try to make the team though. At least Gable and Yianni have excuses, the others don't.