Over the last couple weekends I’ve watched some NCAA tournament matches on Youtube from the 1990s. These are mostly finals matches, with a few videos from earlier rounds. I wanted to look at how college wrestling has evolved over the past three decades.

The first difference I noticed is in the presentation. As with most sports back then, we only get score graphics occasionally, whereas now they’re a constant presence on the screen. I think this was largely due to improvements in TV resolution: to make score graphics clear back then, they had to use up more space on the screen and block your view of the action. I definitely appreciate broadcasts that show the score, time remaining, and riding time throughout the match. 

The other big improvement is we actually get the full finals. I find the interviews that stretch the finals into a 3 hour telecast boring, but if that’s what it takes to get the full matches shown I’m all for it. In the nineties, they often picked up matches already in progress and had the announcers briefly describe what you had missed. Often, the only offensive points of the match would happen off camera, and you would get to see a guy defend for a minute or two and get his hand raised. There were several matches where they only showed overtime on TV and left the entire regulation match up to your imagination.

The next type of difference is the changes in the rules. When I watch matches these days, I hardly think about the out of bounds stalling rule. Especially after the first year, refs almost always call action, so it doesn’t seem to affect the match. This made it jarring to see guys casually back out of bounds. If nothing else, it made matches take longer, with lots of situations where guys could’ve easily stayed in but instead go out and force a restart. The stall count for holding a leg on top also seems to be an improvement; even when guys weren’t deliberately stalling, any time they grabbed the bottom wrestler’s legs it often turned into an extended scramble that killed lots of clock. 

Most jarring, though, was the way overtime worked. It was a whole separate match, with three one-minute periods. All riding time and warnings from regulation were erased, making it easier to stall in OT. And if that ended tied, it went to criteria. I’m a fan of criteria in freestyle because it means that someone is always losing, and so there’s always a wrestler who’s incentivized to attack. Sometimes you need to manufacture a point with the shot clock, but after that, getting guys to wrestle offensively basically takes care of itself. It’s also completely fair, since everyone knows who has criteria and how it will change if there’s a score. In these college matches, though, no one ever knew who had it. There were matches where both wrestlers seemed to think they were losing, or both thought they were winning. The refs often had to go over to the scorer’s table after the match and look through the scoresheet to see who won. Moreover, since folkstyle is generally lower-scoring and the tactics depend more on the match situation than freestyle, the criteria felt like it wasn’t incentivizing more exciting wrestling, but instead just handing out wins arbitrarily. I think the current rules are a huge improvement. 

The last type of differences were with the actual wrestling. These differences were smaller than I expected. It’s probably partly that I was only watching the national finals (and a few semis and quarters), but most of these guys looked like they’d belong in the modern era. One thing I did notice was that the stances seem a bit more upright, and some of the guys are pretty loose with their stances. There was a national final where a wrestler hit a snatch single from space: just stepped in and grabbed the guy’s leg. I think that just doesn’t really happen today, where wrestlers are generally wrestling with a lower level. We also had less scrambling, and hardly ever ended up in positions like the backdoor finish, leg pass/face to shoelace position, and far-ankle scrambles that are commonplace today.

There were a few types of shots that you don’t see as much today, mainly from Oklahoma State wrestlers. One was the low ankle shot with the head outside: generally, when you see guys attack below the knee today, it’s head inside. There were also a couple head outside shots where the attacker is either shooting cross-body or shooting through an underhook. In general, I think most people today associate John Smith and Oklahoma State with motion from space and low singles, but I think the real hallmark of the style is elbow control and shooting either a high crotch or fireman’s carry with a deep entry and attacking high, towards the hip. This type of shot was far more common in the 90s than it is now. 

One final difference was the variety of programs represented. Like in any sport, programs will go through eras of rising and falling, but small schools in the northeast were generally much more successful back then. Teams like Clarion, Edinboro, Seton Hall, and Bucknell consistently got All-Americans in a way that they don’t today. You also saw more programs from western states like Fresno State, Boise State, and Cal State Fullerton getting guys on the podium, while Arizona State was a national power. It seems like the trend now is a concentration of power, especially for big universities that have big-time brands in athletics. The few programs that have seen big improvements over the last 10 years or so include ones in the ACC (NC State, Pitt, UNC) and Pac-12 (Arizona State, Oregon State), programs with well-known brands that have a lot of resources in their athletic departments that are finally bringing them to bear on wrestling. Other programs that have made big leaps are Penn and Princeton, where the prestige of the Ivy League and its strong need-based financial aid help a lot with recruiting. Thinking about these trends and structural forces gives me a lot of respect for programs who succeed without those forces working in their favor, especially Lehigh, Northern Iowa, and Appalachian State.

I think that the proliferation of streaming “options” in college wrestling is not the blessing many seem to think it is. I think it is great for rights holders (teams, conferences, USAW, etc.), who can now get multiple bids for streaming rights to their events. It might be good for broadcasters (Flowrestling, ESPN, etc), especially those that had not been in the wrestling space before and are now starting to pull in wrestling customers; more established ones might be hurt by the increased competition, though I don’t really care. Fans, as far as I can tell, are actually hurt by the increase in the number of broadcasters competing for the rights to wrestling events. This applies to diehard fans, casual fans, and everyone in between. 

Around five years ago Flowrestling was especially dominant in this market, and I often saw people claim that fans would be better off if Flo faced more competition. But while Americans generally believe in the power of market competition to produce better outcomes for everyone, what people missed is that the competition takes place among the streaming companies and they are competing over the broadcast rights. There’s not really competition for consumers, because we’re captive to whoever ends up with the rights of the teams and events we want to watch. 

With most types of products, there are many offerings I can choose from, but they are close substitutes for one another. Asics, Nike, Rudis, Adidas, and Scraplife all make wrestling shoes. They’re all different, but they all do pretty much the same thing; they’re shoes you wear when you wrestle. Some people like to have a collection of shoes because they think they’re cool, some people might have a few pairs that they wear in different situations, but one wrestling shoe is basically fulfilling the same function as another. That’s not to say they’re all interchangeable, just that once you decide on which one you want and buy it, you now have much less interest in buying another pair of wrestling shoes. Wrestling matches are not like that; watching a Big Ten dual does not reduce my interest in the ACC dual that’s on another platform an hour later. Instead, for fans like me, these products are pieces of a whole. Dividing them up doesn’t create new options to choose from; it just repackages them and makes it way harder to watch them all.

Rather than a monopoly being replaced by a competitive market, a single monopoly has been fragmented into several smaller monopolies, each with exclusive control over its segment of wrestling. Imagine if, instead of several companies that all sell fairly similar cars, each company had a total monopoly on just one component of a car. To buy a car, you have to buy the body from one company, the engine from another, the wheels from yet another, and so on. 

Competition among different streamers is great for the rights owners. They can get bids from multiple companies all trying to outbid each other and stand to make more money than they would without this level of competition. However, as a consumer, I’m not really going to be comparing the different offerings based on production quality, graphics, commentary, reliability, or price. I’m going to make my decision primarily on which teams and events I want to watch, and have to accept whatever production choices that streaming company has made.

As a diehard wrestling fan, I want to watch teams from all over the country, which would require paying for all of the services. Most of the fans I know from twitter are the same. This is obviously not a representative sample, but the sport clearly has a base of diehards who are interested in the sport on a national level, the way many fans of the NFL or NBA do. 

Now imagine a more normal fan, who doesn’t have time to try and watch every single event. Instead, you’re just interested in one team, say Iowa State. You want to watch the Cyclones as much as you can, and maybe a few other duals if they’re convenient to watch. The problem is that in this situation, you still don’t get to compare quality and price of different services: you’re just going to look at who has the rights to Iowa State matches and decide if it’s worth paying whatever they charge.

And of course, those who are just interested in one team will only get their team’s home and in-conference competitions with one broadcaster. For any out of conference duals or tournaments, they may need a different subscription. As a result, pretty much everyone who wants to watch wrestling broadcasts ends up in a situation where the matches they want to watch are scattered across multiple streaming services. To make matters worse, the higher fees streaming companies have to pay to win the rights will largely be passed on to consumers. As many have pointed out with TV streaming, consumers who want to watch everything available are often worse off having to pay for tons of different services than they were when everything was just on cable. 

Another point people bring up when praising competition is that it will give existing companies stronger incentives to improve. Flowrestling, for example, might not bother investing in the servers to make sure their streams don’t crash if they’ve got all the wrestling, but surely they will if there are other companies offering wrestling streaming rights. I don’t think this is true, though, for the reasons I’ve spelled out above regarding consumer choice; although there are multiple companies competing for the rights, they aren’t close substitutes for each other. Instead, each rights-auction winner is the exclusive broadcaster of those rights, and thus has a mini-monopoly on that fragment of wrestling. If you want to watch the Southern Scuffle, or ACC duals, you’re stuck with whoever has those rights, and you have to take or leave the stream quality and price point they give you.

Now, if fans complain loudly enough, they might get the message across to rights holders that such and such company does an unacceptably bad job, and sticking with that company will jeopardize the relationship with the fans; something like this happened with Flo and the DC United soccer team a few years ago. This seems unlikely to work in wrestling to me, because the decision makers in wrestling are simply not beholden to the fans the way they are in other sports. For a university or conference, a small number of wrestling fans are not going to exert much influence on athletic media rights policy. For a tournament like the Cliff Keen Las Vegas Invitational or Southern Scuffle, running a good event for the teams competing there and making money are much higher priorities than making sure fans get a good quality stream at low cost. If the company that bids the most for their rights is doing a bad job, I don’t think those organizers care too much. 

One more objection you might make to my point here is that there are more events available for streaming now than there used to be. Although we have to pay more to get everything, it’s not a fair comparison, because “everything” is more expansive than it used to be. I don’t really think that’s true, though. As far back as 2017-18, Alex Steen was putting out weekly streaming guides for The Open Mat that included almost every event. Many smaller programs had free streams, and a much larger percentage was under the Flo umbrella. I think the early rounds of the MAC tournament might not have been available, but I’m pretty sure the semis, finals, and go-to matches all were. I don’t remember the details on streaming for the EWL; I do know that any improvements on that front are much more a function of that conference merging with the MAC than with more players entering the wrestling broadcast game. Now, I think a lot of college programs are probably making more money from their rights than they were back then, and I don’t begrudge them at all. I’m just pointing out that I don’t see any benefit as a fan to the growth of ESPN wrestling and the entry of Fight Pass and Rokfin. 

A truly free market would mean no exclusivity: Flo, BTN+, ESPN, Stalemates, and whoever else could all offer their own feeds for every event, and fans could decide which one they wanted to buy. This obviously won’t happen, so the next best thing for a fan is having everything available under one umbrella. From 2018-20 we had something like this, where Flo had all domestic freestyle, every major in-season Division I college tournament, the Big 12, some EIWA, and could simulcast BTN+. Since then, things have gone in the opposite direction; BTN is no longer available through Flo, the Big 12 and MAC are on ESPN, and a handful of events are on Fight Pass and teams’ Rokfin channels. I don’t really have any ideas for how to make things better. I’m glad I get to watch so much wrestling, but I wish it were a little bit easier to do it.

Colorado Springs, Co. – The US Junior and Cadet National Championships, commonly known as Fargo, will have a new home beginning in 2024. The event will instead take place in Honolulu, Hawaii. 

The event is a mainstay of the wrestling calendar and had most recently been held in Fargo, ND, on the campus of North Dakota State University. While many have come to refer to the tournament itself as Fargo, it has been held in several locations in the past, and the governing bodies said they decided to make a change based on feedback from parent, wrestler, and state federation surveys, as well as the changing economics of the wrestling landscape.

One of the biggest drivers of change was families complaining that having a weeklong event in the middle of the summer made it difficult to plan vacations. While North Dakota has its charms, for most, it’s not a destination. By moving the event to a popular vacation spot, it will allow families to check off two items from their summer to-do lists. “Getting buy-in from the parents is critical, and this will probably help with that,” said one New Hampshire Wrestling Association board member. 

Additionally, 67% of athletes surveyed said they would prefer traveling to Hawaii than to North Dakota. Fifteen percent said they would prefer the championships to remain in Fargo, 12% said they had no preferences, and the remaining 6% wrote off-topic answers. Event spokesperson Thomas Ryan (no relation to the Ohio State coach) told us that making sure the athletes were happy with the location was an important consideration. “We’re bringing thousands of kids from all over the country together for the sake of this awesome sport. Wrestling obviously takes sacrifice, but we don’t want to make them suffer.” 

A Nebraska Wrestling Association board member who has coached at the championships said via direct message that the increased length of the flights would help his wrestlers spend more time together and develop stronger team bonds. “For tjr girls especcialt, thwt@is huge. Four the girls especially, mat is huge. You know what I mean,” he said.

Broadcast rights are another factor. The organizers said that they could get a higher fee for the rights to the event if it could air in prime time, but that is close to many of the athletes’ bedtimes. By moving the event westward, matches that take place in the afternoon local time will air live in the continental US at night. The rights to the championship have been held by FloWrestling, but that contract will expire after this year, meaning the rights will be available for bids. “Whether it’s Flo, Rofkin, or a different service, we want to maximize value for our broadcast partners,” Ryan said. 

While travel to Hawaii will be more expensive for some teams, Ryan pointed out that fundraising has come a long way in recent years. “I see those GoFundMe campaigns all the time, I know they work, so it makes sense to choose the best location without worrying ourselves with travel costs. Those who need assistance should be able to find it themselves.” He also pointed out that the rise of sponsorships and NIL deals make it easier for top athletes to pay their own way to major events. “There are high school wrestlers getting sponsored by supplement companies, wrestling apparel companies, everything. There’s a kid in Pennsylvania who’s sponsored by a company that sells big trash cans to take ice baths in.”

This change may take some getting used to for fans who have gotten in the habit of calling the event “Fargo”. However, it has seen several homes over the years, including a long stint in Cedar Falls, Iowa on the University of Northern Iowa campus. Spokesperson Ryan says that, given enough time, wrestlers and fans will adapt to and embrace the event being in Hawaii.

Alternatively: What the f*** is your deal, Will Lewan?

Why it isn’t working for Michigan’s All-American at 157

Although he is a three time national qualifier and placed fifth last year, Will Lewan of Michigan doesn’t look good. He is widely hated by fans nationwide for wrestling boring matches. In 98 career Division I matches, 23 have been to overtime¹ (23.5%), a staggeringly high rate. In his 46 career dual meet appearances, he has scored bonus points just 4 times (8.7%). He was considered overrated after holding a high ranking at the beginning of the season (including preseason #1 according to Flowrestling), but has since plummeted out of the top 10. He’s lost to freshmen with cartoonish names. Yet he’s a very skilled and accomplished wrestler, with tons of ranked wins in his career, a cadet world title, a U23 national title, and a 5th place NCAA finish. What’s going on?

All wrestlers are susceptible to periods where they stink (relative to their past performances), but Lewan is especially vulnerable because of the way he wrestles. For one thing, he simply doesn’t do a lot. In 43 matches scored on Quant Wrestling², he is credited with 259 total attacks and 188 leg attacks, giving him averages of 6.02 and 4.37 per match. This is a lower figure than most of the other wrestlers in the top 15 of the rankings, though not much lower. There are a lot of issues with the way these stats are compiled and how much they can actually tell us³, but I think it’s a decent place to start.

While he does take 4.37 shots per match, many of them are fired from space and have little chance of success. In fact, he only gets in on the leg about a third of the time (1.56 times per match). By contrast, the returning All-Americans and top 10 guys are almost uniformly in the 45-50% range. This means that although he’s decent when he gets to the leg, finishing more than half the time once he’s in, his overall finish rate of 31% is well below the other contenders at the weight. It all adds up to a total of 73 takedowns, or 1.70 per match. This is a far lower figure than the other All-Americans at 157 last season. 

This is even starker when we consider that he is excellent from the bottom position, but not especially stingy on top. As a result, 77% of his mat time is spent in the neutral position, one of the highest rates in the country. If we normalize that to 65% (my estimate of what’s typical in a competitive match, and what seems to be typical for other wrestlers in Quant’s data set⁴) he’s down to just 3.69 shot attempts per match.

Getting to legs and finishing is, in my view, the most effective and reliable way to win matches at the college level; however, it’s not the only path to victory available. There have been plenty of wrestlers over the years who aren’t high-volume shooters. However, those wrestlers tend to have distinct skillsets and other ways to score points. In particular, there are guys who are great from the top position and guys who are great at scoring from their opponents’ shots, and many combine these two skills. Pittsburgh’s Jake Wentzel and Edinboro’s AJ Schopp are extreme examples. Lewan, though, doesn’t have those abilities at all; he spends less of his matches on top than pretty much any good wrestler (per Quant and my own best guess), and his defense is much more focused on squaring up and clearing out than on cutting the corner or crushing his opponent underneath him. To win matches, then, he needs to be getting to legs. This is what makes his low attack rate such a problem; he’s not aggressive about doing the thing he needs to do to win.

Why doesn’t he simply try to take people down? In his run to the Big Ten final and national semis last year, he had a lot of success with reattacks. However, whether because of his credentials and ranking, increased scouting, or something else, opponents don’t seem to be coming at him as much this year. This makes his lack of offense even more apparent, and takes away his easiest path to victory. 

Even when he shoots proactively, his most effective setups come from clearing his opponent’s tie. In particular, when opponents reach out with their right arm, he likes to post their arm and shoot a knee pull to the right leg. That hasn’t been available as much this year. He also likes to shoot a sweep single to their left leg as they step it forward. These attacks can complement each other well, but only for attackers who are aggressive enough to establish the fear of one before surprising the opponent with the other. The threat of Lewan’s knee pull isn’t nearly enough to force people to circle into his sweep. 

He has some success with underhooks, but he’s not super aggressive about getting to them the way wrestlers like Trent Hidlay are. He also doesn’t like to throw from there or commit his hips in to look for the body lock. Instead, he tends to look to throw it by for a leg attack or try to get a body lock from the side. In fact, I think his underhook game is part of his London system⁴ syndrome. When you’re stronger than your opponent and they’re not dangerous from the overhook, an underhook is a great position because it feels like only one wrestler has any chances. (I think Pitt’s Micky Phillippi does something similar with his two-on-one: defaulting to a position where he feels safe and in control, even if he rarely scores from there).

The weird thing is, he hasn’t really been stalling or wrestling more defensively than usual. He took more shots than his opponents in recent losses to Penn State’s Levi Haines and Iowa’s Cobe Siebrecht, and even got Oklahoma State’s Kaden Gfeller warned for stalling from neutral. He especially does well late in matches, seeming to pick up the pace just as his opponents start to slow down. It’s simply the nature of his style that he really struggles to open his opponents up. The 157 weight class is filled with similar wrestlers; heavy handfighters who are solid in every position. When he does wrestle more dynamic opposition, he tends to shine. He won a very convincing 3-1 decision over Bryce Andonian at the All-Star Classic at the beginning of the season, and most recently capitalized on openings that Central Michigan’s Corbyn Munson created with his more chaotic brand of wrestling in an 8-3 decision. 

When he is trailing in a match, which is rare, he certainly ups his attack rate, and scores more takedowns as a result. In February, he trailed in tiebreakers due to a locked hands point vs Indiana’s Derek Gilcher, but got to a single leg and scored with less than 15 seconds remaining to win the match. However, when he’s trying to push the pace, he doesn’t seem to have any interesting tricks or changes of tactics. He just does what he was doing already, but faster and harder, and is more willing to pull the trigger on half-chances. 

The positive for Lewan is that he did not allow his opponents to score a single time off of his shots in the matches Quant scored. This stat is imperfect because it does not include reattacks opponents take when Lewan opens himself up by shooting. However, it reinforces the eye-test view that when he does shoot, he’s pursuing low-risk opportunities; after a missed shot, he squares up well; when he’s in scrambles, he tends to take the safe option that leads to a stalemate rather than taking risks that could compromise his position. 

He faces 4.93 shots from opponents per match, which, considering his strength of opposition and time spent in the neutral position, is probably lower than expected. This speaks to his excellent stance and positioning; he’s strong, doesn’t get his head pulled down easily, always matches his opponent’s level, does a decent job moving his feet, and doesn’t reach. His defensive ability means that even when he isn’t scoring many points of his own, he can keep himself in matches, which is why so many of them end up in overtime. It also may give him a sense of confidence that he doesn’t need to force the issue on his feet, because he feels the worst that could happen is getting to the end of regulation with only escapes scored.

So, to sum up: He’s struggling because his main path to victory is scoring with leg attacks, and he’s not getting to legs enough. He’s not getting to legs because guys aren’t giving him the looks he wants, and because he’s so positionally disciplined that he won’t take the risks he would need to in order to break through guys’ head-hands defense consistently. As a result, his remaining path to victory is to rely on his defense, conditioning, and bottom game to win matches when they get to overtime. He has a decent track record at this, but it makes matches come down to a very small number of moments. This leaves him very little margin for error, and he’s always in low-event matches. If you’ve got a 60% chance of winning each coinflip, you’re much better off playing best of three or five than letting everything ride on a single flip. Lewan’s wrestling, though, just isn’t good for creating more flips. Last March, he wrestled well, and things broke his way. This year, he’s wrestled a bit worse, his opponents are giving him less, and things aren’t breaking his way. For a guy who makes himself reliant on winning those tight matches, it’s the difference between placing highly and being eliminated in the early rounds come nationals.

Footnotes

1. As of 2/19, Michigan’s final dual in the 2022-23 regular season
2. Quant Wrestling stats as of 2/9/23
3. The biggest thing I learned from doing this is how little we can really learn from wrestling stats right now. That’s probably a whole post in its own right, but there are a few key problems. The first is that not all matches are scored, and even in the ones that are, some of the outputs seem dubious. We’re very limited right now to which ones someone from Quant takes the time to score with their software. (Last I heard, they paid college wrestlers $5 per match to do any match they had video for). The next issue is that we’re only tracking some things. Tracking all shot attempts like Quant does is a great step, but I’d love to get into even more detail looking at what tie each shot comes from, and adding functionality to the app to be able to filter by date or opponent. Right now, a wrestler’s entire career is all mixed together on Quant. Another problem is that different wrestlers wrestle vastly different schedules, and right now it’s tough to account for that. We’d need some kind of opponent-adjustments system, where a performance can be judged relative to how well your opponent usually does. For example, going 3/7 on single leg finishes might be a poor performance against Gary Steen, but excellent against Sammy Sasso. A lot of stats like this exist in other sports, but as of yet there’s nothing like it for wrestling. The next thing is that the stuff we’re tracking now correlates so tightly with simply being a good wrestler, which means we might as well use win-loss data and conventional rankings; the stats have little predictive value. I suspect simply looking at match results and the eye test will remain very powerful even if wrestling stats were far more developed, but here are some things I think sufficiently advanced statistics could tell us about wrestling better than our current methods can: 1) key areas that decide matches 2) styles and tendencies 3) style matchups (how style influences match results) 4) which components of success are more due to variance and which are more replicable skill 5) who will translate to the next level, whether high school to college or folkstyle to freestyle
4. I think the majority of the time overall in college wrestling is spent on the mat, but that includes more one-sided matches where the winner gets 3+ minutes of riding time. In matches decided by 3 points or fewer, I think it’s probably about 65% neutral. The 157 weight class in particular is a crop of wrestlers that mostly win on their feet, and I think matches at NCAAs at the weight (besides top seeds beating people up in the first round) will be upwards of 70% neutral.
5. It’s a chess thing. It’s where the player with the white pieces sets up in a way that takes a lot of possibility out of the game, limiting his advantage but giving himself something safe and comfortable to play. Chess.com description, Wikipedia description. It’s very controversial on reddit

In case you missed it, my weekly match preview for MMASucka was on Pat Brucki vs Jacob Warner. I should do a better job of cross-posting on this blog when I have articles out, but I also like using this space for a brief recap/postscript after the match happens.

For the third time in a row, I picked against Iowa and lost. The odds implied by my line meant Brucki was something like a 65-70 percent favorite, and maybe that should have been closer. Still, I think I got the basic read right. Brucki did a bit better controlling the handfighting, Warner had a very good go-behind, and mat wrestling wasn’t a factor. I certainly didn’t expect Warner to be able to score with short time, but he did his dummy arm thing and it worked. I’d consider a rematch between these two a complete tossup, maybe a slight edge for Warner since he scored more takedowns.

Keep your eyes peeled for a new series called Life on the Edge, about athletes on the bubble for some type of major accomplishment. The first installation will be about guys trying to qualify for Olympic Trials in freestyle by getting top 5 at Senior Nationals. If you have any suggestions or comments on my work, feel free to use the comments here, the comments on MMASucka, or my twitter.

Welcome to Out for Revenge, where we break down matches where a wrestler avenged an earlier loss (series intro here). In this installment, I’ll be looking at Russia’s Gadzhimurad Rashidov’s controversial win from the recent freestyle World Championships over Azerbaijan’s Haji Aliyev. 

First Encounter

These two first wrestled in the 2017 world finals at 61 kg, where Aliyev won by fall (and was leading 7-1 at the time). That was Aliyev’s third world title, capping a tournament where he dismantled Cuba’s three-time world medalist Yowlys Bonne Rodriguez and outscored his opponents 45-2. Added to his 2016 Olympic bronze, where the distribution of weight classes had forced him to make a very difficult cut to 57 kg, this cemented Aliyev as one of the world’s very best pound-for-pound wrestlers.

For Rashidov, 2017 was his first time competing in a senior world championships. He had won two Cadet world titles in 2011-12, and two Junior bronze medals in ‘14 and ‘15. After missing out on an Olympic berth in an incredibly stacked field of Russians at 57 kg, he avenged a loss to Akhmed Chakaev to win Russian Nationals at 61 and earned the world team spot. He crushed American Logan Stieber, the winner of the previous year’s non-Olympic World Championships (I don’t consider this a legitimate world championship), and then won an amazing match over two-time gold medalist Vladimir Khinchegashvili of Georgia, 6-3. 

The 2017 final began closely matched, but Aliyev asserted himself as the match went on, getting deep on Rashidov’s legs 3 times without allowing any leg attacks in return. While Rashidov is known for his handfighting skills and positioning, he was put on the shot clock twice, allowing Aliyev to push him around and attack confidently. Trailing 5-1 with barely a minute remaining, Rashidov attempted a head pinch that just wasn’t there, falling to his back and giving up 2 points. With the match as good as lost, he made little effort to fight off his back, and Aliyev recorded the pin. 

Haji Aliyev

The most basic tie-up in wrestling is the collar tie, grabbing the back of the opponent’s neck. Most American wrestlers, being right handed, collar tie with their right hand; often the opponent collar ties back, and the two opponents battle from a balanced (and often boring) position. Aliyev, though a righty, uses a left hand collar tie, allowing him to attack with his right. Working from a bladed stance with his right leg in the lead, Aliyev was probably taught to keep his right hand down to protect his lead leg. He generally keeps the right arm short, reaching and making first contact with his rear left hand. Aliyev’s main attack is a sweep single to his right, attacking the opponent’s left leg. He also can shoot a high crotch or head outside single to the opponent’s right leg, especially if they counter his lefty collar tie with a right hand over-collar tie (a collar tie around or on top of the opponent’s collar tie. Slick outside wrestlers like the aforementioned Logan Stieber and 2012 Olympic bronze Coleman Scott were excellent at scoring from this position. However, because it concedes inside control, wrestlers can often be vulnerable from the over-tie). Aliyev is very good from par-terre, transitioning straight from his takedowns into a gut wrench that has turned some of the best in the world.

Aliyev is also an excellent defensive wrestler and scrambler. Thanks to his low stance and discipline in keeping his right hand home, it is very difficult to get to his legs. When opponents do get in on a shot, he is a great scrambler, showing great technique, balance, and feel for positions. Though his first reaction is usually to defend rather than counter, once he feels the threat is averted, he transitions to offense, trying to score his own points. 

In the first clip, he takes Kyrgyzstan’s Osmonov over for 2 points, then finds himself in position for a double leg and commits to it, scoring 2 more. In the second, he narrowly avoids a takedown from Japan’s Rinya Nakamura, impressive when considering that clean finishes on their takedowns is one of the greatest strengths of the Japanese program. In the last one, he gyroscopes over him straight into a gut wrench, turning his opponent’s attack into 4 points for himself.

via GIPHY

via GIPHY

via GIPHY

After 2017, he moved up to 65 kg. Because 61 is not an Olympic weight, and because UWW switched from day-before weigh-ins to a two-day format with weigh-ins on both mornings before competition, Aliyev decided he was better off optimizing his body for 2020 rather than struggling to hold 61. At the new weight, he has not been quite as successful. He struggled with Russia’s Ilyas Bekbulatov in the 2018 European Championships, winning only because Bekbulatov ran out of gas in a meltdown for the ages. At Worlds in 2018, he lost in the very first round to Cuba’s Alejandro Valdes Tobier by a score of 2-0. He came very close to scoring the winning takedown at the last second but was unable to drive, allowing Valdes Tobier to recover his balance. This performance suggested lack of strength and/or lack of reach might be affecting his ability to set up and finish his takedowns. However, his 2019 season had gone well, with gold medals in both the European Championships and European Games, with a win over his nemesis Khinchegashvili, and he entered 2019 Worlds as a strong contender.

Gadzhimurad Rashidov

Rashidov is a fine example of the boxer-puncher style archetype, combining aggression and patience to take what his opponent gives him while offering almost nothing in return. With his muscular build and tenacious handfighting, Rashidov controls the center of the mat and pushes his opponent backward without being heavy on his feet or overcommitting. Against a wrestler in a good stance, every leg attack, throw by, go behind, snap down, body lock, trip, or throw is either impossible or easily countered. Much of the battle in a wrestling match, then, is getting the opponent out of that ideal stance and attacking during brief moments of vulnerability: circling one way and then changing direction, shooting to the spot he will step; jacking up an underhook to move his arm away from his legs and then snatching a single; sprawling on his shot and then circling to a favorable angle while he is still extended and unable to defend a well-timed double leg. Rashidov excels in staying in that ideal stance, preventing his opponent from getting past his head and hands and onto his legs. Because of his active hands and feet and ability to push his opponents back, Rashidov’s opponents usually go on the shot clock first, giving him a 1-0 lead in many matches. If a guy is stingy when the match is tied, how on earth do you chase from behind against him? Though he is content to win by scores like 2-1, Rashidov sometimes widens the gap on opponents who are forced to press, countering their attempts or dropping for duckunders when they push into him. 

A great example of this is his match against Japan’s Takuto Otoguro, the 2018 world champion. As Dan Sweeney (DPS Breakdowns on Youtube) pointed out in his excellent analysis video, Otoguro’s offense comes from heavy snapdowns where he forces his opponents to bring their hands to the mat for balance. Rashidov’s strength and balance meant he never moved his hands too far out of position, and Otoguro never got the reaction he was looking for. As the match wore on Otoguro tried to force the snapdown, standing up straighter and bringing his hands high to pull Rashidov’s head down. This left his legs wide open, and Rashidov capitalized, hitting three second-period double legs en route to an 8-1 win.

Unlike a pure pressure wrestler, however, Rashidov does not rely on forcing his opponent backward, and is willing to play the role of the cautious opportunist against an opponent determined to attack. At the fabled Yarygin tournament in January, American Zain Retherford furiously fought to move the Russian out of position, maintaining a pace that would have exhausted most competitors. Rashidov was mostly content to clear ties and hold position, sometimes even pushing Retherford away rather than trying to force his own setups. Late in the match, when Zain got a bit overzealous in pulling Rashidov’s head, he hit a head snap of his own and dropped in on a low-ankle shot, scoring the decisive 2 points in a 4-3 win. 

Offensively, Rashidov is effective with mostly straight-on attacks, rarely using the direction changes other top wrestlers do with their single legs and slide-bys. He has a good double leg that often opens up when opponents begin to fatigue and cannot maintain position. He is capable of scoring from underhooks, using them to drive his opponents to the edge and either scoring the step out or takedowns when they push back in to defend. He often circles toward the underhook side and slides his arm deeper, turning into a seatbelt across the opponent’s back. From this position, the defensive wrestler usually cranks down on the whizzer, where both wrestlers have several options. Some of the most common scores for the offensive wrestler come by crowding in and using his free hand to pick up the leg, circling all the way behind and overpowering the whizzer with a very tight grip around the waist, or using a limp-arm movement to whip his seatbelt hand free and circling behind. 

Like many of his fellow Dagestanis, Rashidov has a very good gut wrench. More so than Aliyev, who often uses surprise and momentum from his takedowns to roll opponents right over as they hit the mat, Rashidov sets up his turns methodically. He works to a lock and uses what must be enormous strength, as well as world-class technique, to squeeze the life out of the opponent’s midsection and turn them, then slightly re-positioning if necessary and gutting them again. 

Like Aliyev, and nearly all great wrestlers, Rashidov is a very good scrambler. When opponents get to his leg, he usually tries to turn and kick away. It is very difficult to get his leg up in the air, and even harder to gain control of his upper leg and hips on the mat. Though his massive torso and plodding style suggest a competitor who wins on power, not speed, Rashidov is quick when he needs to be, bursting to finish go behinds and duck unders (or turning away from those of his opponents). In his win over Khinchegashvili, he used his strength and positional understanding to score from the merkle position when the Georgian seemed to have the upper hand. 

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via GIPHY

In 2018, he repeated as world silver, losing to Bonne Rodriguez after giving up a spectacular 5 point move. Although it’s hard to fault him for getting hit by a move that only one human in the world can do against high level competitors, it’s notable that he very rarely pulls out any spectacular tricks of his own. While it is possible to win a world title without doing anything spectacular, your odds are much better if you can hit big moves or have a higher gear for crucial flurries. Additionally, Rashidov tried to Bonne’s lead right leg, where he is a defensive wizard; Aliyev’s success has come from shooting to Bonne’s left leg, where his defense is much weaker. This might indicate a lack of scouting or preparation from Rashidov and his coaches.

The Rematch

Both Rashidov and Aliyev neglected the rankings series events and did not have any seeding points going into the World Championships, meaning both wrestlers would enter unseeded. The unbalanced brackets UWW uses, where all the first round byes are given to the same region of the bracket, makes it more likely that world-class competitors can draw each other in the early rounds. Still, it was a complete shock when the 65 kg bracket was released: nearly all the top competitors were in the bottom of the bracket, including a world final rematch in the very first round. Host country Kazakhstan’s representative had a clean path to the semifinals, prompting suspicion of a fix. But while fans can discuss brackets and gripe about draws, athletes must focus on the matches in front of them.

The qualifying round began at 11:00 local time, just two hours after the weigh ins. While neither wrestler was reputed to be making a massive weight cut, they certainly weigh more than 65 kilograms today, and the first match off the scale can be difficult. While Rashidov is the more muscular athlete, Aliyev stood almost a full head taller; as a rule of thumb, the taller combatant is almost always cutting more weight. However, both wrestlers proved to be in excellent condition, and energy levels did not decide the match.

Like the last match, the bout began at a very slow pace. Aliyev went for his preferred left hand collar tie, with Rashidov over-tying shallow with his right (possibly turning his thumb down and using it to block Aliyev’s shoulder). On the other side, both wrestlers kept their hands back, trying to wait for the other to reach and gaining elbow or wrist control. Aliyev ceded the center circle, backing up a step every time they broke contact. Aliyev showed more interest in scoring, taking the only shot of the first period along with a few heavy snaps. Late in the first, the officials rewarded Rashidov’s forward motion by putting Aliyev on the shot clock. Predictably, the clock did not change the tempo of the match at all, and Rashidov took a 1-0 lead into the break.

Aliyev picked up the pace in the second period, pushing forward more, and soon Rashidov picked up a passivity and was put on the shot clock. He responded by punching an underhook with his right hand, going under Aliyev’s collar tie, and promptly throwing it by as he shot for a swing single. With his opponent no longer in front of him, Aliyev’s forward and downward pressure caused him to fall forward and put his hands to the mat, and Rashidov quickly circled behind and shelved the leg, in great position to score a takedown. With his opponent behind him, Aliyev responded like an American folkstyle wrestler trying to stand up from referee’s position: he grabbed both hands, arched his hips away, and pushed backward into his opponent. Rashidov was caught off guard and fell backward, allowing Aliyev to turn in and cover for 2 points of his own. Aliyev went right to work on a gut wrench and got his opponent’s chest off the mat, nearly scoring the exposure; only an incredible display of strength and balance from Rashidov prevented the turn. Rashidov tried to protest that Aliyev had grabbed his fingers during the takedown, but the referee wouldn’t hear it. The Russian now trailed 2-1 with two minutes to go.

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Rashidov, needing points, became more aggressive in the tie ups. He snapped Aliyev’s head with his left hand, and when Aliyev established his typical lefty collar tie, Rashidov worked his right arm underneath to claim the inside collar and force Aliyev into an over-tie. When Aliyev tied up his fingers, Rashidov was quick to work them clear to resume his attack. Aliyev tried to make him pay for this by timing Rashidov when he tried to pull his left hand up to free his fingers, shooting in on the exposed left leg. Rashidov sprawled, but Aliyev got in deep enough to build up and come out the back, raising Rashidov’s legs off the gound. Rashidov immediately dove over the top, creating seperation from Aliyev, and posted on his head. When the Azeri tried to turn and keep the single leg, Rashidov turned toward his opponent’s legs. Aliyev kicked his feet over and rolled across his own head, trying to square up to his opponent. Rashidov, however, was a half step ahead, and had landed in a stable position with his head and chest up, whereas Aliyev’s head was down as he finished his cartwheel. This allowed Rashidov to act more quickly, and he grabbed around Aliyev’s body and circled behind for the takedown and the 3-2 lead. 

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The remaining 32 seconds were perhaps the best half-minute of wrestling in the entire tournament. Aliyev began a furious spring, constantly changing levels and directions, desperate for any scoring opportunity. A heavy snap forced Rashidov’s hand to the mat and Aliyev got to a shot on the Dagestani’s right leg, but Rashidov turned his knee down and kicked out. He immediately circled behind, but Aliyev again employed hand control and back pressure, this time hip-heisting away to avoid any points. 

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Moments later, when Rashidov squared up to defend a go-behind attempt, Aliyev caught his ankle as he tried to back away and held on for dear life. Rashidov tried to kick away but Aliyev chased, coming up to the rear-standing position with 5 seconds remaining. Rashidov walked forward to prevent Aliyev from dragging him down. Knowing any score, a takedown or a stepout, would be enough for Aliyev to win. In desperation, he gripped Aliyev’s wrist with his left hand and reached back with his right, twisting his body clockwise and arching his hips in a desperation improvised throw attempt. Unfortunately, Rashidov landed on his back, while Aliyev’s head hit the ground first and he avoided exposing his back. The officials awarded Aliyev 2 points and the Azerbaijan contingent celebrated, knowing their athlete had just beaten one of the best competitors in the tournament. 

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What happened next is the source of some controversy. Russia, with nothing left to lose, threw in the challenge brick. While most fans dismissed it as a “YOLO brick”, the jury of appeals watched the replay and scored the sequence 1 point red, making Rashidov the 4-2 winner. Aliyev was apoplectic, throwing the scoring paddles at the referee and storming off the mat. American fans watching at 1:30 am eastern were outraged at the blatant corruption on display. However, in the morning, a new line of argument had emerged that, indeed, Rashidov had initiated the final move and should have been awarded the points.

I don’t think it’s worth fully getting into here, but I will say that it was incorrect to give Rashidov a point for a stepout. There was a scoring move that began in bounds, and someone has to get at least 2. The only way Rashidov can score is a 2 point correct throw, because he landed on his back and Aliyev never exposed. Additionally, from a philosophical standpoint, international referees are instructed to award skilled application of technique and taking risk to create action, and Aliyev was more deserving in both departments on that sequence. 

Still, Rashidov deserves a lot of credit for the way he wrestled. He was clearly outdone in every phase in 2017, losing the battles in the tie ups and generating zero offense while giving up his legs 3 times, showing little ability to scramble when Aliyev got to his legs, and getting turned from par terre. Once he was trailing in that match, he had very little to offer, unable to generate any shot attempts, and his desperation big move was never close to working. This time around, he controlled the ties and the center of the mat effectively and showed he could compete with one of the best scramblers in the world. He very nearly threw Aliyev at the end of the match with a made-up move, taking the Azeri wrestler off his feet and out of bounds. I completely accept that Rashidov rightfully lost the match, but if he didn’t win, he came about as close as you possibly can without doing so. His performance the rest of the tournament, including a convincing win over the returning champ Otoguro (who beat Aliyev in the repechage rounds), proved that he was a deserving world champion and the man to beat at this weight class heading into the 2020 Olympics. For my money, he was the outstanding wrestler of the tournament. After coming up short two years in a row, he finally captured a senior world gold medal. I suspect his favorite part, though, was avenging his most thorough defeat.