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Burroughs and Chamizo, Snyder and Sadulaev Headline Biggest Rivalries of the Year

Wednesday, December 19, 2018 - 13:05 By Eric Olanowski

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CORSIER-SUR-VEVEY, Switzerland (December 19) -- United World Wrestling has named four of the Biggest Rivalries of the Year. There were two in freestyle, and one in Greco-Roman and women's wrestling.

The freestyle season saw more than one top-level rivalry, so a pair were selected for this category. The first freestyle rivalry selected was the 74kg showdown between Jordan BURROUGHS (USA) and Frank CHAMIZO (ITA), and the second was Abdulrashid SADULAEV (RUS) and Kyle SNYDER (USA).

The 74kg rivalry was kickstarted on social media when Burroughs, the five-time world and Olympic champion, posted an Instagram photo that was captioned, “If you want to be the king, you have to beat the king.” The message was of course directed at two-time world champion, Chamzio, who was coming up to 74kg after winning the 2017 world title at 70kg.

After trading social media blows, May’s Beat the Streets in New York City was the stage selected to host the first match between the pair of superstars. Chamizo commanded the early 4-0 lead in that Beat the Streets match but was outscored 6-1 in the final four minutes of the bout, losing the match, 6-5. Chamizo scored his revenge in the second match, outlasting the London Olympic champion in front of a sold out Bağcılar Olympic Sports Hall at the Yasar Dogu in Istanbul, Turkey, evening the series at one match apiece. 

The rubber match took place in the bronze-medal bout of the World Championships and not in the gold-medal bout as everyone expected heading into Budapest. In that match, Burroughs edged Chamizo, 4-4 on criteria and took the 2-1 series lead.

The second biggest freestyle rivalry of the year was between Russia’s four-time world and Olympic champion, Abdulrashid Sadulaev and Kyle Snyder, the three-time world and Olympic champion. Snyder scored the 6-5 come-from-behind win when the pair battled for the 97kg individual world title in Pairs in 2017. More importantly, Snyder's win gave the Americans their first team title in 22 years. 

Sadualev got his revenge in the finals of the 2018 World Championships by pinning the returning world champion and put the icing on the cake for the Russian Federation to win the freestyle team title. 

Perhaps no weight category was more competitive in 2018 than women’s wrestling’s 76kg. Lead by reigning world champion, Yasmin ADAR (TUR), four-time world champion, Adeline GRAY (USA), and Rio Olympic champion, Erica WIEBE (CAN). It was the American Adeline Gray who prevailed and won her fourth world title. 

In Greco-Roman, Kyrgyzstan’s Akzhol MAKHMUDOV (KGZ) was looking for redemption coming into the Junior World Championships the American Kamal Ameer BEY (USA) was victorious in the 2017 junior world finals. Makhmudov dominated the bronze-medal bout at the Junior World Championships and picked up the 8-1 win. 

We had to wait an entire year to see some of the rivalries, but that may not be the case heading into 2019. Snyder wasted no time in letting the wrestling world know when a potential #SnyderLaev3 could happen, announcing that he'll head to Krasnoyarsk, Russia, in January to compete at the 2019 Ivan Yarygin - a tournament in which Sadulaev is expected to be entered. 

The next award to be released will be the Comeback Athletes of the Year which will come out on Saturday. 

#JapanWrestling

Paris Olympic Champ Sakurai Retires at Age 24

Sunday, April 5, 2026 - 09:12 By Ken Marantz

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TOKYO (April 4) -- Having never really regained the motivation that led her to achieve her ultimate goal of an Olympic gold, Tsugumi SAKURAI (JPN) has decided to retire at the tender age of 24.

Sakurai, the women’s 57kg champion at the Paris Olympics, has announced that she will hang up her singlet and begin a second career nurturing a new generation of wrestlers and serving as a goodwill ambassador of sports for her native Kochi Prefecture in western Japan.

“After 21 continuous years, I feel I have reached the cutoff point of my wrestling career, so I have decided to retire,” Sakurai said at a press conference Friday at the Kochi Prefecture government office.

“I gave everything I had for the Olympics, and I was able to experience the feeling of achievement and the ultimate joy. It's difficult to win the Olympics without determination. I couldn't get back to the mindset I had before Paris. That is the biggest reason [for retiring].”

Known for her steely aggressiveness belying a quiet demeanor, and a wicked use of a 2-on-1 arm bar, Sakurai prefaced her triumph in Paris by winning three consecutive world titles, at 55kg in 2021 and back-to-back golds at 57kg in 2022 and 2023.

A U17 world champion in 2016, she won golds at the Asian Championships and Asian Games in 2022 and 2023, respectively, but suffered the second of just two career international losses at the 2024 Asian Championships, where she fell to Yongxian FENG (CHN) in the final.

She bounced back five months later for her crowning achievement in Paris, where she defeated 2016 Rio Olympic champion Helen MAROULIS (USA) 10-4 in the semifinals, then took the gold with a 6-0 victory over Anastasia NICHITA (MDA) in a rematch of the 2023 world final.

Making the win in Paris even more special was the fact that not only did Sakurai strike gold, but so did another Japanese wrestler who started the sport together with her at the kids wrestling club in Kochi run by her father.

Kotaro KIYOOKA (JPN), the freestyle 65kg champion in his Olympic debut, and Sakurai became the toast of Kochi, a rural prefecture fronting the Pacific on the island of Shikoku. They were paraded through the streets of the prefectural capital of Kochi City and hailed as heroes.

Like almost all of Japan’s medalists in Paris, the two took time off from the sport to run the gauntlet of TV interviews and variety shows, and just chill out in general. Sakurai, who returned to Kochi and started graduate studies in sport sciences at Kochi University, was particularly slow in returning to the mat.

In what would prove to be her first – and last – competition after Paris, she won the 57kg title at the second-tier Japan Women’s Open in October 2025, ostensibly to qualify for the Emperor’s Cup All-Japan Championships the following December. That would be the starting point for domestic qualifying for major global tournaments.

But Sakurai never made it to the Emperor’s Cup, and has now fully turned the corner on a new career.

“Over the past year, this decision was made after talking to many people, fretting about it, and thinking things through,” she said.

Sakurai said that as an extension of her father’s Kochi Wrestling Club, she wants to run a series of clinics outside of the city, mainly in her hometown of Konan just to the east of Kochi, to expose more children to wrestling and help it grow.

“Aside from wrestling, I'm learning so many things in graduate school right now, so I want to acquire a wide range of knowledge so that I can give back to Kochi Prefecture properly,” Sakurai said. “I think there will be various problems when I put things into practice, so I want to acquire solid knowledge so that I can solve those problems.”

Fans at this week’s Asian Championships in Bishkek will see another product of the Kochi Wrestling Club in action in Moe KIYOOKA (JPN), Kotaro’s younger sister and a former world champion who will be looking to add the 53kg gold to the one she won at 55kg in 2024. She and Sakurai were also teammates at Ikuei University.

And the name Sakurai might soon be appearing on the world stage again. Her younger sister, Tsukino SAKURAI (JPN), won the Asian U15 title last year.