World Cup

USA, Azerbaijan Announced as Hosts for World Cups

By United World Wrestling Press

CORSIER-SUR-VEVEY, Switzerland (January 20) – In a historic step, United World Wrestling and USA Wrestling will host a combined Men's and Women's World Cups in Iowa, USA.

UWW announced the host of the three World Cups after a Bureau meeting held at its headquarters in Switzerland. The Bureau approved the combined World Cup for '22 and '23 in the USA, while the 2022 Greco-Roman World Cup was provisionally awarded to Baku, Azerbaijan pending a venue inspection visit.

UWW President Nenad LALOVIC said that the organization continues to progress with a dynamic host city process and the 2022 calendar is something the fans can look forward to.

“We are pleased to finalize the 2022 calendar and looking forward to high-level events with elite competition,” Lalovic said. "We continue to progress the sport with a dynamic host city process which works with organizers in a partnership approach.

"The 4 ranking Series events, Continental Championships, a World Championships in Belgrade, and an updated World Cup format will certainly be moments to look forward to in 2022.”

The '22 World Cup in Iowa is scheduled for December 10-11, while the '23 competition will take place December 9-10. The Greco-Roman World Cup in Baku is slated for November 5-6.

"USA Wrestling is excited to once again bring one of the most important wrestling competitions on the planet to the Coralville/Iowa City community, which is truly an international wrestling hotbed," Rich Bender, USA Wrestling Executive Director, said. "We are extremely pleased that we will be able to showcase the world's best men's and women's freestyle wrestlers in the same location. The atmosphere will be electric and fans will not want to miss this action."

The '22 World Cups, and moving forward, will be held in an updated format from earlier editions. The top five teams from the World Championships earn an invitation to the tournament. In addition, United World Wrestling will comprise the sixth team with the remaining wrestlers who participated in the World Championships.

USA Wrestling has hosted the men's freestyle World Cup 30 times in the past -- the most for any nation. Coralville, Iowa, will become the 10th USA city to host the tournament.

The other US cities which have hosted the World Cup include Toledo, Ohio (17 times); Los Angeles, California (three times); Chattanooga, Tenn. (twice); Spokane, Washington (twice); Stillwater, Oklahoma (twice); Baltimore, Maryland.; Fairfax, Va., Boise, Idaho and Iowa City, Iowa.

The Bureau provisionally approved Baku, Azerbaijan as the Greco-Roman World Cup host pending a venue inspection visit. The tournament will be held on November 5-6. 

If approved, the Greco-Roman World Cup will return to UWW's calendar after five years, when Abadan City, Iran, hosted the competition in 2017.

Furthermore, Baku will return to the UWW's event calendar after a long absence. Apart from the Golden Grand Prix final, Baku last hosted a UWW event back in 2012 – the Cadet World Championships.

For a full list of United World Wrestling's events, please visit uww.org's event page

#WrestleBelgrade

Preliminary freestyle World Championship seeds announced

By Eric Olanowski

BELGRADE, Serbia (August 31) --- United World Wrestling has released the preliminary freestyle seeds for the 2023 World Championships.

The point-based seeds were determined by a wrestler's participation and placement at the 2022 World Championships, 2023 Continental Championships and 2023 Ranking Series events.

Although it's highly unlikely that the brackets play out exactly how their seeded, but if the seeds were to hold true through the finals in the top-eight seeded system, here's how the bracket will look leading up to the gold-medal match:

Quarterfinals: 
No. 1 vs. No. 8 (top side)
No. 4 vs. No. 5 (top side)

No. 2 vs. No. 7 (bottom side)
No. 3 vs. No. 6 (bottom side)

Semifinals: 
No. 1 vs. No. 4 (top side)
No. 2 vs. No. 3 (bottom side)

Finals:
No. 1 vs. No. 2 

*The seeds are based on the current entries provided by National Federations and are subject to change.

Freestyle seeds:

57kg
No. 1 - Wanhao ZOU (CHN)
No. 2 - Zelimkhan ABAKAROV (ALB)
No. 3 - Zanabazar ZANDANBUD (MGL)
No. 4 - Darian CRUZ (PUR)
No. 5 - Almaz SMANBEKOV (KGZ)
No. 6 - Stevan Andria MICIC (SRB)
No. 7 - Aliabbas RZAZADE (AZE)
No. 8 - Beka BUJIASHVILI (GEO)

61kg
No. 1 - Reza Ahmadali ATRINAGHARCHI (IRI)
No. 2 - Narankhuu NARMANDAKH (MGL)
No. 3 - Shota PHARTENADZE (GEO)
No. 4 - Taiyrbek ZHUMASHBEK UULU (KGZ)
No. 5 - Pankaj PANKAJ (IND)
No. 6 - Emrah ORMANOGLU (TUR)
No. 7 - Jahongirmirza TUROBOV (UZB)
No. 8 - Nikolai OKHLOPKOV (ROU)

65kg
No. 1 - Rahman Mousa AMOUZADKHALILI (IRI)
No. 2 - Sebastian C RIVERA (PUR)
No. 3 - Tulga TUMUR OCHIR (MGL)
No. 4 - Iszmail MUSZUKAJEV (HUN)
No. 5 - Agustin Alejandro DESTRIBATS (ARG)
No. 6 - Vazgen TEVANYAN (ARM)
No. 7 - Edemi BOLKVADZE (GEO)
No. 8 - Bajrang BAJRANG (IND)

70kg
No. 1 - Ernazar AKMATALIEV (KGZ)
No. 2 - Zain Allen RETHERFORD (USA)
No. 3 - Arman ANDREASYAN (ARM)
No. 4 - Giorgi ELBAKIDZE (GEO)
No. 5 - Ramazan RAMAZANOV (BUL)
No. 6 - Servet COSKUN (TUR)
No. 7 - Ihor NYKYFORUK (URK)
No. 8 - Sanzhar DOSZHANOV (KAZ)

74kg
No. 1 - Soner DEMIRTAS (TUR)
No. 2 - Kyle Douglas DAKE (USA)
No. 3 - Tajmuraz Mairbekovic SALKAZANOV (SVK)
No. 4 - Yones Aliakbar EMAMICHOGHAEI (IRI)
No. 5 - Suldkhuu OLONBAYAR (MGL)
No. 6 - Mitchell Louis FINESILVER (ISR)
No. 7 - Murad KURAMAGOMEDOV (HUN)
No. 8 - Sagar JAGLAN (IND)

79kg
No. 1 - Mohammad NOKHODILARIMI (IRI)
No. 2 - Vladimeri GAMKRELIDZE (GEO)
No. 3 - Arman AVAGYAN (ARM)
No. 4 - Chandler MARSTELLER (USA)
No. 5 - Bolat SAKAYEV (KAZ)
No. 6 - Akhsarbek GULAEV (SVK)
No. 7 - Deepak DEEPAK (IND)
No. 8 - Peilong LI (CHN)

86kg
No. 1 - Sebastian JEZIERZANSKI (POL)
No. 2 - Boris MAKOEV (SVK)
No. 3 - Azamat DAULETBEKOV (KAZ)
No. 4 - Myles Nazem AMINE (SMR)
No. 5 - Hassan YAZDANICHARATI (IRI)
No. 6 - Abubakr ABAKAROV (AZE)
No. 7 - David Morris TAYLOR III (USA)
No. 8 - Tariel GAPHRINDASHVILI (GEO)

92kg
No. 1 - Miriani MAISURADZE (GEO)
No. 2 - Osman NURMAGOMEDOV (AZE)
No. 3 - Gankhuyag GANBAATAR (MGL)
No. 4 - Feyzullah AKTURK (TUR)
No. 5 - Rizabek AITMUKHAN (KAZ)
No. 6 - Matthew Phillip FINESILVER (ISR)
No. 7 - Zahid VALENCIA (USA)
No. 8 - Ermak KARDANOV (SVK)

97kg
No. 1 - Kyle SNYDER (USA)
No. 2 - Magomedkhan MAGOMEDOV (AZE)
No. 3 - Givi MATCHARASHVILI (GEO)
No. 4 - Vladislav BAJCAJEV (HUN)
No. 5 - Benjamin HONIS (ITA)
No. 6 - Awusayiman HABILA (CHN)
No. 7 - Erik THIELE (GER)
No. 8 - Akhmed TAZHUDINOV (BRN)

125kg
No. 1 - Taha AKGUL
No. 2 - Geno PETRIASHVILI
No. 3 - Lkhagvagerel MUNKHTUR
No. 4 - Daniel LIGETI
No. 5 - Amir Hossein Abbas ZARE
No. 6 - BATIRMURZAEV Yusup
No. 7 - Robert BARAN (POL)
No. 8 - Oleksandr KHOTSIANIVSKYI (UKR)