A Moneyball Look at Zane Richards' Opponents
In this post, we take a deep dive into the characteristics of Zane Richards' major challengers at the World Championships. This is our Moneyball look at his opponents. What stances and ties do they favor? What kind of shots do they take? What kind of shots do they convert?
CAVEATS
There are a couple of caveats about this project. Most importantly, we looked at only a few matches and only quality opponents. What these elite wrestlers do against an opponent from Guatemala or Spain or Colombia isn't important for this analysis because the elite will wrestle differently against those popsicles.
Secondly, for the actual Moneyball look, we're only going to review the top three challengers to Zane, and then only four of each of their matches. That's because we don't know Zane's bracket yet. It is possible that the IRTC athlete could be on a side of the bracket with all three of his top challengers, and it is possible that he can be on a side with none of them.
Finally, we still have no idea what UWW is doing with the Russians. That is infuriating! This draft was written and ready to publish on August 23, but because UWW is not transparent, we don't know if the Russian freestylers will participate.
ZAVUR UGUEV
We'll start off with Zane's most formidable foe, Zavur Uguev of Russia even though we don't know if he's allowed to attend. (See special Russia/UWW section below).
Olympic and two-time 57kg world champion Zavur Uguev of Russia has a bloody awful haircut. That hasn't slowed his sensational run at the international level since failing to medal at the 2017 World Championships. Since then, he's won 12 gold, 2 silver and a bronze in 15 appearances.
He is also a former cadet world champion. Uguev won another age-group medal, but it was stripped for the illegal use of a banned substance.
In 2020, Uguev participated in the Individual World Cup and outscored his opponents 45-1 during his gold-medal winning run. He's also a four-time Russian national champion and stands all of 5'2" tall.
If there is one person at this deep weight who is an actual odds-on favorite to medal, it would be this fellow. If you beat him in your bracket, you are well on your way. If you lose, then you are still wrestling for Bronze.
Uguev is on a 25-match international and Russian nationals win streak that stretches back to 2019. Of course, he hasn't wrestled internationally since the Olympics because of boycotts, although he's faced foreigners in various Russian leagues and tournaments. In his career, he's beaten Nico Megaludis 4-3, Frank Perrelli 8-3 and most recently at the Olympics, Thomas Gilman 5-4.
I will bet that Zane has met with this fellow in a practice match in Dagestan.
In viewing four of his more recent matches against Takahashi, Erdenbat, Abdullaev and Amouzadkhali, it looks like he's slowed down a little but gotten more technical and careful. He used to be more of a right- or left-leg lead, but now he favors a square stance.
In the four matches we surveyed, Uguev was weak with his turn attempts. His only successful turn out of six gut wrench attempts was when he was able to use the momentum from a successful shot to turn his opponent over. The Russian loves to interlock fingers, and he'll do it when he wants to stall. Here are the other data:
ZELIMKHAN ABAKAROV
Like Uguev and like Zane, Abakarov's last match against Thomas Gilman was a huge 7-2 win. Most recently, the Albanian (former Russian) wrestler beat Vitali Arujau 3-0 in his first match at the Hungarian Ranking Series tournament that he won up at 61 kg.
Abakarov has been up as high as 65 kg in recent years. At 30 years old, it must be hard to keep the pounds off, judging from his jump up in weight. He wrestled at 57 kg in winning last year's World Championships and finishing undefeated in the recent 2022 World Cup. He did not wrestle Zane or Nick Suriano there.
As the returning champion at this weight, he would be the next favorite for a podium slot at 57 kg if he can stay healthy at the weight. Richards and Abakarov wrestled each other in a practice match, and Zane won it.
They've also wrestled some of the same people. Abakarov beat Germany's Niklas Stechele 11-0, Zane beat him 5-2. The Albanian beat the Iranian Reza Momenijoujadeh 12-2, while Richards won 6-2. His win over Gilman was by a 7-2 score, while Zane recently won 4-3 and 8-6.
Abakarov has a physique and style similar to Uguev. He favors the 2-on-1 on offense and defense. He will almost equally employ a foot-forward or squared stance. Here's some data on four and a half of his matches against Gilman, Kumar, Abdullaev, Arujau and Harutynyan:
REI HIGUCHI
Higuchi is ranked #2 by UWW at 61kg even though he won that weight class at last year's World Championships. He pounded Seth Gross 15-7 and teched the #1 ranked 61kger on his way to the title.
Higuchi won a gold medal at 65kg in 2018 at U23 Worlds. Most significantly, he was the silver medalist at the 2016 Olympics. If there is another odds-on favorite for a medal of some sort, it is a healthy Higuchi.
Is he?
Look at the photo above. He is more sucked out than a clam at a Newport, Rhode Island Clam-eating contest. He even tweets out his weight after weigh-ins because he's missed weight in the past.
Japan has sent everybody else at this weight to competitions in 2023, but not Rei Higuchi. There are a lot of folks who have wrestled up in weight, but Higuchi and Abakarov are the only serious competitors who have been as high as 65kg. Weight could be an issue.
Higuchi is all about the get-a-shot-in-during-the-first-twenty-seconds of a match. He also loves interlocking fingers. Coaches, refs and athletes have to be ready to protest this illegal move. Unlike Uguev and Abakarov, the Japanese wrestler is exceptional at turns, especially leglaces and leg turks, and can end matches really quickly for the unprepared.
Here's some data from his matches with Atrinagharchi, Gross, Takahashi and Ochir:
Wanhao Zou is ranked #1 according to the UWW points system. This fellow just won the Budapest Ranking Series tournament and finished third at the one in Kyrgyzstan. He had a 5th-place finish at last year's World Championships. Other than that, his results have been pretty unspectacular except a 2019 5th at Yariguin.
He's only 25, though, and he's been pretty hot lately.
Interestingly enough, Zou lost to Thomas Gilman by the score of 2-8 at last year's World Championship, and he only beat Darian Cruz 3-1. Also, at the same meet, he was pinned (while losing 3-1) by Zanzabar Zandanbud--the same Mongolian Zane teched at the World Cup.
I hope Zane is in this bracket.
ALMAZ SMANBEKOV
The wrestler from Kyrgyzstan has been on fire lately with a silver and gold in his last two ranking series tournaments. He beat Zane at the Budapest meet 2-2, although I've never seen somebody so lucky, as the IRTC wrestler had a hand or two on his foot about 4 or 5 times and only converted once.
He's only ranked 6th by UWW, even though he also finished with a silver at the Asian Championships in 2023. At 25 years, Smanbekov is just reaching his prime. I do hope that Zane gets him again, as the Kyrgyzstani won't be so lucky the next time.
AMAN AMAN
Also going by Aman Sehrawat, this fellow is a live dog. He was unranked in Flowrestling's rankings until recently winning the Asian Championships (over Smanbekov the Kyrgyzstani). He is replacing Olympic medalist Ravi Kumar, so you know he's got the chops.
Aman also won a 2022 U23 World Championship and a 2021 Cadet title, beating Luke Lilledahl 5-2 in the finals. He is always on the offense. And Zane lost to him back in February at the Zagreb Open. This was the tournament where Richards wrestled while injured.
CONCLUSION
It is our belief that the medalists will come from the above list of wrestlers and Zane Richards. This is a very deep weight, though, and other dangerous wrestlers that didn't make the above list include past World Championship medalists Stevan Micic of Serbia, Arsen Harutyunyan of Armenia (ranked #1 at 61kg by UWW), Zanzibar Zandanbud of Mongolia (likely 3rd seed) and Suleyman Atli of Turkey.
Other quality wrestlers include Gulomjon Abdullaev of Uzbekistan and Aliabbas Rzazade of Azerbaijan, both age-group world champions. Additionally, Darian Cruz, a former NCAA Champion, will be wrestling for Puerto Rico. We intend to provide a more in-depth look at Zane's opponents when the brackets become available.
SPECIAL UWW/RUSSIA SECTION
There are still no Russians listed on the official entry list for 57 kg at the World Championships. It has been reported by other sources that 26 athletes have been banned from participation because of the war in Ukraine.
It would seem that Uguev, Sidakov and Sadulaev would have to be among the banned athletes because they are connected to the Russian military and have shown support for the war in Ukraine.
That is the two-part test created by the International Olympic Committee, and those three Russians are flagged for both parts of the test.
While trying to find out what is going on, we were provided this evidence of Uguev and the two others at a rally in support of the war in Luzhniki, Russia:
Not believing everything an anonymous poster says on the internet, I looked up the Luzhniki rally, and let me tell you, my friends, it was ******* insane. It was like a Russian Hee-Haw show with Putin speaking, military propaganda, a little WWE, and the kind of theatrics that were last cool in Rocky and Rocky 4 movie pre-fight extravaganzas. Check it out for yourselves:
Holy ****!
We have attempted to contact UWW for some information about their decision and their decision-making process, but have been ignored. With Sidakov holding rank in the Russian army and training out of the Russian army training camp, and with Uguev's and Sadulaev's ranks in that country's National Guard—along with their appearance at a pro-war rally—it seems like they're prime candidates for the ban.
On top of all of that, Russia was just coming back from an international ban for drug use. Uguev, himself, has a one-year ban in his history. Finally, there's this recent quote from the President of the Russian Wrestling Federation:
“If they want to see us in the Olympics as a team of refugees, we have to go to Paris in tanks. There’s no other option,” Mamiashvili told RIA Novosti Sport, a state-owned Russian news media.
As usual, these are the opinions of The ILLINI Wrestling Blog and Forum and Beyond and NOT the opinions of The ILLINI RTC, its coaching staff and Zane Richards. In fact, the IRTC has always had a great relationship with Russian wrestlers and the Russian Wrestling Federation.
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